October 8, 2018
Nearly seven out of ten employees surveyed by the National Safety Council report feeling tired at work.
The percentages of fatigued workers are also significant among safety-sensitive industries:
The findings are included in the NSC report, Fatigue in Safety-Critical Industries: Impact, Risks & Recommendations.
Half of all employers surveyed by the NSC say they’ve witnessed finding employees asleep on the job. (Employers may be reporting a single incident of falling asleep on the job and not necessarily during a safety-critical moment.) The breakdown by industry:
The NSC identified nine risk factors for fatigue. Ninety-seven percent of all workers had one risk factor, and 80% had two or more. Some risk factors were more prevalent than others:
What can employers do?
The NSC recommends employers use fatigue risk management systems to reduce the impact on tired employees. FRMSs include policies, practices, programs and procedures that incorporate fatigue management into an existing safety management system.
One of the most difficult areas to address is workplace culture because it requires a change in perspective rather than in policy, according to the NSC.
Employers need to let employees know that fatigue has been identified as an unacceptable risk. The NSC recommends companies:
Other fatigue-mitigating changes recommended by the NSC:
Retrieved from Safetynewsalert.com
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