How to reduce employee eye strain during the pandemic

If you’re like me and use screens for more than 10 hours per day, you could be straining your eyes and having unnecessary headaches. Over the last decade, screen time has more than doubled, from 3 hours in 2009 to 6.7 hours in 2019, according to Mary Meeker. And that was before COVID-19! Right now, if you work in front of a computer, socialize through Zoom, and watch Netflix in the evening, your numbers are even higher.

Digital eye strain: a 21st-century epidemic

Eye strain, also known as asthenopia, is an eye condition that causes fatigue, blurred vision, pain in or around the eyes, headache, and even double vision, especially during presbyopic years (middle age). These symptoms can come from watching television at a close distance, doing computer work, or reading on a smartphone without the proper visual correction. Before COVID-19, 65% of Americans presented symptoms such as eye discomfort, headaches, dry eye, and blurred vision. After COVID-19, most of them are in front of screens for even longer.

Over 500 million years of evolution (sounds a bit dramatic), the human eye was optimized for seeing clearly at a distance. Over the last hundred years—only 0.0000002% of human eyes’ existence—we’ve adopted screens en masse. The 1950s brought the TV screen, viewed at 8-10 feet; the 1980s brought the computer screen, now only 20-40 inches away; and the 2010s brought smartphones to within 8 inches of our eyes. Especially after the pandemic, with many companies emphasizing work-from-home policies, this rapid change has led to unprecedented--and accelerating--levels of eye strain, something that can be prevented.

High-quality glasses: a solution 

According to the American Optometric Association, even individuals that don’t need prescription glasses for other daily activities may benefit from glasses made specifically for computer use. Three lens features may help with eye strain, including antiglare, UV protection, and blue-light blocking.

Antiglare

High-quality glasses come with an antiglare coating (also known as glare protection, anti-reflective coating, or AR). For computer users, this is one of the most important features for computer glasses, protecting your eyes from the strain of using screens.

UV Protection

Studies show that UV rays will damage your eyes over time. Many glasses come with UV protection, either standard or as an additional option. While you may not notice this damage in the short term, it adds up over the course of years.

Blue Light

Blue light has been well-established to influence melatonin and the human sleep cycle. The science is more nascent on blue light’s potentially negative effects, but animal models suggest it also alters eye physiology and contributes to eye strain. An anti-blue light coating on glasses that filters out the blue light emitted by your screen can help with both of these concerns.

Durability

Cheap lenses are typically made of a low-quality plastic (CR-39) which can easily break. I actually have a personal connection to this topic: When I was around ten years old, I almost went blind from low-quality lenses. I was chasing my brother around the kitchen when I slipped and fell, hitting my glasses on the floor. The lenses broke and I ended up with nine stitches and a scar. I could easily have easily been blinded if the shattering plastic from my then-low- quality lenses had entered my eye.

Due to the high cost of the potential danger, eye doctors usually recommend polycarbonate lenses instead of CR-39 for greater durability and safety.

Wearing glasses for preventative health

In the US, many companies pay for their employees’ vision benefits to improve employee productivity, save on future healthcare costs, and attract top talent.

Improved productivity

Uncorrected vision problems cause anywhere from a 2.5% to a 21% decrease in productivity. Visual eye strain lowers a worker’s productivity by around 15 minutes of work per day. For a company with average revenue per employee of $400,000 (which is typical of most tech companies), 2.5% of an employee’s productivity amounts to $10,000 and 21% amounts to $84,000. For those with perfect vision but suffering from eye strain, that 15 minutes per day sums to more than 65 hours of productivity lost over the course of a year. With an estimated 65% of the 130 million workers in the US suffering from digital eye strain symptoms, this could mean over $8.4 billion hours lost in productivity.

Investing in high-quality glasses that prevent eye strain and promote productivity is a logical, high-yield investment for most companies.

Saving on healthcare costs 

While the productivity improvements of employee glasses already tip the cost-benefit analysis over the top, the long-term effects on healthcare reinforce the issue. Healthcare is most US companies’ second-highest cost, only behind employee salaries. Right now, 65% of Americans have digital eye strain, leading to headaches, blurred vision, and neck/shoulder pain due to eye strain affecting their posture. The cost of dealing with any of these issues, not to mention long-term damage from UV that comes from the sun, will far outweigh the much-smaller cost of simply buying protective glasses for their computer-using employees.

Attracting talent

With employee performance the most important contributor to a company’s success, it’s no wonder companies compete over top talent. For employees choosing between one company and another, vision benefits are a comparison point. Facebook, for instance, offers a top-of-the-line vision insurance plan. Unfortunately, even this insurance plan falls short…

After analyzing more than 30 vision insurance plans from Bay Area tech companies, we learned none of their plans actually covered any of these important upgrades that lead to employee health and productivity!

For example, I recently spoke with a senior engineer at one of the four largest tech companies in the world. After enrolling in his company’s best vision insurance plan, he recently went to the optometrist and paid through insurance. Even with this plan--one of the best in the world--he had to pay $224 out-of-pocket for unreimbursed costs for the eye exam and a pair of glasses with anti-glare and blue-light protection. That’s almost the same cost as an iPhone 8! Looking deeper, we learned his plan is really geared toward the eye exam: of his $224 bill, $20 went toward the exam and $204 went toward the lenses. Even this top-of-the-line insurance doesn’t cover the lens features necessary for modern life: anti-glare, UV-protection, durable lenses, and blue-light blocking. 

An improved alternative to insurance 

Most vision benefits only pay for a small portion of the cost of one set of corrective lenses -- sometimes once a year, sometimes every other year --, leaving most employees to pay upwards of $300 for a pair of glasses. Worse, those benefits almost never apply to non-prescription, health-promoting lenses! Employees with 20/20 vision should still be wearing glasses when they’re using a computer to reduce eye strain, but most vision insurance won’t cover a dime.

According to IBISWorld, over $40 billion in vision insurance premiums are paid in the US every year, nearly half of which simply goes to waste due to low plan utilization. Over 90% of Americans use screens for work, leisure, or connecting with family. Shouldn’t the money we already pay to protect our eyes actually go toward protecting our eyes? 

We founded XP Health with the goal to help 100M people around the world protect their eyes. Our add-on vision benefit multiplies most companies’ existing vision coverage by 3x and reduces companies' and employees’ costs with vision by up to 40%. While most vision benefits only cover one pair of prescription glasses we offer up to three pairs of glasses for the employee, and for up to 5 family members or friends — whether they need a prescription or not. 

For example, in one recent case study with a client, XP Health provided over $22,000 in eyewear savings ($275 per employee) in six weeks - 10.8 times more than they if they just used their vision insurance!

Looking forward to healthy eyes

XP Health can enhance your company’s vision insurance plan by 3 times and reduce your costs by up to 40%. We’re trusted by leading tech companies including Zoom, Udemy, Twilio, Ubisoft, Chegg, and Zenefits. If you want to provide this service for your employees, consider us as a cost-saving measure. If you’re a broker, tell us you’re interested. Your employees’ eyes are too important to leave unprotected.

Curious for more information? See how we can protect your eyes. 

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Antonio Moraes is co-founder and CEO at XP Health, the world's only AI-powered vision benefits platform, enhancing companies’ existing vision plans by 3X while reducing costs by up to 40%.