Fatigue Management: The Ultimate Guide for Managing the Risk of Fatigue at Work

Fatigued workers pose a risk to themselves, their colleagues, and your organization. They will react more slowly (often in critical moments), be more sluggish, have trouble concentrating, and have poorer judgment. 

The chance of a safety-critical mistake occurring is much higher. Some studies suggest that workers who have slept for less than five hours before work or have been awake for more than 16 hours are at a significantly higher risk of human error. In an industry like healthcare, fatigue-related mistakes can cost patients their lives.  

Fatigued workers may also take more risks due to poor emotional regulation, putting themselves and their coworkers at risk of workplace incidents and accidents.

They may even fall asleep, which can be especially dangerous at the wheel or while operating heavy machinery.  

When are workplace accidents due to fatigue most likely to occur?

Workplace accidents caused by fatigue are more likely to occur between midnight and 6am when our bodies tell us we should be sleeping and between 1 and 3pm when people have a natural mid-afternoon slump (according to a Government of Alberta Labour report).

It’s recommended that supervisors avoid scheduling safety-critical tasks during these times to reduce the risks of fatigue. Safety-critical tasks are considered those where the consequences of human error or a lack of judgment could be dangerous or catastrophic. For example, driving a commercial vehicle, operating heavy machinery, performing surgical procedures, turning on electrical power, or working with explosive substances. If a task is deemed to be hazardous, it’s best completed during daytime hours when fatigue is less likely to be an issue.

Industry-Specific Fatigue Management: Special Considerations for 7 Sectors

Certain industries are at a greater risk of experiencing the effects of fatigue. Particularly, industries with 24/7 operations, shift work, and those offering emergency services have a higher probability of fatigue-related accidents. Many of these sectors also tend to be especially hazardous and safety sensitive, leading to more catastrophic effects if a fatigue-related incident were to occur.

What’s more, industries that require a high output per worker per hour, suffer from challenges related to shiftwork absenteeism and worker efficacy, and have a high cost of site downtime tend to benefit from fatigue management programs to improve productivity and efficiency.

1. Fatigue Management in Mining

Mining operations usually have operators working shift work, including overnight, to cover 24/7 operations.

Many aspects of mining operations also contribute to fatigue risk, including underground operations, poor lighting, extreme temperatures, strenuous work, and vibrations. The work is known to be dangerous, often requiring driving or the use of heavy machinery.

In fact, a study by Caterpillar Global Mining indicates that an estimated 65% of mining haul truck accidents can be attributed to operator fatigue. 

That’s why fatigue management in mining is growing as a critical factor in health and safety.

READ: Orica Deploys Readi Fatigue Management Platform at Mines across Mexico and Dominican Republic

2. Fatigue Management for Commercial Drivers 

Commercial fleet operations typically see drivers driving long distances – monotonous work in a warm, comfortable environment that requires continuous mental alertness. If a truck driver is fatigued, an incident could lead to a nuclear event that includes fatalities.

That’s why the transportation industry should prioritize fatigue management. While many safety teams are more focused on distracted driving and speeding, the reality is that fatigue is often a contributing factor to commercial driving accidents, even if it can be difficult to attribute accidents to fatigue.

Fatigue management for truck drivers should include administrative processes and procedures, including tracking and following hours of service regulations, creating a driver fatigue management policy for pre-shift fatigue assessments and countermeasures, and driver fatigue training for all employees – drivers, dispatch, and managers alike. 

WHITEPAPER: Readi Integrates with All Major ELDs for Personalized Driver Fatigue Predictions

3. Fatigue Management for Utilities

In the utilities industry, health and safety are a top priority. Utilities workers often work long hours, overtime, and shift work to restore power during emergencies. They work at high elevations, underground, and handle dangerous equipment, energized lines, and chemicals. 

The risk of fatigue-related human error in the utilities industry can lead to catastrophic safety incidents and accidents.

Fatigue management in utility operations can reduce safety risks and keep workers safe.

4. Fatigue Management for Oil & Gas

Work in oil and gas is physically demanding and often hazardous. Operators often work in dangerous environments and in extreme temperatures. Workers often fly in and fly out, sleep in camps, and work long hours for consecutive days. 

Fatigue in the oil and gas industry is common, and it is considered a productivity, cost, and safety issue. Fatigue-related errors and incidents can erode profits and put workers at unnecessary risk of harm. 

Fatigue management in oil and gas should be standard in operations. 

