Sleep is increasingly being considered essential to physical and mental health, brain function, and overall well-being, acting as a vital period for body repair, memory consolidation, and toxin removal. However, day to day life may intervene and interfere with the recommended 7 to 9 hours of sleep each day. The causes are numerous; sleep deprived parents coping with a young child, a stressful period at work or at home, a sleep disorder, and nightshifts are a notorious disrupter of sleep. What if it impacts our work?
Recent Employment Relations Authority decisions highlight how difficult it can be for employers to make the right call.
The Waiheke Island Supported Home Trust provides government funded care services for up to ten residents who live at the Trust’s Waiheke Island premises. Ms Shorter had been employed by the Trust for 18 years, and was 70 years old, when she was dismissed for sleeping on the job. She worked 12-hour shifts from 8pm to 8am on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. In 2025, after Ms Shorter’s new manager noticed her shopping during the day between her shifts (it being expected that she would need to sleep during the day), a video camera was installed. During her shifts for the week, the video footage showed Ms Shorter appearing to sleep on three consecutive nights, 3 hours and 5 minutes the first shift, 1 hour and 50 minutes on the second and 3 hours on the third.
A disciplinary process was undertaken and the Trust summarily dismissed Ms Shorter for serious misconduct for “deliberate avoidance of duties”. In finding that Ms Shorter was unjustifiably dismissed, the Authority Member concluded that night staff had an understanding from a meeting in 2021 with a previous manager that they were able to sleep during their breaks; “They had a legitimate expectation of it even though there is insufficient [sic] to establish a contractual entitlement to sleep.”
Ms Shorter was awarded $25,000 compensation, plus six months of lost wages. For reasons that are not entirely clear in the determination, these remedies were then reduced by 25% for Ms Shorter’s contribution to the situation.
Another case last year involved the Inland Revenue dismissing an employee who kept falling asleep at work. The employee, whose name cannot be published, wanted to be reinstated to her job. Apart from falling asleep, the employee was repeatedly late, wore inappropriate attire, spent time on personal calls, had trouble completing tasks and abused her colleagues.
Although Inland Revenue’s efforts were recognised in managing the employee, the Authority concluded that while “there were considerable difficulties in the employment relationship between [the employee] and Inland Revenue, I do not accept it was at the point that a fair and reasonable employer could justifiably dismiss [the employee].
The Authority Member concluded that Inland Revenue had acted prematurely and without justification by dismissing the woman, that it had not followed a fair process and that the failures were more than minor. The employee was awarded $30,000 compensation, but her application for reinstatement was declined.
It is not just in New Zealand that the issue has been recently addressed. Shannon Burns was a highly paid vice-president of a soft-ware company in the United Kingdom on a salary of £220,000 with £78,000 bonus per annum. She was sacked after spending the night sleeping in a sauna when she lost her room keys during a team-building event in Austria.
On the final night of the event Ms Burns was observed to be “slurring her words” after drinking alcohol. Ms Burns explained that when she went back to her room she found it locked and that she did not have her key. She said that there was no receptionist on duty and that her roommate had fallen asleep and was not answering her phone. She explained that she eventually gave up and went to sleep in the sauna.
In the Employment Tribunal she won her disability discrimination case after arguing the company she worked for had not done enough to help her perform well taking into account her ADHD. The Tribunal heard evidence that Ms Burns’ ADHD meant she was forgetful and often lost her phone and keys. After she started work, she had asked the company for a coach to help her with ADHD as she was feeling “deeply overwhelmed” at her workload, which she did not receive.
And of course there is the landmark case of Idea Services v Dixon where the Supreme Court confirmed that employees may be “working” even when they may be permitted to sleep on the job. It effects employees who may be required to stay on-site, are restricted from leaving, and are required to be available to respond to incidents. Depending on the restrictions on the arrangement, such employees may be entitled to the minimum wage for "sleepover" hours under the Minimum Wage Act.
Those of us who may enjoy a quick “power nap” from time to time should remain cautious of succumbing to that urge in the workplace. Conversely, our employers may need to dig a lot further into why an employee may have fallen asleep on the job before jumping to the conclusion that the employee should be sacked. Read more...