All workplaces will experience accidents, errors and omissions of some magnitude from time to time. Many of these, upon investigation, will be found to be the result of sleep deprivation and fatigue, even though the official categorization may be ‘human error.’
In transportation and health care, investigations subsequent to any accident or error usually give consideration to the possibility of sleep deprivation or fatigue as these sectors are known to have high rates of both. However, the investigation of all accidents and errors in the workplace should give consideration to the possibility of sleep deprivation or fatigue as a root cause of the accident or error. This is because many ‘human error’ accidents are the result of poor judgment and reasoning, failure to attend to information or inattention. All of these can be the result of sleep deprivation and fatigue.
Consider the example of a bartender who, at the end of the late shift, goes to restock the coolers. While lifting the cartons of bottles, he loses his balance and falls, causing injury to his back. On the surface, this would seem to be a pretty straightforward incident. However, one should also consider how much the employee was lifting and his reasoning in deciding how much and how to lift. If the employee was extremely fatigued, he may have made an error in judgment that caused him to attempt lifting more than was safe. Even if the load was one that he was accustomed to handling, his fatigue may have decreased his capacity for lifting the load.
Strategies for Health and Safety
Employees need to learn about the behaviors associated with sleep deprivation and fatigue and how these can get played out in their work. Employees also need to recognize when they are sleepy and fatigued and recognize that they may not be able to work with the same effort that they would expect in a more refreshed and alert state.
If you are investigating a workplace error or accident and you wish to determine if sleep deprivation or fatigue were at play, you will want to consider the following:
How many hours had this employee been at work? Research has shown that after 16 hours, the fatigue, and therefore, the risk, rises markedly.
How many hours had this employee been awake prior to coming to work? The longer this time, the higher level of sleepiness and fatigue one would expect.
How much sleep did this employee get in the day or week leading up to this day? A variety of personal and/or work circumstances can lead to minimal sleep for a lengthy period with the resulting high level of sleep deprivation.
Is this employee suffering from an undiagnosed sleep disorder? Some polls suggest that a majority of those with sleep disorders do not even realize they have a disorder much less get treatment for it. Undiagnosed sleep disorders result in high levels of sleepiness day and night.
Has this employee had any near misses in the last several weeks or months leading up to this day or have any other employees observed sleepiness in this employee?
Strategies for Health and Safety
Managers, occupational health and safety professionals and risk managers should be thoroughly versed in the behaviors associated with sleepiness and fatigue. This will allow them to recognize those employees and times of the day or night when they need to be particularly vigilant so as to prevent errors and accidents.