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How a US CEO paid employees $500 to sleep only to quadruple his company profits
Former Atena CEO, Mark Bertolini, paid employees a sleep bonus to boost productivity
Meet Mark Bertolini - when he became CEO of Aetna in 2010, he wanted to prove that investing in employee well-being wasn’t just “nice to have” but a core driver of business success. His revolutionary approach was to help employees get more sleep.
It wasn’t a typical corporate move. In the era of hustle culture and endorsements of longer work hours, Bertolini, inspired by his own transformative experience with chronic pain and alternative therapies followed a life-threatening skiing accident in 2004, saw things differently.
He believed that well-rested employees were not just happier—they were more creative, productive, and engaged. And he had the data to back it up: his research revealed that sleep deprivation was costing Aetna nearly $100 million annually in lost productivity. Atena is a health care company that sells traditional and consumer directed health care insurance.
In 2015, Bertolini launched an unprecedented initiative, a sleep bonus he would pay employees to sleep. Through an incentive program tracked by Fitbit devices, employees could earn up to $500 a year for consistently getting seven or more hours of sleep a night. "Sleep is not a privilege, it’s a right," Bertolini declared. It was a bold move that left Wall Street skeptical, but Bertolini’s commitment didn’t waver.
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The results spoke for themselves. Within just a year, Aetna saw an increase of 69 minutes in daily productivity per employee, translating to $3,000 more in annual productivity for each person. Aetna’s revenue surged, healthcare costs declined, and employee stress levels dropped by 28%. This sleep incentive program wasn’t just a well-being boost—it became a powerful profit driver.
Bertolini’s vision didn’t stop at sleep. He introduced a suite of wellness benefits, from free yoga and meditation classes to student loan repayment assistance, and even raised the company’s minimum wage to $16 an hour. These initiatives transformed Aetna into a coveted workplace where talent flocked to apply.
The impact rippled across corporate America. Companies like Google, Nike, and REI followed suit, creating nap pods, meditation spaces, and adventure days as part of a growing wellness revolution. By the time Bertolini stepped down, Aetna’s stock price had quadrupled, cementing his legacy as the leader who turned naps into profits and showed that investing in employees is just smart business.
