Managing Sleepiness for Safety
By Carolyn Schur
Look around your workplace. Do you see tired workers? Sleepiness and fatigue are a fact of life in today’s workplaces. Many managers, however, choose to ignore it, and by so doing, increase the potential for accidents and injury.
The solution, however, is not to go to the other extreme and establish a very strict ‘no sleeping on the job’ policy. This policy only encourages hiding. Employees know they cannot overcome their need for sleep so they find ways and means to sleep, in spite of the policy.
Our natural physiology will result in sleepiness during the night and in the afternoon, but there are many other reasons that employees may be tired at work. An employer, however, has an expectation that the employee will be fit and able to work and, in theory, the reasons for the sleepiness are not the employer’s concern. In reality, a manager cannot ignore this situation and must ensure that there are options available to deal with what will be an unproductive and an unsafe employee.
The need to get a handle on sleepiness is dependent on the extent to which there is risk. Sleepiness in transportation companies, power plants and hospitals has the potential for high risks for employees, clients and the public. Financial institutions, data management companies and retail establishments have less risk, but should consider the costs to health and disability plans and productivity losses.
The most important factor in managing sleepy employees is creating a culture that accepts that sleepiness will occur and is proactive in addressing it. You want to know about all instances of sleepiness and you want all employees to feel safe when they report their own sleepiness or that of others. For this to happen, discipline and punishment must not be the only available options. View these reports as opportunities to identify the most susceptible individuals and times of the day or night where alertness promoting efforts must be implemented.
Educate employees about the dangers of sleepiness and encourage them to use simple ‘fatigue-busting’ strategies that can help them feel more alert. A simple way to provide this information is through posters that illustrate these strategies. (see www.alertatwork.com/resources)
Consider allowing frequent breaks, even if this is just 10 minutes to divert one’s energy and attention away from the task at hand. Ensure that employees always have access to water, juice, coffee and tea. If the work tasks themselves promote sleepiness, consider how the work process could be redesigned to lessen this outcome.
For some individuals, on some occasions, simple strategies will not suffice. They will really need a nap. Research has shown that short naps are one of the most effective strategies for promoting alertness and improved productivity. It is important, however, to develop a controlled napping policy so that naps are taken safely. Organizations that encourage napping have found that there is little abuse and there is the payoff in improved morale and well being for all employees.
When employees are chronically fatigued and sleepy and the measures described above do not serve to overcome the sleepiness, then it’s time for further investigation. Employees can be chronically fatigued for many reasons, including illness, personal stressors or poor choices about sleep. Once you know the source of the sleepiness, you can direct the employee to the appropriate resources or make whatever accommodations are appropriate.
Finally, consider all your operational and management processes and policies. Are some of them, by design, creating opportunities for fatigue and sleepiness? For example, is excessive overtime required? Do you require early morning starts? Are workloads excessive and deadlines merciless? Are there inherent, on-going job stressors? If these cannot be avoided, then it is even more important to consider how you will manage the sleepy employees.
Carolyn Schur is president of Alert@Work Human Resource Services (www.alertatwork.com) a company that specializes in sleep and fatigue management. She can be reached at (306) 975-1165 or schurgoode@sasktel.net
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