More than half of office workers don't consistently get a good night's sleep

Home health aides have long had the distinction of being among the lowest-paid workers in the United States, but now it's revealed they also get the least amount of sleep.

Concern over finances and an overall stressful job may be keeping home health aides up at night; but lawyers also made the list of sleep-deprived occupations. 

A new study of professions that get the least and most amount of sleep was commissioned by a mattress company and based on a survey done for the National Center for Health Statistics. The research found health aides, lawyers and police officers got the least  sleep, while loggers, hairstylists and sales representatives were the among the most-rested workers.

“We encourage people to take stock of their sleep habits and make improvements where they can,” said Robert Oexman, director of the Sleep to Live Institute in Joplin, Mo., and a consultant for Sleepy's, the mattress company behind the study.

Here’s a rundown of the sleepiest workers based on average amount of sleep per night:

1. Home Health Aides

2. Lawyers

3. Police Officers

4. Physicians, Paramedics

5. Economists

6. Social Workers

7. Computer Programmers

8. Financial Analysts

9. Plant Operators

10. Secretaries

And here are the workers that get the most shut-eye:

1. Forest, Logging Workers

2. Hairstylists

3. Sales Representatives

4. Bartenders

5. Construction Workers

6. Athletes

7. Landscapers

8. Engineers

9. Aircraft Pilots

10. Teachers

Overall, nobody seems to getting a lot of sleep no matter what they do. Even loggers, who topped the list, only clocked an average of seven hours and 20 minutes sleeping, compared with  six hours and 57 minutes for the sleepiest workers, home health aides.

Related: Home health care industry fights overtime proposal 

What’s so important about getting enough sleep anyway?

Turns out, a lot. Two Harvard Medical School studies found that insomnia does a number on your productivity, and a lack of sleep can affect your health. 

You could make up the difference by napping at work. A 2011 study from the National Sleep Foundation and Philips Electronics found that one in four employees admitted taking a nap at work.

That study also found:

• 85 percent of office workers say they could be more productive if they slept more.
• More than half of office workers don't consistently get a good night's sleep.
• Two-thirds of office workers surveyed said lack of sleep means their day begins on a low note.
• Two-thirds of employees do not wake up before their alarm goes off and more than one-third are not ready to get up when their alarm goes off.

The CEO of Intercon Solutions provides a catered lunch for his workers every day.

By Eve Tahmincioglu

During tough economic times there are still employers making sure their workers eat lavishly, or at least get a square meal, during the daily grind by providing food freebies.

Facebook, DreamWorks Animation and Google are among the top companies offering food their employees love, including everything from chocolate-themed lunches to energy drinks, according to research from Glassdoor, a career website that offers company reviews by employees.

“It’s a unique perk,” said Samantha Zupan, a spokeswoman for Glassdoor. “At a lot of companies, you might get a free soda or a candy bowl, but when it comes to a full spread of food that’s a unique value proposition for employees today.”

Indeed, it’s particularly unusual at a time when so many employees face layoff fears, benefit cuts and furloughs, and most are opting to spend less time and money on lunch and snacks on the job.

But for some lucky ones, bosses are chiming: “Let them eat cake,” or at least a sandwich.

A list of the top 10 companies with good eats was culled by Glassdoor from 375,000 employee reviews and released earlier this month. The list includes Susquehanna International Group, a financial institution, social networking site Linkedin and travel site TripAdvisor. The list also includes financial research firm Factset, business news service Bloomberg, semiconductor maker Marvel Technology and social game developer Zynga.

Zynga’s web page about employee benefits states the following:

“Zynga workers are a well-fed bunch. Our great culinary staff provides meals for our entire workforce five days a week.”

Companies are offering grub at these firms mainly because they want to boost morale and company loyalty, Zupan said, especially given the dire predictions that many employees are going to jump ship once the economy turns around.

“Employers are doing what they can to juggle costs and keep employees happy,” she noted.

And some seem to be happy. Here’s a sampling of comments from employees provided by Glassdoor:

“Free food! Beautiful place to come to work every day. People are generally happy and friendly (when not in fear of being laid off after a bad movie release.)”
-DreamWorks Animation employee.

“It is really easy to gain weight with all the delicious food.”
-Google employee.

