Let’s Not Lose Sleep Over It, But…

“Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,

The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,

Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”

–William Shakespeare “Macbeth”

I am going to depart from the usual challenging news of the last few months and write about something related more directly to our personal wellbeing.  That would be sleep. More to the point, what is causing the lack thereof for so many of us?

The power of sleep to provide much needed therapeutic rest to both mind and body has been well documented.  I threw in the quote from Macbeth because it describes the benefits of a good night’s sleep so well, something I would bet Shakespeare himself craved as he churned out his prodigious literary output.  The fact that he wrote this more than four hundred years ago tells me that the impact on our lives of lack of sleep is certainly is not a new phenomenon.

Perhaps it is also good to take heart that we are not alone.  Misery loving company, one day at a company meeting one of my associates happened to stretch and yawn during a break and said he had not slept well the night before.  In fact, he said for quite a while he had been waking up early in the morning and had very little luck falling back to sleep.  Then, around the table, one by one, we all sort of said ‘me too!’ which made me feel a little better, but frankly did not help me get anymore sleep.

I hate to admit it, as it will pinpoint me as a ‘man of a certain age,’ but I ran into an interesting article on the subject in AARP The Magazine.  The article, titled “World War ZZZ” by David Dudley, focused on the fact that we get on average an hour or two less sleep per night than the generation preceding us. In fact, he points out that in 1942 only about 11% of Americans reported that they slept less than 6 hours per night, but by 2013 that jumped to 43%.  According to Dudley, this is such a significant change that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) declared this a public health problem.  In a 2015 survey of the top health concerns of Americans, lack of sleep ranked number two on the list!

What is causing this change?  Dudley points out that some of it is ageing.  We are more prone to sleep problems as we age due to sleep apnea and other significant health issues.  He is quick to point out that we need to receive proper medical care if we experience chronic sleep disruption as it can cause additional, serious health consequences.

Other issues such as obesity and the greater use of anti-depressants and other medicines also contribute.

One of the more recent, yet increasingly prominent, culprits seems to be simply the age we live in:  we stay up later because we have more to keep us up rather than going to bed.  More television choices, smart phones, tablets, electronic communications we don’t properly manage at night, all add to disrupting our natural circadian rhythms.  Stress caused by unrealistic expectations in our 24-7 world also contribute mightily.   Additionally, the very light emitted by our devices apparently scrambles our natural day / night awareness and keeps us out of sync as well.

What to do?  Obviously consult with your physician if you are experiencing acute health challenges. A few tips he also suggests include:

  • Set a schedule: Try to maintain a consistent, dedicated sleep time every day.
  • Make your bedroom just that: Take the TV out of the bedroom.  Replace your pillows and mattress if you have not done so in a while.  In other words, use the bedroom for what it is intended for:  sleeping!
  • Lay off the light: Turn off electronics and devices that emit disruptive light before you go to bed and leave them off until you get up.

So, a little self-care is in order for us it would seem.  Let’s just don’t lose a lot of sleep over it!

 

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 15 years.

 

 

 

 

Company Culture: We Are All in This Together

We all know how important company culture is. It’s the collective personality of the organization.  But here’s the thing, No matter how intentional we are defining a variety of its elements like our company’s mission statement, values, ethics, work environment, expectations and goals; we always have to keep our eye on the prize because as the company grows, adjusts and evolves so does our culture.

A strong, positive company culture not only includes things like flexible schedules, fun incentives or encouraging work/life balance; it is also the small conversations and other interactions we have with each other. When we have great everyday experiences, we feel more positive and happier. On the other hand, if someone is having a bad day it too can impact the overall mood on the floor.

As a part of our Health and Wellness program, UCS sponsors Lunch and Learn presentations that bring us all together in an informal setting to collaborate, learn and, of course, eat! We’ve hosted a number of these sessions and have had outside professionals come in to educate us on a variety of subjects like stress management, good nutrition, the importance of exercise and cyber security.

Last Friday we asked Emily Hummel CEAP (Certified Employee Assistance Professional) to join us for our latest Lunch and Learn about company culture.

It could not have gone better. Even though the sessions were relatively short, she was able to give us all great tips.  We learned:

  • how to be more intentional in our communications
  • how to act in a manner that creates an inclusive work environment
  • how to take responsibility for our actions
  • to appreciate the value of diverse opinions
  • to avoid negativity in our daily interactions by not getting caught up in gossip or complaining
  • how to guard against acting thoughtlessly based on assumptions of another’s intent

We really had a lot of fun with the last one. We played a game called, What Do You Really Mean? To play the game, each one of us was given a specific mood (which we kept to ourselves). Then, one at a time, we had to say a statement communicating the mood we were given.  We could use body language, tone and drama if necessary, but could only say the words in the statement—no more or less.

What we found by playing is what you think you are putting out there isn’t always what people see. For example, feeling tired can easily come across as being bored. Big difference, right?! The mood I had to communicate was excited. I thought I had done a great job projecting excitement when I said my statement and was surprised when someone said they thought I was scared. We all took turns playing and more times than not, we had to guess more than once to come up with the correct mood.  It was really eye opening.

Hummel is not only a CEAP but also a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She shared that the same tips we learned here could also be used at home in our personal relationships.

I think the most important take-away from the session is that we all play an important role in the company’s culture and we all need to do our part to maintain a healthy, positive culture.

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 15 years.

 

 

All Work and no Play Makes Jack and the Workplace More than Dull

Back in the day when I first entered the labor force, work was a serious matter that needed to be taken, well…seriously.  When we were taught how to do something, it was done that way or the highway.  Socializing too often at the proverbial watercooler was frowned upon and kept to a minimum. If not you risked being labeled as the office slacker. And the idea of having fun while at work was pretty much unheard of. Why? Because the prevailing thought was that if you were visiting with a coworker or having fun you weren’t working.  Working and having fun were mutually exclusive.

Fast-forward many decades (ouch!) and company culture is all the buzz. It’s no wonder, since a company’s culture is in essence its (collective) personality.  Thankfully, today, a lot of organizations understand the philosophy behind a strict hard-nosed work environment is not only antiquated, but the belief that workers having fun aren’t productive couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, research published in the book 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work by Dave Hemsath has shown that when employees enjoy themselves at work they are typically: more productive, more creative, experience greater job satisfaction, have more loyalty to their employers, and lower levels of absenteeism.

Another study published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior revealed a link between having fun and informal learning (a common way employees acquire new skills that improve their job performance).  According to one of the study’s authors, Michael Tewes, it isn’t necessarily the fun activities that teaches the new skills, it’s the fun atmosphere that creates a better learning environment. Fun in the workplace can also bring co-workers together to create a cohesive team of workers that are able to get to know each other better, build greater trust, and are more apt to help each other.

Of course, like everything, there are pros and cons to a fun-loving company culture.  Moderation is, of course, important—it can’t be just a free-for-all. Common sense will tell you too much fun does have the potential to hurt productivity, plus there are those, especially older workers from my Baby Boomer generation that still haven’t embraced the new philosophy.  Like with everything in life balance is key.

At A. Alliance we understand the seriousness of our industry needs to be mitigated from time to time with some fun.  We have an activities committee that comes up with fun events and incentives that not only bring a little frivolity to our workplace, but also helps build a stronger and closer team.

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 13 years.