5. Fatigue Risk Management in Aviation

In aviation, fatigue can affect both flight crews and maintenance personnel due to long hours, irregular hours, and shift work schedules. Fatigue has been identified as a contributing factor in many flight incidents and accidents involving helicopters and planes. 

Fatigue impairment reduces reaction times, can lead to decreased attention, and is known to impair judgment, all of which can heighten the risks of accidents in aviation. 

A fatigue risk management system is often used to prevent fatigue risk in aviation. 

6. Fatigue Management in Manufacturing

It is common for employees in manufacturing plants to work overtime and extended shifts, often overnight. Couple this with the fact that the work is often repetitive and strenuous, and it’s clear why manufacturing is considered a high-risk sector for fatigue.

7. Fatigue Management in Construction

Construction can take many forms, yet it almost always includes high hazard and safety sensitive tasks that typically include driving and the use of heavy machinery. Workers are known to work irregular hours, long hours, and shift work to maximize operational efficiency.

A fatigue-related accident on a construction site can have devastating results on worker health and safety, as well as productivity. A fatigue management policy in construction can help keep workers safe. 

While all workplaces can experience the risks of fatigue, these seven sectors are especially susceptible and should prioritize fatigue management as a health and safety issue.

Building a Holistic Fatigue Management Program to Mitigate Fatigue

As mentioned earlier, there are three approaches to fatigue management in the workplace. Ideally, your organization would implement all three approaches to mitigate fatigue risk holistically. This is the most effective fatigue mitigation strategy.

Here, we will provide guidance on conducting an organizational fatigue risk assessment, share a step-by-step guide for creating a fatigue management policy, and describe the different types of reactive and predictive fatigue management technology that can help prevent and manage fatigue in the workplace. 

READ: How to Implement A Proactive and Data-Driven Fatigue Risk Management Program

Conducting a Fatigue Risk Assessment

To create a fatigue management plan, you first need to identify all foreseeable sources of fatigue at your workplace. These factors may vary for different employee pools. Not all workers will be on shift work schedules, and not all workers will travel as part of the job, for example. Still, you should identify any and all potential, foreseeable factors that may contribute to an employee’s risk of fatigue.

Using a fatigue risk assessment checklist can help.

Organizational Fatigue Risk Assessment Checklist

Is your organization at a heightened risk of fatigue?

This fatigue risk assessment checklist will help you determine whether a fatigue risk management plan would be appropriate for your company.

Undertaking a fatigue management risk assessment will help you find out:

• Which workers (including contractors) are at a high risk of fatigue
• Which employee pools or job sites are at a higher risk
• How often fatigue is likely to occur 
• The severity of consequences at risk
• Which common causes of fatigue in the workplace you’re dealing with, in order to determine how best to control and mitigate your risk level

Before you start filling out the fatigue risk assessment checklist, consider taking the following action items:

Action 1: Audit your workforce: Talk to managers, supervisors, health and safety leaders, and workers to learn more about your fatigue risk. 

Action 2: Examine worker schedules and sign in/out sheets to determine working hours for different employee pools. Are there any red flags of consecutive days of work, long hours, or excessive overtime?

Action 3: If available to you, review workplace incident data to determine if fatigue is a root cause of accidents in the workplace. Consider what time of day the incidents occurred, if they occurred while traveling, and how long the workers had worked before the incident occurred.

Action 4: Review HR trends. Often, trends of consistent understaffing or turnover can indicate a high probability of fatigue risks, such as the need for excessive working hours for your staff.

Note: When analyzing your company’s unique risk factors for fatigue, consider both the probability of an incident occurring as well as the severity of consequences if it were to occur. For example, an office worker falling asleep at their desk may have a high probability but will have a low consequence level. A driver operating a commercial transport truck at night would have a high probability of an incident occurring as well as catastrophic consequences, making it a much higher risk level.

For each item, assess the level of risk and determine whether it is High, Medium, Low, or N/A.

Creating a Workplace Fatigue Management Policy

Fatigue is considered impairment. Just as most organizations have policies to manage drug and alcohol impairment on site, most also have fatigue management plans. It is usually the first step taken to mitigate fatigue risk in the workplace. 

While a workplace fatigue policy may not be mandatory, it is an effective way to ensure fatigue management safety procedures are in place that prioritize your workers’ health and safety. It can be a standalone policy or it can be included in a more comprehensive health and safety policy.