Some lucky employees are chow-hounding, but most workers have to fend for themselves. While 77 percent of employers provide free coffee and 47 percent have vending machine snacks and beverages, only 26 percent offer food or a subsidized cafeteria as an employee benefit, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

Unfortunately, many of you are bypassing lunch or quickly eating at your desks.

A series of surveys by Right Management, a talent management company, found 35 percent of workers almost always take a lunch break, down from 47 percent last year, and more are staying at their desk to eat when they do, with 34 percent saying they do, up from 20 percent last year.

“Workers may feel devoted to their work, which is fine, but given the level of stress in today’s workplace I wonder if the reluctance to take a break is an expression of devotion or a negative consequence of the unrelenting pressure some organizations are exerting on their workforces to get more done with fewer resources,” said Michael Haid, senior vice president of talent management at Right Management.

The decision not to go out to eat can also be about saving money.

Edwin Narvaez decided to leave his job as manager of a Starbucks in 2009 for the non-profit world and is now a manager at Arriba Juntos, an employment and training organization in San Francisco. He took a $4,500-a-year pay cut and found it much more economical, and healthier, to bring his own lunch.

He makes extra for dinners and packs the leftovers for himself and his wife to take to work every day.

“It really was a decision of being smarter about our finances as you know that going out for a majority of meals can be expensive and with this economy it is not a good idea, and also I needed to get healthier as I was almost 300 pounds,” he explained, adding that he’s now 234 pounds.

Tough times also have led to some workers unable to afford a solid meal for lunch, even if they pack it themselves.

That’s one of the reasons Brian Burndage, CEO of Intercon Solutions, a computer recycling company in Chicago Heights, Ill., decided to keep providing free catered lunches for all his 50 employees every day instead of getting rid of the perk, which his accountants suggested.

“Unfortunately, our lunch has turned into probably one of the best square meals for some workers,” he said. “You have couples who now have a single income. Times are tough all over.”

While the company has seen sales growth slow in this economy, Brundage still feels compelled to spend $150,000 annually on the employee lunches.

“We’re trying to do the right thing by our staff,” he said about the meals where all employees, including everyone from warehouse workers to sales staff to upper management, sit together to break bread.

“The family that eats together stays together.”

We’ve all been there.

There you are, sitting at your desk, staring at your computer, when suddenly you feel your eyes start to close … Then comes the rush of panic as you jerk your eyes open and look around to make sure no one saw you nearly use your keyboard as a pillow.

Napping at work is still a no-no in most offices, but a new story from Inc. says some companies are starting to change their thinking on getting a little shut-eye during the work day.

The story cites companies who have gone so far as to install nap rooms and encourage the practice.

There’s also a body of research in support of a workday siesta. James Maas, who Inc. credits with coining the term “power nap,” tells the magazine a 15-minute can restore your energy. Still, the story says longer naps can leave you feeling groggy.

Now that all that debt ceiling excitement is out of the way, it’s time to move on to the real business of August: Pretending to work.

If you’re unlucky enough to be stuck in the office while at least half of your co-workers, customers or bosses are off on vacation, the hours can drag on. And yet, appearing not to be hard at work is a major faux pas in the current economic environment.

Luckily, Gawker has some tips for you. The website recommends things like typing a lot — what you type is irrelevant — creating a busywork-type project, sending e-mails at odd times and pretending to be walking busily toward nonexistent meetings.

Since looking busy is a timeless art, we went back in the vault a few years to come up with some other creative solutions to the August doldrums.

A Wired story from 2008 recommends complaining that you’re totally swamped whenever possible. In another post from 2008, a website called BusinessFinance suggests scheduling meetings with friends in other parts of the organization and keeping your desk messy so people think you’ve got lots going on.

You are also more than welcome to spend your hours reading this blog.

This is a pretty cool idea. It's an online contest about work. There is one very simple catch. Your entry has to be six words.

Taking Twitter-like brevity to a new extreme of economy, the Mercer consulting firm and SMITH magazine have launched a global competition, seeking user-generated content about the world of work.

Each two-week phase of the contest will focus on a different aspect of your relationship to your job, including reflections on your best boss, what inspires you and what you have learned at work.

