Fatigue and Work: Causes, Effects and What Employers Can Do

Fatigue can affect anyone in any job, and at work it has many possible causes. High levels of it have serious consequences for worker safety and health, so employers and workers need to work together to reduce the risk and manage it.

Where it comes from

At work, fatigue is most often tied to nonstandard schedules that disrupt or cut short sleep, such as night shifts and extended hours. Other workplace factors play a part too:

• stress;
• physically or mentally demanding tasks;
• working in hot environments.

What it does

The effects go beyond feeling sleepy. Fatigue can:

• slow reaction times;
• reduce attention or concentration;
• limit short-term memory;
• impair judgment.

What employers should do

To keep workers safe and healthy, employers should:

1. learn the risks of fatigue-related events;
2. identify where fatigue comes from in their workplace;
3. use strategies to prevent and manage it.

Training and research

NIOSH runs a Center for Work and Fatigue Research and offers free online training:

• Training for Nurses on Shiftwork and Long Work Hours teaches nurses and their managers the health and safety risks of shift work and long hours, the fatigue problems that come with them, and ways to reduce the risks.
• Fatigue Prevention Training for Pilots, built for commercial pilots in Alaska, can be used by individual pilots, commercial or not, and by companies in their initial or recurrent pilot training.

Sources

• CDC, NIOSH, "Fatigue and Work": https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fatigue/about/index.html
• Further reading listed by NIOSH: AJIM special issue "Working hours and fatigue: Meeting the needs of American workers and employers" (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/10970274/2022/65/11); NTSB, "Work rest issues contribute to offshore supply vessel collision with oil and gas platform" (https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA21FM031.aspx).