What to Include in Your Fatigue Management Policy

Because every workplace is diverse, with different job duties, work schedules, employee types, and work environments, there is no one-size-fits-all fatigue management plan. Organizations must establish their own policies in an effort to mitigate their unique fatigue risks.

However, a thorough workplace fatigue management policy typically includes the following processes, procedures, and guidelines:

Roles and Responsibilities

Fatigue management is everyone’s responsibility in the workplace. Your fatigue management policy should list the expected roles and responsibilities related to fatigue management for:

• Front-line workers: Get enough sleep, eat a healthy diet, avoid drugs and alcohol before their upcoming shifts, alert supervisor if they are fatigue impaired
• Supervisors/managers: Conduct pre-shift fatigue assessments, put fatigue countermeasures in place if fatigue risk is present
• Dispatch: Make go/no-go decisions for fatigue impaired drivers and call replacement drivers
• Health and safety teams: Create fatigue management policy, update guidelines with best practices, review fatigue trends and forecasts, implement fatigue risk management software
• Operations/superintendent: Ensure safe and productive work environments, ensure safe shift schedule design, support fatigue risk management software implementation
• HR teams: Ensure proper staffing levels to reduce risks of overtime

Guidelines for Shift Work Schedule Designs

• Offer a choice of permanent roster or rotating shifts
• Limit shifts to 12 hours, including overtime
• Consider commuting time in shift work (no more than 14 hours total working and commuting time)
• Limit shifts to 8 hours if on night shift or if the work is particularly demanding or dangerous (using shift work scheduling software with a fatigue simulation tool can help)
• Restrict the number of successive night shifts (no more than 4 maximum night shifts in a row)
• Ensure enough time to rest between shifts (12 hours recommended)
• Avoid early morning start times (start day shift no earlier than 7am)
• If shifts must start before 7am, schedule 8-hour shifts rather than 12 hour shifts to prevent fatigue risks later in the shift
• Allow 2 nights of sleep at a minimum after the last night shift in a schedule
• Establish a maximum number of working hours per week (no more than 50 hours is recommended)
• Deny overtime option for shift workers working 12-hour shifts
• Limit consecutive work days in your roster design (recommended 7 days working consecutively as a maximum)
• Build free weekends into your schedule for all workers, at least every 3 weeks
• Use forward rotation of shifts (morning, then afternoon, then night) and avoid a backward rotation
• Schedule shift start and end times in line with public transit if possible to prevent drowsy commutes
• Keep shift schedules predictable
• Take employee preferences into account where possible
• Schedule regular break times

Always ensure you’re following your region’s and your industry’s regulations when creating shift schedules. There may already be guidelines to follow in terms of maximum hours of work, overtime, break times, and travel time.

Guidelines for Assessing Fatigue in the Workplace

Humans are notoriously bad at self-assessing their levels of fatigue. Further, even though a worker feels alert enough to work safely at the start of shift, what will their fatigue levels be eight hours or 10 hours into the shift?

It’s a good idea to have guidelines in place in your fatigue management policy for assessing fatigue levels at the start of shift. 

• You could have a set of established questions that supervisors must ask all workers before their shifts start. 
• You could establish a mandatory pre-shift safety briefing where supervisors must review safety information ahead of a shift, including the risks of fatigue. 
• If you use fatigue management technology, this would be a good time to go over individual fatigue levels with high-risk workers and come up with a plan to mitigate fatigue risk during the shift (such as rotating tasks or scheduling rest breaks).

Guidelines for When Employees Are Too Fatigued to Work Safely

What happens if an operator is considered to be too fatigue impaired to work, whether from their own self-assessment or in a supervisor’s opinion? You should have a policy in place with guidelines that supervisors, managers, or dispatch can follow in this case.

Ideally, non-punitive steps should be taken to ensure all employees feel comfortable alerting their supervisors to the potential risk on the job site. 

For example:

What should dispatch do if a transport driver states they believe they are too fatigued to drive safely at the start of their shift? Ideally, they would be sent home without punishment and a replacement driver called in (one who’s existing shift schedule does not put them at a heightened fatigue risk to take on an additional shift).

What should a supervisor do if they believe, through visual assessment, that a worker is too fatigued to work safely mid-shift. Perhaps they have a policy to send them for a cup of coffee or a nap or to send them home early.

List of Fatigue Countermeasures

Fatigue countermeasures should be appropriate to the situation. Often, supervisors know there is fatigue risk on their site but simply do not know what to do about it when the situation arises.

