A BBC News report examines an innovative program from Aetna that pays its employees for every night they sleep 7 hours or more.

For staff at insurance group Aetna, it pays to get a good night’s sleep. Specifically $300 (£225) a year.

Such is the US firm’s concern about the impact of sleep deprivation on employee performance, that it encourages its workers to sign up to a scheme that rewards them for getting at least seven hours of shut-eye per night.

Aetna staff that participate can earn $25 for every 20 nights in which they sleep seven hours or more, up to a limit of $300 every 12 months.

Introduced in 2009, about 12,000 of the firm’s 25,000 employees participated last year, an increase from 10,000 in 2014.

Staff can either record their sleep automatically, using a wrist monitor that connects to Aetna’s computers, or instead are trusted to manually record how long they have slept every night.

Get the full story at www.bbc.com