Effects of work arrangements on the sleep regimen of creative research and development employees

Abstract

Traditional ‘nine-to-five’ working schedules do not consider individual characteristics. We identify what types of employees suffer from the adverse effects of work arrangements on their sleep regimen based on a survey of Estonian creative research and development (R&D) employees (N = 153). We present ordinary least squares and ordered probit regression estimates and recursive structural equation model estimates of the employees’ perceived level of sleep regimen disruption. We find that evening-type employees, women and employees with a lower creative intensity of work perceive with a significantly higher probability that work limits their sleep, while employees having flexibility in both working time and workplace feel less impacted by work-driven constraints on their sleep regimen. Granting working time and workplace flexibility and avoiding the allocation of excessive administrative duties to creative R&D employees may have a considerable positive impact on improving their sleep, thus contributing to improving their well-being and work results.

Keywords:

• sleep
• morningness–eveningness
• flexible work
• gender
• research and development jobs
• Estonia

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Marko Virkebau for his assistance in planning and implementing the survey and processing the data. This research project was approved by the Tallinn Medical Research Ethics Committee on 9 February 2015 by decision No. 894. Erve Sõõru acts as the President of the Estonian Sleep Medicine Association, a non-profit organization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Aaro Hazak http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2897-0554

Heili Hein http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3249-8515

Kadri Männasoo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3011-168X

Additional information

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [European Commission grant agreement no. 734712 ‘Institutions for Knowledge Intensive Development’ (IKID)]; Estonian Research Competency Council [grant PUT315 ‘Towards the Knowledge Economy: Incentives, Regulation and Capital Allocation’]; Doctoral School in Economics and Innovation, supported by the European Regional Development Fund [Tallinn University of Technology ASTRA project ‘TTÜ Development Program 2016–2022’, project code 2014-2020.4.01.16-0032].