Having an established list of countermeasures for them to choose from based on the worker, shift, fatigue risk level, and task can help them make the right decisions that support worker health and safety.

Here is a list of countermeasures you can use to build off of in your own fatigue management plan. It is by no means an exhaustive list. Use the context of your organization’s unique fatigue risks, employee pool, physical environment, shift schedule design, and associated safety protocols to create your own established list of fatigue countermeasures. 

Incident Investigation

Your fatigue management plan should state the established process for investigating the possibility of fatigue as a contributing factor to health and safety incidents as well as significant operational errors. 

Fatigue is widely underreported. Workers will rarely admit that fatigue was the root cause of an incident or error. During the health and safety department’s incident investigation process, steps should be taken to determine whether fatigue was a factor, and which causes of fatigue may have contributed to the accident. 

For example, along with gathering basic information about the incident immediately after it occurs, dig deeper in the worker’s schedule. Did the incident occur on a night shift? At what time? How many consecutive days was the operator working at the time? Did the accident occur on an overtime shift or at the end of a long 12-hour shift? 

Also consider whether the task at the time of the incident was monotonous, repetitive, physically demanding, or mentally demanding.

When taking witness statements, ask questions revolving around the worker’s reaction times, mood, and physical appearance. Were they yawning a lot, working slower than usual or in an unusually bad mood – all of these are signs of fatigue.

When interviewing the worker, don’t focus solely on the incident. Go beyond the scope of the accident and ask fatigue-specific questions, such as how much sleep they got before their shift, how tired they feel, and how alert they felt before the incident occurred. If applicable, review your fatigue risk management data for the worker in question. This provides objective data about the worker’s fatigue levels leading up to the incident. Were they at a higher risk of fatigue that day? Did the supervisor receive any fatigue alerts and assign any fatigue countermeasures?

When reviewing the physical environment, look beyond common safety hazards for factors that commonly contribute to factor, such as dim lighting, extreme temperatures, or expensive noise. 

Keep fatigue in mind as a potential contributing factor when conducting your root cause analysis. Although you may have identified another cause for the incident such as environmental factors or equipment failure, it’s possible that fatigue was still a contributing factor. As such, it would be important to develop corrective actions not only for the direct cause but for all contributing causes to prevent a similar incident from occurring again.

Fatigue Management Training Programs

One of the most common fatigue mitigation strategies is the implementation of a fatigue management training program. Education is a powerful tool, and fatigue management training can be effective for employees and managers alike. 

Often, we see fatigue training programs exist as part of a larger one-time health and safety initiative. Sometimes, it’s a standard part of onboarding when employees are hired or promoted to a leadership role. Other times, it’s a regular annual or bi-annual occurrence.

Fatigue management training can take many different forms:

Sleep Hygiene Program

A sleep hygiene program is typically targeted specifically to shift workers or night shift workers who could benefit from it most.

This fatigue management training program provides education on better sleep practices. Its goal is to help employees get enough sleep and get better quality sleep to manage the health and safety impacts of shift work

This type of fatigue management course typically goes over:

• The importance of sleep on physical and mental health
• The impact of drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and diet on sleep
• Signs of fatigue impairment
• Strategies to improve sleep hygiene/sleep routine
• Tips for adjusting to shift work, and particularly night shift

Fatigue Awareness Training

Fatigue awareness training is often provided to all employees, from front-line workers to field workers to supervisors.

Its goal is to raise awareness of fatigue, its risks, and its causes in an effort to prevent it.

This fatigue management course may include:

• fatigue meaning
• Common causes of fatigue
• Sleep disorders, including sleep apnea and narcolepsy
• The risks of fatigue on workers’ health and safety in the workplace
• Personal strategies to get more sleep and get better sleep, such as information on diet, exercise, caffeine use, alcohol use, and effective sleep environments

Fatigue Risk Management Course for Supervisors

On top of a sleep hygiene program, organizations may also want to enroll their supervisors and managers in a more advanced fatigue risk management course. This is particularly targeted to those who would be responsible for overseeing shift workers.

The goal of the course is to help supervisors identify and mitigate fatigue risk to reduce fatigue-related incidents and accidents.

