A wedding organising company in Japan has found a rather innovative way to make its employees productive. Kazuhiko Moriyama of Crazy Inc believes that well-rested employees are good for business. So, his company is now awarding points to employees who sleep six hours a night, for at least five days.

The points can be exchanged for food in the company cafeteria, a report in Bloomberg says. One can avail up to 64,000 yen or over Rs 41,000 worth of food from the cafe. The employees’ nightly sleep will be tracked using an app developed by Airweave Inc that manufactures mattresses. 

The report adds that health-products maker conducted a survey and found that more than 92% of Japanese over the age of 20 say that aren’t getting enough sleep. This is the result of labour shortage and a long-held belief of noble sacrifice for the corporate good. In fact, Japan is notorious for its overwork-culture that has lead to a phenomenon called death-from-overwork. An ad agency employee was killed from death-from-overwork in 2015.

So, Moriyama believes that employees with happier lives will lead to better performance in the office. “You have to protect workers’ rights, otherwise the country itself will weaken,” Moriyama said, the report added. Not only good sleep, Crazy Inc also pushes for better nutrition, exercise, a more positive environment, along with child support and an opportunity to take vacations during workdays.

The report says that good sleeping leading to productivity is not hokum. There’s evidence that more sleep leads to improved business performance and higher economic growth. According to a study by Rand Corp on 2009, insufficient sleep cost the US economy as much as $411 billion a year or 2.28 per cent of the GDP. In Japan, the cost is estimated to be higher for the country – $138 billion or 2.92 per cent of the GDP. Moriyama said that he wants to reach a million employees and do something that other people will think is crazy.

(Edited by Anwesha Madhukalya)