Is Your Team Running on Empty? The Sleep Problem No One’s Talking About

Jun 12
4 min read

You already know your people are stretched. Deadlines, financial stress, family demands don’t go away when employees go home.

A surprising new study by Sun Life and Ipsos found that a significant number of your employees likely aren't sleeping well. And it's costing more than anyone realizes.

The study found that nearly half of Canadian employees aren’t getting the recommended 7 hours of sleep. One in five meets the criteria for clinical insomnia.

That's not a wellness trend. That's a workforce issue sitting quietly in your benefits plan.

The quick read:

The cost: Employees with insomnia miss up to 8 days a year and lose 9–12 hours of weekly productivity — yet only a third of employers recognize the impact. Poor sleep shows up in mental, physical, financial, and social health, which in turn affect employee performance.
The barriers: Cost, not knowing where to look, and competing priorities keep employees from seeking help — even when support is available.
The fix: The gap for employees to get the help they need is often awareness, not coverage. Your existing plan likely includes mental health coverage (including Cognitive Behaviour Therapy), Employee and Family Assistance Programs, Virtual Care, Chronic Disease Support and Hormonal health resources.

What Poor Sleep is Costing your Organization

Poor sleep doesn't just make people tired. Employees with moderate clinical insomnia miss an average of 5 days of work per year due to sleep alone, and report being less productive for more than 9 hours every week. Those with severe insomnia missed nearly 8 days and 12 hours of reduced productivity weekly.

The effects aren't just physical. Employees struggling with sleep are 2 to 5 times more likely to rate their mental, physical, financial, and social health as poor or fair. Concentration, work quality, motivation, and even job satisfaction all decline significantly as sleep quality worsens.

Most employers underestimate this. Only a third of employers surveyed believed poor sleep was meaningfully affecting their workforce's health or productivity — even though their employees say otherwise.

What is keeping your employees up at night

Women and younger workers are disproportionately affected by money stress and mental health challenges. But the top obstacles to sleep among all groups are listed below.

It's not that people don't want to sleep better. The research found that employees cite cost, not knowing where to look, and competing priorities as their biggest barriers to seeking support. For those with the most severe sleep struggles, more than a third say they simply can't afford help — and nearly a third don't know where to start.

This is exactly where employers can make a difference.

The good news: the tools are probably already there

Most group benefits plans already include supports that directly address the root causes of poor sleep — stress, anxiety, financial pressure, chronic conditions, and more. The gap isn't coverage. It's awareness.

Here's what to check for in your plan, and how to talk about it with your team:

1) Mental health coverage. Psychological counselling — including cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), the clinically recommended first-line treatment — is covered under most extended health plans.

The Canadian Psychological Association recommends at least $3,500–$4,000 per year in coverage. For many organizations, this level of coverage is out of reach from a cost standpoint, so reminding employees that they can use their health spending accounts – and paramedical coverage if you have it – can go a long way. If your employees don't know this benefit exists, they can't use it.

2) Your Employee Assistance Program (EAP). An EAP isn't just for crisis situations. It's a confidential, accessible resource for financial stress, relationship challenges, work anxiety, and mental health — all of which showed up in this research as top sleep disruptors.

Many EAPs offer short-term counselling and referrals to specialists. If your employees think the EAP is only for serious problems, they're missing a tool that was designed for exactly the everyday stresses keeping them up at night.

3) Virtual care. If your plan includes virtual primary care, employees can access a nurse or doctor quickly — without waiting weeks for an in-person appointment — for assessment and treatment of sleep disorders, referrals, and often the underlying health issues affecting sleep.

4) Chronic disease support. Employees managing conditions like diabetes, asthma, or COPD are significantly more likely to have clinical insomnia. If your plan includes chronic disease coaching programs, this is worth highlighting — especially to employees who may not realize how closely their condition and their sleep are connected.

5) For your female employees especially. Women in perimenopause or menopause face disproportionately higher rates of clinical insomnia, with only 13% reporting no difficulty sleeping. If your workforce includes women in this life stage, dedicated menopause support resources — including virtual care from practitioners trained in this area — can make a meaningful difference.

Three things you can do this month

Employers are in a unique position to meaningfully impact employee wellbeing. You don’t need a new wellness budget to make a dent with this issue.

Send a simple reminder about your EAP. Many employees forget it exists or don't know the full scope of what it covers. A short email — even a paragraph — can reconnect people with a resource they already have access to. If you’re unhappy with your current EAP, other stand-alone options are available.
Check your mental health coverage limit. Access to professional care is costly, so a critical component of ensuring employees can get the help they need could include insured paramedical coverage, potentially with a separate mental health maximum, and a health spending account.
Normalize the conversation. Sleep struggles are common, they're treatable, and they're not a sign of weakness. A brief mention in a team meeting or a line in your next wellness communication can go a long way toward reducing the stigma that keeps people from asking for help.

Addressing chronic sleep deficits can go a long way in increasing performance, reducing chronic disease, and improving mental health.

Want to know how your current benefits plan supports employee sleep health or how you can add coverage? We're happy to walk you through what you have — and what might be worth adding. Reach out to your advisor anytime.