The type of course typically includes information on:

• How to identify fatigue risk
• The impact of fatigue on health and safety tasks
• Fatigue countermeasures and ways to mitigate fatigue on shift
• Shift work schedule designs that reduce the risk of fatigue
• How to integrate fatigue management into pre-shift safety briefings and how to use fatigue monitoring systems

Advanced Fatigue Risk Assessment Training

You may want your health and safety officers to receive more advanced training. After all, they are responsible for safety policies, and as such, should be well-versed in fatigue mitigation and prevention.

This type of fatigue management training course goes over:

• Relevant laws and regulations related to fatigue
• How to conduct a fatigue risk assessment
• Methods for identifying fatigue risks in different environments
• Methods of fatigue monitoring and different types of fatigue management technologies and solutions
• How to conduct a fatigue-related incident investigation

This training can enable safety officers to integrate fatigue risk management into broader safety policies across the organization.

Driver Fatigue Management Training

If you work in a transportation-heavy industry, then it may be wise to set up driver fatigue management training. Workers who operate commercial vehicles or heavy machinery are at a higher risk of devastating consequences from fatigue incidents. Driver fatigue management training can help them self-identify fatigue risk and manage their fatigue more effectively to safely operate their vehicles and machinery.

Contents of this fatigue management course may include:

• Laws and regulations surrounding fatigue management, including hours of work and breaks
• Fatigue monitoring software used by your organization, such as in-cab fatigue cameras or predictive fatigue management technology
• Information on microsleeps and signs of fatigue to look out for
• Pre-shift fatigue assessment tools, such as alertness questionnaire and reaction time tests they may be required to take
• Emergency procedures in the event of an incident or severe fatigue impairment 

This training can keep operators safer on the road and when operating heavy machinery.

Fatigue Risk Prevention Strategies and Countermeasures

Once you’ve identified all conceivable fatigue risks, you can consider the best way to mitigate them. 

In some cases, you may be able to eliminate sources of fatigue in the workplace. This can be done ahead of time at the organizational or administrative level. In other cases, however, the best you can reasonably expect is to reduce their impact with strategies for the management of fatigue. In these cases, supervisors will need to make daily decisions to manage fatigue risk on their work site.

For example, you can eliminate the risk of office employees falling asleep at the wheel by creating a remote working policy that allows them to skip a long commute. However, you cannot eliminate driving altogether if you manage a transportation company. You can, though, implement a fatigue risk management system (more on that later) or limit overnight driving to reduce the risk.

1. Mitigating Scheduling Risks

Arguably, the most significant factors contributing to an increased fatigue risk are related to work schedules, including:

• Shift work
• Night work
• Hours of work
• Breaks
• Fly-in, Fly-out
• Drive-in, Drive-out
• Seasonal, on-call, and emergency services work arrangements

In industries with 24/7 operations, there will always be a risk of fatigue on the work site. Night shift and shift work always poses a risk of circadian fatigue. 

The good news is fatigue risks caused by schedule design can be easily identified. Roster design can often be adjusted to reduce fatigue. 

A good way to do this is to use a shift roster tool to simulate different shift patterns and determine their effect on fatigue. For example, changing your roster design to give workers more time to recover between shifts, reducing shift length, mandating maximum hours of work per week, and adding more scheduled breaks to shifts can all help reduce fatigue risk. 

At the HR level, ensure staff levels are high. When you’re not chronically understaffed, the likelihood of employees having to work double shifts and overtime is greatly reduced. Avoid work arrangements that give workers incentives to work overtime, and ensure you create strict policies around on-call duties, shift swapping, and excessive hours worked. You should have a roster of workers to call on in cases of emergencies, sick leave requests, and increased workloads to ensure your employees do not need to work excess hours, which heightens the risk of fatigue. Having a relief pool of workers in cases where fatigue impaired individuals need to be sent home can also mitigate risk. Many organizations also implement processes to encourage workers to take accrued leave to give them time to relax and feel mentally refreshed.

Your fatigue management policy should include these fatigue management guidelines for schedule design. These guidelines should be strictly implemented by those creating shift work schedules.

Best and Worst Shift Schedules for Fatigue

One of the easiest ways to mitigate fatigue is to choose the right shift work schedule – one that offers workers enough time to commute, sleep, eat, and have leisure time between shifts, that does not disrupt sleep, and that does not disrupt circadian rhythms.

Compare these best and worst shift schedules and their impact on fatigue.

