This post was originally written as a newsletter article for ETNZ (Sept 2016)
I went to a conference the other week.
“So what Cath, we all went to a conference the other week”, I hear you say.
No, I mean I actually attended a conference, not just worked one…. paid my money, sat in the seats, ate the catering (at lunch time, not the leftovers during pack out…)
It was a health and safety conference. And the session that had most grabbed my attention from the brochure was the one on “workplace fatigue”, because this is something I consider to be one of the biggest risks in our industry, in terms of health and safety. It is also one that I believe we generally don’t deal with very well.
Fatigue is a factor I find challenging to address in health and safety management plans. I’m never sure where it’s best to put it and it doesn’t fit very well in the templates and grids.
In terms of risk management, fatigue is definitely considered a hazard. But then I struggle with assessing the risk associated with the hazard. Figuring out the “likelihood” of fatigue occurring I find okay – I just look at the schedule. How long are the shifts? Are there adequate breaks within the shifts? What are the break times between shifts? For many a tour, festival, and production week I’ve worked on, the likelihood of fatigue rates on the higher end of the scale, based on schedule alone. But then I look at the “consequences”, and this where I get stumped. Well, it depends, doesn’t it? In some cases it’s falling asleep at the mixing console (hands up who hasn’t!). The consequence is a missed cue; the cost is the price of slab (in H&S speak this rates somewhere around “minor” or below). But in another case it’s falling asleep behind the wheel of the tour van. And the consequence is driving into the path of an oncoming logging truck, and the costs involve a completely different slab altogether, for you and the six crewmates who were sleeping in the back (I believe that’s “severe” in anyone’s language). How can I adequately express that range of consequences on an A4 grid?
Then there’s the reporting of accidents and incidents. How often do we record fatigue as the cause of an accident or incident? Yet how often do the injuries occur during pack out, late at night after a long day? It’s definitely often a factor, but is it acknowledged and documented?
So in terms of the paperwork it can become a hidden risk. And if you work for an organisation where management is relying on risk assessments and accident/incident reports to guide their health and safety decision-making, are they getting a true picture of the effects of fatigue on workplace safety? And who does the schedules? It’s usually someone in management isn’t it?
Then where does the individual’s role fit into all this? So you got a 10-hour break between shifts but your baby was crying all night, or your flatmates were having a party, or the argument you had with the head mech is going round-and-round in your head and you can’t sleep…. How do we factor these influences into management plans? And where do responsibilities lie?
The sessions on workplace fatigue that I attended at the conference unfortunately didn’t answer all my questions. However it did interest me enough to want to seek out further information and dig a bit deeper. So over the next few newsletters I’m going to attempt to unpack the issues and hopefully share some helpful insights.
In the meantime get some sleep.
Cathy Knowsley – HiViz Event Management www.hivizevents.co.nz (and ETNZ committee member).
