MC Magazine Archive

Employee Fatigue: The New Epidemic in the Precast Industry

By William Atkinson
William Atkinson is a professional business writer based in Illinois.

If you're a precast company committed to employee safety, workforce productivity, product quality, customer service, and environmental friendliness, there's a good chance you've implemented several programs that directly address all of these challenges. New medical research, however, is beginning to show that, in spite of all your best efforts, you've only begun to scratch the surface of tackling these concerns if you haven't addressed one very important issue: employee fatigue.

Some statistics to consider:

• The October 1997 issue of the National Safety Council's Safety & Health reported that the cost of accidents worldwide in which employee fatigue plays a part exceeds $80 billion a year. (Remember Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Exxon Valdez?)
• The National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research estimates that, in the United States alone, businesses lose more than $150 billion a year in productivity as a result of employee fatigue.
• A nine-year California study (reported in the March 1995 issue of Safety & Health) found that people who slept six hours or less each night had a 70 percent higher mortality rate than those who slept seven or eight hours.

In simple terms, tired employees cost you money:

• Increased workers' compensation costs from accidents and injuries.
• Higher healthcare costs and absenteeism from increased illnesses.
• Reduced profits from lower levels of productivity.
• Lost customers from poor product quality and customer service.

"Lack of sleep leads to drowsiness during the daytime," explains James B. Maas, professor of psychology at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York) and author of the 1998 New York Times bestseller Power Sleep. "Drowsiness leads to decreased motor performance, cognitive performance, and reaction time. It can also lead to microsleep, where employees fall asleep for a second or two during the day without even realizing it."

These problems obviously have serious consequences for safety and productivity in the production area, where employees can seriously injure themselves or coworkers as well as risk damage to equipment.

"Drowsiness also leads to reduced concentration, memory, communication skills, decision-making skills, and ability to handle complex tasks in the office area," Maas says. "Basically, even minimal sleep loss over the period of a few days can make you stupid!"

A Widespread Problem
Employee fatigue is becoming an epidemic. The December 1998 issue of Employee Benefit News reported that 47 percent of employees admitted experiencing episodes of extreme fatigue at work during the previous three months. A survey conducted by the Better Sleep Council found that 31 percent of employees admit that lack of sleep affects their work, and 29 percent said they do not feel rested when they awake in the morning. "I have talked with airline pilots who admit falling asleep in the cockpit, only to wake up and find the rest of the flight crew asleep," Maas reports.

A formal survey conducted by Maas found that 38 percent of employees admit to napping at work. "Most of them nap in break rooms, bathroom stalls, or in their cars in the parking lots so they won't get caught," he says.

Even employees who don't consider fatigue to be a problem can suffer from it. "One researcher administered a physiological test of alertness to individuals who said they were never sleep-deprived and found that 35 percent of them were in the twilight zone," Maas continues. He adds, "About 50 percent of the population says it gets enough sleep, but 75 percent of these people suffer fatigue during the day."

It was not until 1996, though, that the American Medical Association began to recognize sleep medicine as a specialty. "Even sleep researchers are now just beginning to fully comprehend the mysteries of sleep and its powerful consequences for the quality of life," Maas notes.

Causes of Fatigue
By far the most pervasive cause of employee fatigue is the simple fact that people do not arrange to get a full eight hours of continuous, restful sleep each night. Today's fast-paced life is partly to blame, where two-earner couples burn the candle at both ends to meet their responsibilities to their employers, their children, their housework, and themselves.

An even more pervasive culprit is the lure of technology--late night television, videos, and Internet surfing. "Jerry Seinfeld says it's a well-known medical fact that the last part of the body to fall asleep at night is the finger on the remote control," Maas says.

When Edison invented the light bulb in 1879, people slept an average of 10 hours a night. Today, the average is 6.8 hours, with fully one-third of the adult population trying to survive on six hours or less.

"Given the role of sleep in determining daytime functioning," Mass continues, "the current extent of sleep deprivation in our society is alarming. At least 50 percent of the American adult population is chronically sleep-deprived."

Other causes of fatigue can include smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, poor (high-fat, high-sugar) diet, obesity, excess caffeine, lack of exercise, and mental and emotional stress. Not only are these minor direct causes of fatigue, they also can be indirect causes of the inability to get a full-night's sleep, which, as noted, is the most significant and serious cause of fatigue. Other causes include sleep disorders, such as insomnia.