Best Shift Schedule for Fatigue Risk:

Fixed Shift

• A fixed shift offers consistent work hours, which allows workers to maintain regular sleep-wake cycles. When a schedule is predictable, employees are more likely to get better quality sleep. Of course, fixed day shifts with a morning start at or later than 7am are best as they align with our natural circadian rhythm.

Forward-Rotating Shifts

• If workers are required to work rotating shifts, forward-rotating shifts that have employees working day shift then evening shift then night shift is preferable. It is more aligned with the natural circadian rhythm, making it easier to adjust to new shift timings.

12-Hour Shifts

• 12-hour shifts may seem to be worse for fatigue management, but this schedule actually works well. The only caveat here is that workers must be allowed consecutive days off to make up for the long hours worked to ensure proper rest.

Worst Shift Schedules for Fatigue Risk

Permanent night shift

• There is no surprise that a permanent night shift is notoriously bad for workers’ fatigue levels and overall health. This shift disrupts our natural sleep-wake cycle, leads to circadian rhythm misalignment, and can lead to poor sleep quality and chronic sleep deprivation. Working more than 3-4 night shifts in a row is a significant contributor to fatigue and should be avoided.

Backward-Rotating Shift

• Having workers rotate from night shift to evening shift to day shift makes it difficult for workers to adjust their internal clocks, due to the lack of recovery time between shifts.

Split Shifts

• Employees who must work two short shifts in the same day suffer from higher levels of fatigue due to a fragmented work-rest pattern. 

When designing a shift schedule, prioritize sufficient rest to reduce fatigue and improve safety and productivity. 

Common Types of 24-Hour Shift Work Schedules

2. Mitigating Risks Related to Job Duties and Task Assignment

You can also mitigate the risks that fatigue poses, such as accidents and incidents, by scheduling safety-sensitive tasks for daytime hours when workers are most alert. Avoid scheduling safety-critical tasks between the hours of 2am and 6am and 2pm and 4pm.

Further, structure job tasks so that the most demanding tasks are completed mid-shift and ease up by the end of the shift.

For repetitive tasks, make sure you have fit-for-purpose equipment, such as anti-fatigue mats and lifting equipment. 

Redesign task assignments to limit periods of excessive mental or physical demands. Introduce job rotation when appropriate.

Offer frequent breaks for hydration, nutrition, physical movement, and mental breaks to break up strenuous, mentally or physically taxing, or monotonous job tasks.

Plan for task reassignments if any worker shows signs of fatigue impairment during a shift.

3. Mitigating Environmental Contributors to Fatigue

Environmental conditions can be easy to identify, but more difficult to mitigate. While you may have more significant control over work schedules, you will not be able to completely eliminate harsh environmental conditions that workers must work in. This is especially true in high-hazard industries like oil & gas, construction, utilities, and mining.

Yet, you can still help reduce some of the stress. 

Here are some fatigue management strategies you can apply to mitigate environmental factors:

• Adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) like hearing protection can help with excessively noisy environments. If necessary, install sound-absorbing materials, acoustic barriers, and noise-canceling technology.
• Jobsite lights, including high-lumen headlamps can help with dim lighting, especially in underground work or on night shift.
• When extreme temperatures are present, avoid work or trigger a job rotation to minimize exposure.
• Provide a cool environment and proper hydration during extreme heat, as well as a warm, enclosed space for breaks during extreme cold. Provide clothes designed for temperature regulation.
• Install proper ventilation and cooling devices, especially in enclosed spaces or underground.
• Install low-vibration seats in machinery such as haul trucks and provide low-vibration equipment if possible. Anti-vibration gloves can also help with shock absorption. 
• In underground work

4. Helping Employees to Manage Personal Sources of Fatigue

There are some causes of fatigue that you will not be able to directly manage. However, you can help employees manage their personal sources of fatigue by offering support, knowledge, and fatigue awareness training. 

• Provide educational materials and fatigue management training to help workers understand the common causes of fatigue, the risks of fatigue, and how best to mitigate them. 
• Provide strategies to temporarily relieve fatigue while working long hours or on night shift.
• Provide actionable tips to encourage workers to improve their sleep hygiene and environment.
• Provide access to medical support for sleep disorder screening
• Provide knowledge on how their habits and lifecycle factors, such as diet and alcohol use, can affect their level of fatigue. 
• Ensure workers understand their roles and responsibilities in fatigue management.

Fatigue Management Technology

For many workplaces in low-risk industries, administrative fatigue management plans and policies are enough to prevent and mitigate fatigue risk. For example, companies with workforces that primarily work 9-to-5 day shifts likely wouldn’t require further fatigue mitigation strategies. 

