Can Fatigue Affect your Bottom Line?

There’s a reason why children get fussy and/or whine when tired – sleep is a vital factor in their overall health. Flash forward into adulthood where adults need an average of seven to nine hours of sleep each night; unfortunately 30% of adults report averaging less than six hours.

Translate that into the workplace – can fatigue affect your bottom line? Long story short – yes, and we’ll highlight the reasons why as you keep reading. Here’s the thing – we’ve all yawned at the office, your work station, or otherwise on the clock, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fatigued. So, what does fatigue mean and what how can it affect your workplace as a whole? Let’s dig in to some key statistics and look at what you can do to stay out of the numbers.

Understanding Fatigue in the Workplace

Fatigue is more than catching some extra Z’s at night. Feelings of fatigue and tiredness have been used interchangeably, but in recent years researchers are considering both feelings to be separate, distinctive issues. While tiredness can often be solved by a change in your routine or getting a good night’s sleep, fatigue can be a more complex issue with a variety of symptoms that usually last longer and are more intense than tiredness.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), fatigue can cause weariness, sleepiness, irritability, reduced alertness, impaired decision making, and lack of motivation, concentration, and memory. In fact, studies have shown that fatigue is linked to health problems, such as:

• Heart disease
• Stomach and digestive problems
• Musculoskeletal disorders
• Reproductive problems
• Depression
• Some cancers (breast and prostate)
• Sleep disorders
• Poor eating habits/obesity
• Worsening of existing chronic diseases such as diabetes and epilepsy

In the workplace, long work hours and extended and irregular shifts may be stressful physically, mentally, and emotionally. Because our body operates on a circadian rhythm sleep/wake cycle keeping us naturally tired at night and alert during the day, these demanding work schedules may cause an override those natural sleep patterns that can lead to increased fatigue. Here are the numbers – more than 43% of workers are sleep-deprived, and those most at risk work the night shift, long shifts, or irregular shifts.

What’s more, fatigue is estimated to cost employers $136 billion a year in health-related lost productivity by interfering with concentration and increasing the time needed to accomplish tasks. Take a look at what fatigue does at work straight from the National Safety Council (NSC):

• Safety performance decreases as employees become tired
• 62% of night shift workers complain about sleep loss
• Fatigued worker productivity costs employers $1,200 to $3,100 per employee annually
• Employees on rotating shifts are particularly vulnerable because they cannot adapt their “body clocks” to an alternative sleep pattern
• You are three times more likely to be in a car crash if you are fatigued
• Being awake for more than 20 hours is the equivalent of being legally drunk

Fight Fatigue with Evolved Safety

We know those statistics look scary, but there’s a silver lining – you’ve already taken your first step in mitigating fatigue in your workplace by reading this blog. The need to understand the issue and consider what fatigue could look like in your workplace is a great starting point. Here are some general pointers you can give to your workers to help them combat fatigue from the NSC:

• Get enough sleep and provide for adequate rest between physically or cognitively demanding activities.
• Talk to their doctor about getting screened for sleeping disorders.
• Align their natural body clock with their work schedule.
• For workers on the night shift, mention maintaining a consistent sleep schedule even on their days off and to use blackout curtains.

As a safety professional, you can take mitigating fatigue risk for you and your coworkers at the workplace a step further with Evolved Safety. We’ll help you look at your current safety training plan to see where tweaks and changes can be made to keep your staff well-rested and alert on the job.

Let us know how we can help. Call or email us for your free consultation.

What Evolved Safety Added for YOU in 2018

We say it every January, but it’s always true – the past year went by fast. And what a great year it was! From new training formats to topics to regulations, we worked hard to bring you the best safety solutions possible! This last year we were able to add several items to our offering line-up to help ensure you’ve got the best tools and training at your beck and call. So here we go, folks – let’s review our favorite new training additions from 2018!

• Micro-Learning – The micro-learning approach gives you shorter 3-5 minute training sessions that work to easily fit into your employees’ work days, keeping productivity high by challenging and improving upon traditional training methods.
• Virtual Reality – In the safety training space, this technology provides a virtual environment that causes the user to immerse themselves in a 360 degree virtual world by using sight, sound, and sometimes motion to provide a realistic experience.
• Streaming Video options – We have new Individual Training Courses, which means you can receive your favorite training programs available as SCORM-compliant – from Alcohol, Drugs & Driving to Forklift: Distractions and more.
• Aon Risk Solutions Partners with Evolved Safety – Aon’s Casualty Risk Consulting practice provides comprehensive prevention and loss mitigation solutions for clients through expertise in safety and prevention programs, ergonomics, transportation, product risk, compliance, claim mitigation and risk control, all supporting the reduction of the organization’s’ total cost of risk.

