Sleep isn't lost time, it's the foundation of everything that makes us successful, happy and healthy
Professor Stefan Volk is a Professor of Management at the University of Sydney Business School and Director of the Body, Heart and Mind in Business Research Group. He is one of the world’s leading voices on sleep, circadian rhythms, and sustainable workplace performance.
Working internationally with researchers, organisations, and executives, Stefan’s research examines the biological foundations of performance, health, and wellbeing among employees, leaders, and teams. He is especially interested in the friction between how humans evolved to function and how they are often expected to work today.
Stefan helps organisations rethink performance through a more human and sustainable lens. His work shows how better alignment between work and human biology can improve decision-making, creativity, leadership, wellbeing, and long-term career sustainability.
His research has been published in leading academic and practitioner outlets and is regularly covered by major international media, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Independent, Forbes, and HuffPost. He is also a regular contributor to executive education and leadership development programs.
Stefan advises and speaks to corporate and public-sector audiences, from teams and team leaders to senior executives and boards across healthcare, finance, consulting, and government. His keynotes challenge outdated assumptions about long hours, constant availability, and early starts, and translate rigorous science into practical advice leaders can apply immediately.
His message is practical and hopeful: when we align the way we work with human biology, we think more clearly, lead more effectively, and build success that lasts.
Talking Points
Sleep @ Work?: How Sleep Makes you Successful
In today‘s high performance work environment, we all struggle with our ambitions to excel at work, be good partners and parents, meet social obligations, and stay healthy by regularly working out. Something has to give and this something is often sleep. Squeezing in a few hours at night to work on an overdue project or getting up extra early for a workout, we often cut down on our sleep. This is reinforced by social media trends such as “5 to 9 before the 9 to 5" and workplace cultures that quietly (or openly) reward exhaustion and undervalue recovery. In this talk, Professor Stefan Volk explains the devastating consequences sleep deprivation has for our health and well-being, social relationships, and ability to do our best work. He also offers clear, science-backed strategies audiences can apply immediately to improve their sleep, protect their energy, recover more effectively, and perform at a higher level without relying on longer hours or unsustainable work habits.Sleep @ Work?: How Sleep Makes you Successful
Key Takeaways
- Sleep is a performance condition, not a lifestyle preference. Audiences leave with a precise, evidence-based understanding of how it shapes thinking, decision-making, creativity, emotional regulation, ethical awareness, and leadership behaviour at work.
- Participants can identify the real costs of sleep deprivation: impaired judgement, reduced motivation, irritability, weakened safety awareness, and leadership that consistently falls short of its own standards. Most people are accumulating these costs long before they recognise them.
- Everyone leaves with practical strategies they can apply the same day, across caffeine management, light exposure, exercise timing, nap use, technology habits, and sleep consistency. No new systems or policies required.
- Leaders gain a clearer view of how workplace cultures can unintentionally reward exhaustion and discount recovery, and leave with concrete approaches to role modelling, scheduling, and expectation-setting that support more sustainable performance.
For clients, the presentation creates a shared, credible language for discussing recovery and performance without stigma. It connects directly to measurable outcomes: better decision quality, fewer fatigue-related errors, stronger interpersonal behaviour, and the kind of consistent productivity that comes from people arriving to work genuinely rested.
Out of Sync: How Ignoring Your Body Clock undermines your Success
Our body clocks quietly govern how we think, feel, and perform, yet most of us work against them every day. In this talk, Professor Stefan Volk explains how circadian rhythms and chronotypes influence health and productivity, why modern work culture favours morning types, how light exposure affects your happiness, why blue-light glasses can be dangerous, why using your device before bedtime can be good for you, and why something as simple as wearing sunglasses on the way to work may be undermining your performance, health, and wellbeing. Stefan also offers practical, science-backed advice that people can apply immediately. Audiences will learn how to work more intelligently with their natural rhythms, protect their best hours, use light more effectively, make better timing decisions, and build routines that support energy, focus, mood, recovery, and sustainable performance.Out of Sync: How Ignoring Your Body Clock undermines your Success
Key Takeaways
- Audiences leave with a practical understanding of how their body clock shapes daily performance, including when they are most likely to be focused, creative, emotionally balanced, and resilient, and when the opposite is true.
- Participants learn why people differ in biological timing, why conventional work schedules can systematically disadvantage evening types, and why morning energy is so often misread as competence or commitment.
- Everyone gains immediately applicable strategies for improving circadian alignment: how to use morning light, manage evening darkness, time meals and exercise, use naps strategically, and build routines that support energy and recovery.
- Leaders leave with a more considered framework for scheduling: when to plan demanding work, collaborative meetings, and high-stakes decisions, and why off-peak operating modes represent elevated risk for judgement-dependent tasks.
For clients, the session provides a practical performance lever that requires no capital investment. Better alignment between the demands of work and the biology of the people doing it translates directly to fewer avoidable mistakes, stronger focus, more effective collaboration, improved emotional regulation, and more equitable approaches to flexible work.
Video
Sleep @ Work?: How Sleep Makes you Successful | Professor Stefan Volk
Latest News
Neale Daniher: A Legacy That Will Outlast The Beast
Three Stories, One Expert: What Dr Zac Seidler's Week in the Media Tells Us About Men Right Now
How to Measure Event ROI: Why 72% of the Industry Says Outcome Measurement Is Now Essential