However, for those in high-risk industries, such as mining or transportation, fatigue management technology should be used in conjunction with administrative fatigue management.

Organizations typically evolve from administrative fatigue management to reactive fatigue management systems to predictive fatigue risk management software.

CASE STUDY: Newcrest’s Lihir Mine Deploys Readi Site-Wide for Predictive Fatigue Management

The companies that leverage fatigue management technology are usually those that:

• Have strict industry safety standards and regulations to follow
• Have a strong understanding of the risks to productivity and safety posed by worker fatigue
• Have already invested in technology, such as AI and machine learning, to optimize performance
• Rely on data-driven decision making in business
• Have had fatigue-related accidents in the past 

What is a fatigue risk management system?

A fatigue risk management system is the most effective way to continuously monitor and manage fatigue in the workplace. It is based on sleep science principles. This system is data driven and continuously collects and analyzes employee sleep information to report on alertness, performance, and potential safety risks.

Fatigue risk management systems can be categorized as reactive vs predictive. Both types of technology share the same goal – to identify fatigue-impaired risks as soon as possible to prevent incidents. However, they do so in very different ways.

Goal of a fatigue management system

Reactive Fatigue Management Technology

Reactive fatigue management technology includes driver-facing camera systems like Caterpillar DSS and Hexagon’s OAS fatigue cameras that are placed in transport trucks, haul trucks, and other vehicles. These cameras monitor for observable symptoms of fatigue in real time, such as head nodding. It also includes some wearable fatigue technology, such as SmartCap, which measures brainwave activity via sensors in headgear to detect real-time fatigue and alert the wearer when fatigue thresholds are exceeded.

If signs of fatigue are detected, an alert sounds to warn the driver and their supervisor. This type of fatigue management technology can prevent imminent risks to protect worker safety.

The benefits of reactive fatigue management technology:

• Real-time monitoring
• Real-time alerts and feedback
• Great “last resort” option
• Contributes to a culture of safety and fatigue awareness

The drawbacks of reactive fatigue management technology:

• Only flags fatigue after it’s become a critical risk (30 seconds or so before an accident is about to occur)
• It is difficult to implement countermeasures once the risk is flagged
• Fail to provide any means of helping to reduce the likelihood of workers becoming fatigue impaired in the future
• Alarms can be disruptive to operations, leading to unnecessary and unexpected downtime
• Prone to false alarms
• More expensive

While reactive fatigue management tech was once considered state of the art, it’s now starting to be considered outdated in favor of emerging predictive technologies that offer significantly greater opportunities for risk mitigation.

Predictive Fatigue Management Solutions

Predictive technology differs from reactive fatigue risk management systems by anticipating fatigue risks before they occur and enabling proactive fatigue countermeasures and mitigations. In the case of predictive fatigue management technology, a supervisor would be alerted to an employee’s fatigue risk before they even step on the work site.

This type of technology uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, and scientifically-validated biomathematical models to accurately predict an operator’s individual fatigue levels  for each hour of their shift. The benefit is that countermeasures can be assigned to reduce the risk well in advance, reducing the risk of fatigue accidents in the workplace and avoiding costly downtime.

Benefits of predictive fatigue management software:

• Anticipates fatigue risks before they become a problem
• Allows time for targeted fatigue countermeasures
• Encourages a proactive approach to fatigue management 
• Allows for data-based decision making
• Data-backed guidance to reduce long-term fatigue risk

Challenges of predictive fatigue management technology:

• Requires a willingness to integrate into existing supervisor/dispatch workflows
• Requires an organizational mindset shift from reactive to proactive safety practices

Hybrid Approach to Fatigue Mitigation

Reactive and predictive fatigue technologies both have their merits, and it’s recommended that organizations use both solutions alongside administrative fatigue management to effectively mitigate fatigue. By combining approaches, they can leverage predictive insights to proactively manage fatigue risks and optimize safety and productivity, while using reactive technology like in-cab cameras to benefit from “last resort” detection of imminent risk. 

In a best-case scenario, reactive technologies will detect fatigue impairment as soon as the first outwardly observable instance of these symptoms occurs. Sometimes, this first observable event is moments before an accident is about to occur.

