Fatigue is a health risk at workplace; however, it can be managed. Fatigue compromises on worker health, both physical and psychological, which increases chances of poor health, minor unsafe acts, serious accidents and low productivity.

Since 1910, with widespread use of electric light, the sleep time of an average person has dropped from 9 hours to 7.5 hours or less. 

Constant tiredness is fatigue. It is a feeling you get when one has flu or have missed a lot of sleep. Fatigue, sometimes makes it difficult to manage the daily chores. In most cases, fatigue has a medical cause like, anemia, allergies, depression, sleep disorders, inadequate nutrients, chronic kidney diseases, liver disease, lung disease, cancer, viral fever etc. In some fatigue has an environmental cause – poor ventilation, excessive heat, lack of potable water especially for outdoor workers etc.

Fatigue can cause air crash, patient harm, dip in sports performance, industrial accidents, business failures, political errors etc.

Fatigue is not just caused by poor sleep, although it is an important rectifiable cause. Fatigue in a worker could be due to hazards at workplace, namely, physical, chemical, biological, psychosocial etc. Fatigue also has a strong psychosocial element. Hence it is imperative to identify all these at workplace and mitigate them to ALARP (as low as reasonably practicable) to protect worker health, including fatigue.    

Fatigue leads to lack of energy, drowsiness, apathy, and difficulty in thinking.

Fatigue can cause air crash, patient harm, dip in sports performance, industrial accidents, business failures, political errors etc.

It is important to know the various types of fatigue so that appropriate actions could be taken to mitigate the risks due to them. The types of fatigue are: physiologic fatigue, secondary fatigue and chronic fatigue.

Physiologic fatigue is when lifestyle factors are causing it, like, overexercising, sleep issues, diet, non-medical causes etc. Secondary fatigue, usually lasts from 1 to 6 months, is due to a medical condition and the person bounces back once treatment is instituted. Chronic fatigue, usually caused by a new illness under investigation, lasts longer than 6 months and doesn’t get better with rest or sleep.

Excessive working hours is known to cause work-related fatigue. Since 1910, with widespread use of electric light, the sleep time of an average person has dropped from 9 hours to 7.5 hours or less. 

 

Work can cause the worker to suffer from fatigue, and fatigue can cause the work and the worker to suffer; reason why Fatigue Management shouldn’t be ignored.

Business owners must be aware that fatigue in workers can lead to low productivity and major accidents. Hence they must hire skills to manage fatigue in workers.

Some basic things that business owners can implement to reduce the risk of fatigue to their businesses are:

  • The workplace must strive to have a culture where workers can voice their concerns without fear of being reprimanded. If the workers are fatigued, they must voice it, rather than face with low productivity or major industrial accidents
  • Medical checks must be done in all employees and treatment instituted as necessary to correct medical conditions that are known to cause fatigue
  • Environmental factors causing fatigue should be mitigated – poor ventilation, excessive heat, lack of potable water especially for outdoor workers etc.
  • A fatigue test, like done by some airlines on their pilots, must be done especially in workers expected to operate complex machinery, working at heights, doing critical works in control room of large petrochemical industries etc.
  • Office-based workers (banking, IT etc.) should be encouraged to take frequent breaks while working with computers and encouraged to go out in the open at least once daily as working indoors for long hours in air-conditioned offices with unopenable windows can also set fatigue in some workers. There is no substitute for occasional fresh air  
  • Workers, both working in offices, factories, hazardous industries, drivers, railway motorman, pilots etc. should undergo awareness session, their work hours regulated, and overtime discouraged

The OH physicians usually establish a Fatigue Management Program in the industry they work, however, getting continued management support is important, else the program fails and desired outcomes aren’t achieved.

How can a business owner send workers back home in an unhealthy state?

In MSMEs (Micro Small Medium Enterprises), the business owners may depend on advice of private medical practitioners who have reasonable skills to guide them to manage work-related health issues, fatigue being one of them.

Few things should be understood by all – work, lack of sleep, medical and environmental conditions can cause fatigue. Creating an awareness of these few things would allow organizations to manage a lot of fatigue issues themselves with some medical inputs from outside.

Jamsetji Tata’s example is for all those MSMEs who do not get the services of an OH physician – be aware of your workers problem, be compassionate about the problem and be willing to take action to lessen the problem faced by the worker, especially health problems due to the work he/she does for you.

This reminds me of Jamsetji Tata when in 1895 during the opening of new extension of Empress Mills in Nagpur, India, he said, ‘we have provided fans for ventilation, humidifiers to prevent the effects of extremely dry air, khus-khus tatties for cooling the rooms, which must, by the nature of our business, get hotter in the hot weather. But still we are not satisfied with what we have done.’ I am sure there was no Occupational Health (OH) physician to advise Jamsetji as 130 years ago even the developed world was struggling to lay down fundamentals of Occupational Health.

Jamsetji Tata’s example is for all those MSMEs who do not get the services of an OH physician – be aware of your workers problem, be compassionate about the problem and be willing to take action to lessen the problem faced by the worker, especially health problems due to the work he/she does for you.

How can a business owner send workers back home in an unhealthy state? Hazards causing an unhealthy state should be mitigated to ALARP (as low as reasonably practicable), sometimes using awareness, compassion and willingness, especially in absence of an advice from a OH physician.

Work can cause the worker to suffer from fatigue, and fatigue can cause the work and the worker to suffer; reason why Fatigue Management shouldn’t be ignored.

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Dr Ajay Sati is an Occupational Health physician who prefers to describe himself as an Occupationist, to denote, ‘an expert in diseases and other concerns of occupations.’ Dr Sati has managed health and wellness programs in industries he worked, like the atomic energy, and energy (oil & gas) in India and overseas. An experienced virtual consultation expert he was involved in many greenfield and brownfield projects providing inputs from health point of view.