Ring in the New Year with safety style – Evolved Safety can help. Give us a call and let’s talk.

Start 2019 Off with a Bang!
(And see where we’re exhibiting!)

We’ve got a sneak peek of what’s ahead on the calendar this year safety-wise – and you can get your own downloadable calendar, too. But first, we want to give you a heads-up on three of our favorite shows that we’ll be attending!

Michigan Safety Conference

• April 16-17, 2019
• Devos Place
• Grand Rapids, MI

ASSP – American Society of Safety Professional

• June 9-12, 2019
• Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Convention Center
• New Orleans, LA

NSC

• September 9-11, 2019
• San Diego Conference Center
• San Diego, CA

Interested in coming to any of these events? Give us call and we can help point you in the right direction!

Our Bags are Packed and We’re Ready to Go…
See you at NSC – Booth #2657!

Alright let’s see some hands… Anyone else as excited as we are for National Safety Council Congress & Expo? We’re heading out to Houston, TX this coming 20th through the 24th and can’t wait – it’s the perfect opportunity for us to keep a tight pulse on anything EH&S… and not to mention meet new people and greet customers, acquaintances, and friends!

A quick recap of what this event is all about: Put on by the National Safety Council, this is the world’s largest annual “must attend” event for safety, health, and environmental professionals. As long-time attendees and exhibitors, we love experiencing the industry-leading technology, education, and products and services that are at the forefront of the EH&S industry.

Stop by booth #2657 if you’re in town for the show. There might even be a few prizes and surprises… and there’s only one way to find out!

Welcome to October – And Fire Prevention Week
Know What to do At Home and at Work

We love the changing colors of Fall just as much as we love Summer’s sunny days, but safety doesn’t cool off with the weather. October’s safety calendar includes Fire Prevention Week that’s put on by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), with this year’s dates falling on the 7th-13th.

The theme for 2018 is “Look. Listen. Learn. Be aware. Fire can happen anywhere,” and works to educate people about three basic – and essential – steps that can be taken to reduce the likelihood of having a fire and how to escape safely in the event of one at your home. Let’s break it down:

1. LOOK – Look for places fire could start. Take a good look around your home. Identify potential fire hazards and take care of them.
2. LISTEN – Listen for the sound of the smoke alarm. You could have only minutes to escape safely once the smoke alarm sounds. Go to your outside meeting place, which should be a safe distance from the home and where everyone should know to meet.
3. LEARN – Learn two ways out of every room and make sure all doors and windows leading outside open easily and are free of clutter.

What’s at your Workplace?
So now you know what do do at home… do you know your company’s fire safety strategy? Do your employees? Take a moment to look at your workplace fire prevention and emergency plan and make sure you’ve got standards in place… because if not, you should.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) states that employers should train workers about fire hazards in the workplace and about what to do in a fire emergency. For example, if workers need to evacuate, they should be trained on how to escape, or if workers must know how to fight small fires, they should be given the appropriate equipment and trained to use the equipment safely. As stated by OSHA, all fire prevention plans must:

• Include housekeeping procedures for storage and cleanup of flammable materials and flammable waste.
• Address handling and packaging of flammable waste. Additionally, recycling of flammable waste, i.e. paper, is encouraged.
• Cover procedures for controlling workplace ignition sources, such as smoking, welding, and burning.
• Provide for proper cleaning and maintenance of heat producing equipment, such as burners, heat exchangers, boilers, ovens, stoves, and fryers, and require storage of flammables away from this equipment.
• Inform workers of the potential fire hazards of their jobs and plan procedures.
• Require plan review with all new employees and with all employees whenever the plan is changed.

Remember, ALWAYS call 911 immediately when you notice a fire and don’t hang up with the emergency responder until told to do so – both at home and at work.

Need Fire Prevention safety training? Give us a call today – we’ve got the resources and know-how to get you exactly what you need for your workplace.