Further, layering on predictive fatigue technology on top of reactive technology can actually reduce false alarms that occur from the use of in-cab cameras. This provides the second source of data needed to give supervisors the ability to differentiate true fatigue from faulty camera readings.

CASE STUDY: Readi Reduces Fatigue Camera Alarms by 50% at Major Copper Mine

Take Fatigue Science’s Readi software, for example. A recent study involving over 2.1 million work hours at  three major mine sites demonstrated the effectiveness of Readi’s fatigue technology in predicting the likelihood of an operator’s camera-recorded microsleeps. The research found that the Readi platform was able to reliably predict when an operator would have a 12x higher likelihood of microsleeps later in that shift.

Comparing 7 Fatigue Risk Management Systems on the Market

Reactive Fatigue Technologies

1. Caterpillar DSS (Driver Safety System)

• Type: Reactive (camera-based)
• Key Features: In-cab monitoring system using a camera to track a driver’s eye movements, head position, and facial expressions to detect drowsiness or distraction. Alerts drivers in real-time.
• Applications: Common in heavy industries like mining, construction, and transport to monitor driver safety.

2. Hexagon In-Cab Cameras

• Type: Reactive (camera-based)
• Key Features: Uses cameras installed in vehicles to monitor driver behavior, particularly focusing on signs of fatigue or distraction through real-time visual and behavioral data analysis.

Applications: Used in mining and construction for vehicle operator safety.

3. Canaria

• Type: Reactive (wearable)
• Key Features: Wearable device that monitors physiological indicators such as skin temperature and heart rate to detect early signs of fatigue or heat stress.
• Applications: Primarily used in extreme environments like mining or space where monitoring real-time physiological data is crucial.

4. SmartCap

• Type: Reactive (wearable)
• Key Features: Wearable technology that measures brainwave activity via sensors in headgear to detect real-time fatigue. Alerts the wearer when fatigue thresholds are exceeded.
• Applications: Mostly used in high-risk industries like mining, construction, and long-haul trucking.

Predictive Fatigue Technologies

5. Fatigue Science's Readi

• Type: Predictive (with or without wearable)
• Key Features: Uses the SAFTE biomathematical model of fatigue combined with sleep data and circadian factors from each operator, to predict personalized levels of fatigue.
• Applications: Used in high-hazard and safety-sensitive industries such as mining and transportation, as well as in the military and elite sports

6. Pulsar Informatics

• Type: Predictive
• Key Features: Focuses on predictive analytics using sleep data and shift patterns. Uses a fatigue risk management software suite to assess fatigue risks and guide scheduling.
• Applications: Aviation, transportation, and other sectors requiring tight scheduling management to mitigate fatigue.

7. PredictiveSafety

• Type: Predictive and reactive
• Key Features: Uses both scheduling data (predictive) and real-time monitoring through wearable devices and self-reporting (reactive). 
• Applications: Industries like mining, manufacturing, and transportation where both predictive and real-time fatigue monitoring is beneficial.

Fatigue Management FAQs

What are the steps in workplace fatigue management?

The steps in workplace fatigue management include a fatigue risk assessment to identify fatigue risks at your organization, the creation of a fatigue management policy, the use of fatigue risk prevention strategies and countermeasures, and the implementation of fatigue management technology.

How to manage fatigue in the workplace?

Managing fatigue in the workplace effectively requires a holistic approach that includes foundational administrative processes, reactive systems, and predictive fatigue management software.

How to manage shift work fatigue?

To manage shift work fatigue in your workplace, use best practices to create a safer schedule design, provide fatigue awareness training, implement fatigue management technology to monitor fatigue, and make use of fatigue countermeasures to mitigate risks.

What is a fatigue management plan?

A fatigue management plan is used by organizations to identify their workforce’s unique fatigue risks and take the necessary steps to either eliminate or mitigate those risks as appropriate. A fatigue management plan can include a written policy, the inclusion of fatigue management technology, the use of fatigue countermeasures, and fatigue awareness training.

Why should you have a fatigue management plan?

Fatigue is considered impairment. A fatigued worker puts themselves, their coworkers, and their organization at risk. Having a fatigue management plan in the workplace can help protect the health and safety of your employees and reduce fatigue-related incidents and accidents in the workplace. 

What are fatigue management strategies?

Fatigue management strategies can include better shift work schedule design, the implementation of fatigue management policies, pre-shift fatigue self-assessments, task rotation, job reassignment, or countermeasures such as strategically scheduled breaks, mid-shift naps, or exercise.