The first phase of the contest focuses on "why I do what I do," and already has resulted in some inspired entries:

• Began a cynic, became an idealist.
• Love my co-workers. (Don’t have any.)
• I get paid to have opinions.

But we think you can do better. Here are a couple of ideas from a colleague:

• When 5 comes, I am gone.
• At least I have a window.
• My boss sits far from me.

Five-year-old SMITH, which has made a franchise out of its six-word memoirs, including its website, T-shirts and books, plans to co-publish a book with Mercer featuring the winning entries from Britain, Canada and the United States. You can submit your six-word entry at their website, and in our comment section below.

Entries submitted to the contest website will be judged by Gretchen Rubin, author of "The Happiness Project," and are eligible for prizes including an iPad 2. Entries submitted in our comment section are eligible for all the the glory of appearing on TODAY.com.

Getty Images file

Most women probably assume that the decision whether or not to take your husband’s name is a personal one, but new research suggests it might also affect their chances of landing a job, as well as how much they are paid.

A woman who changes her name when she gets married is less likely to get hired and is assumed to make less money than a woman who keeps her name, according to the researchers at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

The Dutch researchers also found that married women who keep their maiden names were viewed as more competent and intelligent than those who take their husband’s name. On the other hand, women who changed their names were more likely to be viewed as caring, dependent, emotional and less ambitious.

For the 2010 study, called “What’s in a Name?”, the researchers asked 90 students to imagine that they have been invited to a party where they were either introduced to a married couple as Peter Bosboom and Helga Kuipers or Peter and Helga Kuipers.

The students were then asked to judge Helga on certain attributes. The Helga who had the same name as her husband was deemed more caring, dependent and emotional, while the Helga who had a different name was deemed more competent and intelligent.

In another part of the study, 50 students were asked to evaluate an applicant for a human resources position based on an e-mail that also included information about whether she had taken her partner’s name.

The applicant who had changed her name was deemed more dependent and less ambitious and less intelligent than the one who had kept her name. She also had a lower chance of being hired and received a lower estimated salary.

The findings are eye-opening, but it’s hard to know how extensive the real-world implications are. As SmartMoney noted in a piece on the research earlier this week, the researchers polled students rather than hiring managers. The researchers also note that prospective employers may not know a woman has changed her name.

Corbis stock

Here's a reason to have sympathy for your managers: They may well be spending nearly 20 percent of their time dealing with the fact that their employees can't play nice.

A new survey from Accountemps asked managers the – admittedly somewhat biased – question: "What percentage of management time is wasted resolving staff personality conflicts?"

The mean answer: 18 percent.

To put that in perspective, if your boss is working a 40-hour week he or she is spending more than seven of those hours on personality conflicts among employees.

This isn't a new phenomenon. Accountemps, a financial services staffing firm, said it's gotten similar results in past studies on the same topic.

Obviously part of a manager's job is to resolve personality conflicts. And yet, let's hope the boss isn't spending all their time intervening over who left their dirty dishes in the break room sink and who drank the last cup of coffee and didn't make a new pot.

The survey was based on interviews with 1,000 senior managers at companies that have 20 or more workers.

If you’re looking for the secret to loving your work, perhaps a trip to northern Europe is in order.

A new quarterly survey of workers in 29 countries, conducted by staffing firm Randstad, found that Denmark and Norway had the highest percentage of workers who reported being “very satisfied” with working for their current employer.

Thirty-five percent of Danish and Norwegian workers surveyed were “very satisfied” with their jobs, according to the survey. In addition, 45 percent of Danish workers and 44 percent of Norwegian workers reported being satisfied with their jobs.

Americans actually weren’t too far behind the Danes and Norwegians, with 29 percent of us reporting that we are very satisfied with our jobs. Still, Canada, Mexico and Luxembourg all had a higher percentage of very satisfied workers.

The least happy workers appear to be in China and Japan. Only 5 percent of Japanese workers surveyed reported being very satisfied with their jobs, while 9 percent said they were very dissatisfied.

Just 7 percent of Chinese workers reported being very satisfied, while 3 percent said they were dissatisfied.

The survey was conducted in Feburary and included at least 400 workers workers, age 18 to 65, in each country.