Employer Roles
Employers also can contribute to employee fatigue in a number of ways: requiring employees to work late-night shifts and excessive amounts of overtime, allowing high levels of stress to exist chronically in the workplace, and expecting employees to perform repetitive tasks.

"Organizations tend to lavish a great deal of maintenance and attention on machines, but don't devote nearly the same attention to the maintenance of people," observes Kevin M. Quinley, senior vice president of Risk Services for MEDMARC Mutual Insurance Co. in Fairfax, Virginia. "There are often disastrous consequences to this lack of attention, including loss of property and life."

Quinley adds that, in recent years, some courts have been ruling that companies that should have known their employees were seriously fatigued are liable for costs associated with accidents and injuries those employees might have (e.g.: tired employees driving home after working multiple shifts and being involved in auto accidents that kill or injure others).

The first step for employers is to recognize the importance of sleep among its workforce. "The process of sleep provides tremendous power," Maas emphasizes. "It restores, rejuvenates, and energizes the body and brain. The third of your life that you should spend sleeping has profound effects on the other two thirds of your life in terms of alertness, energy, mood, body weight, perception, memory, thinking, reaction time, productivity, performance, communication skills, safety, and good health."

MEDMARC's Quinley adds that companies should begin looking at all of their past loss experiences. "Conduct a causation analysis in workers' compensation, auto/fleet, property loss, health claims, and other areas," he says. "You will likely find that employee fatigue was a factor in a lot of these losses. Until now, you've probably been overlooking this root cause."

Fatigue-Prevention Strategies

• Make changes to the structure of work itself.
• Schedule shiftwork to be as sleep-friendly as possible. (Consultants specializing in this field can be helpful.)
• Keep overtime to a minimum. If you’re continually asking employees to work excess hours, hire more employees or seek the services of a temporary employment agency.
• Implement a job rotation program if possible.
• Take ergonomics into account, making sure that employee equipment is designed to reduce physical stress and exhaustion.
• Provide a breakroom so employees can nap before they drive home after work, if necessary.
• Provide employees with on-site health and wellness education services.
• "Be sure that work areas are well-lit, with as much natural light as possible," Maas suggests. "Also be sure that there is plenty of circulating fresh air. Warm, dark, quiet areas with poor circulation induce fatigue."
• Install vending machines that contain juices, fruit, and other healthy snacks as alternatives to the typical soda and candy machines.
• Develop a comprehensive wellness program that has three components:
  Medical screenings to help employees identify serious health conditions, including sleep disorders.
• Health and wellness education (tips on how employees can implement healthy lifestyles, including proper exercise, diet, and sleep habits).
• Exercise or stretching programs that employees can perform during work breaks.
• Consider Naps. Allow employees to take short, "power naps" during work. "If you can have power breakfasts and power lunches, why not power naps?" Maas contends. "A 15- or 20-minute nap after lunch during the 'afternoon trough' can be rejuvenating." In fact, many CEOs have admitted to Maas that they "power nap" every day in their offices--without letting anyone else know.

A New Life
Encouraging employees to get enough sleep is the easiest, least costly, and perhaps most important thing you can do to generate a positive, effective, safe, productive, healthy, and high-quality work environment. "People have told me that they never knew what it was like to be alert until they started sleeping properly," Maas states. "They had been habituated to low levels of alertness their entire adult lives."

Managing Fatigue Among Shiftworkers
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 10 percent of companies operate around the clock, and 20 percent of all employees perform "shiftwork" (working second and third night shifts). The National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research reports that 40 percent to 80 percent of shiftworkers experience serious fatigue from lack of sleep. The ShiftWork Alert newsletter notes that 85 percent of shiftworkers take naps at work whether they are allowed to or not. "I have never met a shiftworker who is not sleep-deprived," Maas says. "More than 50 percent of shiftworkers fall asleep on the job at least once a week." He adds that shiftworkers are 40 times more likely to be involved in accidents at work, on the road, and at home, than are day workers.

One of the best strategies to combat shiftwork-related fatigue is to arrange for a specialist in the health field to provide a seminar for employees explaining how their bodies operate physiologically at night. The seminars should provide information on nutrition (why spicy and fatty foods are difficult to digest at night), the best timing for meals, exercise tips, sleep strategies (e.g. don't drink caffeine just before bedtime), when to nap, and family communication issues that promote restful sleep.

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