Fatigue at work is one of the most common contributing factors to workplace accidents and near-misses. Worker fatigue can manifest from a number of reasons, both work-related and not. Most fatigue at work and its symptoms accompany sleep debt, an accumulation of insufficient restorative sleep, but it can also arise from mental or physical exertion, personal health factors, and psychosocial factors. Regardless of its cause, fatigue at work is more than just being tired and it can impair one mentally as well as physically.
Disrupted and Irregular Sleep Habits Contribute to Fatigue at Work
Shift workers, especially those who work rotating shifts, are especially susceptible to fatigue due to the disruption of their circadian rhythm, or sleep/wake cycle. The human biological system operates on an internal clock in which different functions run on different cycle lengths. The circadian rhythm lasts approximately 24 hours, with various functions rising or falling at various times throughout. These rising and falling functions—heart rate, body temperature, and others—create a powerful physiological tendency to sleep at night and be awake during the day. Difficulties occur when work-time arrangements cause individuals to work against this tendency, which affects both the ability to remain alert and the ability to sleep.
Employees who work rotating shift schedules, in which they alternate between day and night shifts, are especially susceptible to sleep debt and associated fatigue symptoms because it takes time for a person to become better adjusted to a new schedule. In fact, at the beginning of every new shift cycle, workers are much more likely to experience what is commonly called “jet lag,” because they are working against two things: their natural circadian rhythms, which expect them to be awake during the day and asleep at night and having become adjusted to their previous shift cycle, must now readjust.
High levels of fatigue cause reduced performance and productivity in the workplace and increase the risk of accidents and injuries. Fatigue affects the ability to think clearly, which is vital when making safety-related decisions and judgments. People who are fatigued at work are unable to gauge their own level of impairment. As a result, fatigued people are unaware that they are not functioning as well or as safely as if they were not fatigued. Unfortunately, it is not until the point of failure where fatigue has caused or contributed to an incident or a near miss that we tend to focus on solutions, controls, or other ways to manage fatigue risk.
Mitigating the Risk of Fatigue at Work
When safety managers and business owners turn their attention to fatigue, they soon see that it is a three-fold challenge: First, there is no objective, standard definition of fatigue until the point of failure. Second, fatigue is a non-static variable, making it difficult to measure. And third, a majority of behaviors impacting fatigue are not work-related and occur outside of the workplace, limiting the ability for them to be controlled by workplace policies or safety measures.
Predictive Safety’s PRISM Fatigue Management System is Able to Meet the Challenge of Assessing Workplace Fatigue
In essence, the PRISM fatigue management system works by calculating fatigue risk according to several inputs. Some inputs are based on the data points in a Fatigue Risk Index, which includes things like shift times and lengths against typical circadian rhythms. Other inputs come from employees, like telling the system at clock-in how much sleep they had, and through taking brief alertness tests.
The output generated by PRISM’s predictive algorithm allows for more informed shift scheduling and allows supervisors and employees to monitor their alertness and apply countermeasures as appropriate to reduce or avoid fatigue at work. In the case that PRISM identifies a significant work risk or a potentially impaired employee, it triggers a notification to the designated supervisor.
Mine Worker Fatigue Study
A study of PRISM at a large iron mine showed that monitoring and managing fatigue risk had an immediate impact on mine employees’ hours worked during high-risk fatigue zones. Consequently, over the course of the next year, shift attendance improved by about 3%, and incident rates per produced metric ton dropped by about 35%. When asked about their experience using PRISM, 84% of workers and supervisors agreed that fatigue risk monitoring increased their awareness of job safety and performance. In addition, 80% of workers and supervisors agreed that fatigue risk management increased their ability to manage their own fatigue levels at work. Plus, 94% of workers thought that monitoring fatigue risk would help managers and supervisors understand the workforce better and help to improve their working conditions, and 96% of workers reported feeling better about their work environment knowing that their co-workers were being monitored for alertness and fatigue.
Fatigue at work is both a personal and occupational risk factor. It is a complex mental state characterized by a lack of alertness and reduced mental and physical performance often accompanied by drowsiness. It is associated with spending long hours awake, an inadequate amount of sleep over an extended period or an insufficient quality of sleep, high physical and mental loads, and a number of non-work-related factors. From a practical viewpoint, it is doubtful that fatigue in the workplace can be eliminated altogether, but it certainly can be controlled and limited by proper management. Work fatigue management is a shared responsibility between the organization and all its employees, and all stakeholders should participate in order to provide the safest and healthiest working environment possible.
More Resources:
6 Reasons Why Your Company Needs to Manage Work Fatigue and Impairment (Part 1)
6 Reasons Why Your Company Needs to Manage Work Fatigue and Impairment (Part 2)
3 Things Workers Should Know About Shift Worker Fatigue, From a Doctor
Managing Safety through Worker Fatigue Data
10 Steps in a Fatigue Management Plan
Circadian Rhythm and Shift Work - When the Time Changes
The Factors of Fatigue and the Fatigue Assessment Scale
3 Ways Sleep Sleep Apnea at Work is Costing Your Business (And How To Fix It)
4 Steps to Fatigue Risk Management - a Fatigue Risk Management Template
6 Fatigue Countermeasures
Fatigue in the Workplace: Myths vs. Realities
Work Fatigue Symptoms
Predictive Safety Featured On the WorkSAFE Podcast: Tech Designed to Stop Fatigue Impairment Risk in Its Tracks
Fatigue Risk Management Without Regulatory Guidance
Real-Time Fatigue Monitoring & Management Software
References and Further Reading
Schutte, P.C. (2009). Fatigue risk management: Charting a path to a safer workplace. The Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Hard Rock Safe Safety Conference: Sun City, South Africa.
Harrington, J.M. (2001). Health effects of shift work and extended hours of work. Occupational and Environmental Medicine 58(1): 68–72.
Van Dongen, H.P.A. & Dinges, D.F. (2005). Sleep, circadian rhythms, and psychomotor vigilance. Clinics in Sports Medicine 24(2): 237–249. doi:10.1016/j.csm.2004.12.007
Caldwell, J.A., Caldwell, J.L., & Schmidt, R.M. (2008). Alertness management strategies for operational contexts. Sleep Medicine Reviews 12(4): 257–273. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2008.01.002
Heitmann, A. (2011). Evaluation of fatigue systems. Awake Institute.
Lerman, S.E., et al. (2012). Fatigue risk management in the workplace. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 54(2): 231–258.
