Your Employer Wants To Know When You’re Sleeping

Chicago Grid

Employees at Appirio in San Francisco may not see their Chicago-based CEO on a daily basis, but they know how he slept last night.

Appirio, a cloud services provider, bought 200 Jawbone Up wristbands for employees as part of a wellness program launched this year. The bands, which retail for $129.99, use motion sensors to track sleep patterns and activity. Employers see only anonymous data, and employees can choose to share (or not share) their personal information with co-workers via a Web interface.

Appirio is among a growing number of companies buying fitness monitors for employees in an effort to reduce health insurance costs. The company’s health insurer gave Appirio $20,000 to start a wellness program, says VP of human resources Shannon Daly.

“I want to get enough data to go back to our benefits carrier this summer and say, ‘Look how we’ve been making change and traction on health,’” she says. “If we can get our benefits to stay static or go lower, that’s money for [employees] in their pockets.”...

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