What is fatigue?
Fatigue is more than feeling tired and drowsy. In relation to work, fatigue is mental and/or physical exhaustion that reduces your ability to perform your work safely and effectively.
The causes of fatigue can be work-related, personal or both. Work-related causes of fatigue may include:
prolonged or intense (e.g. mental or physical) tasks or jobs
sleep loss or disruption to your internal body clock
organisational change
travel
uncomfortable or hazardous working environments (e.g. working in heat)
work scheduling
excessively long shifts
not enough time to recover between shifts
long commuting times.
Employers must eliminate or minimise the risk of fatigue, so far as is reasonably practicable.
Employees / workers also have a duty to take reasonable care for their own safety and health and make sure their acts or omissions don’t adversely affect the health or safety of others.
Fatigue risk indicators
The effects of fatigue can be short or long term. In the short term, a person may show signs or report symptoms such as:
constant yawning or falling asleep at work
short-term memory problems and a hard time concentrating
finding it hard to join in conversations
bad decision-making and judgment
reduced hand-eye coordination or slow reflexes
changes in behaviour, for example, repeatedly arriving late for work
increase in unplanned absence.
A fatigued worker may also experience symptoms not obvious to others including:
feeling drowsy
headaches
dizziness
difficulty concentrating
blurred vision
a need for extended sleep during days off work.
Some workers are at a high risk of fatigue because their work typically involves:
shift work
night work
on-call workers
emergency call outs
working in health and medical frontline facilities
Fatigue impacts on people and the workplace
Fatigue can affect safety at the workplace.
It reduces alertness which may lead to errors and can increase the risk of an incidents or injuries for the fatigued worker and others. Particularly when a worker is:
operating mobile plant and equipment
driving a vehicle
working at heights
working with flammable substances
Fatigue can also have long-term effects on workers’ physical and mental health, these can include:
heart disease
diabetes
high blood pressure
gastrointestinal disorders
lower fertility
anxiety, or
depression
Controlling fatigue – work program/rosters/schedules
Fatigue can be controlled to some extent including:
work scheduling – schedule work to avoid low body clock periods between 2am and 6am, and 2pm and 4pm
modifying shift work and rosters – restrict the number of successive night shifts
managing job demands - structure shifts so heavier duty work is planned in the middle of the shift and decreases towards the end
change environmental conditions – eliminate or minimise working in heat
consult with workers about managing non-work-related causes
implement a workplace fatigue policy.
Consider implementing trial periods for any new work schedules and encouraging workers to provide feedback on their effectiveness.
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