Fatigue negatively impacts on employees’ health, increases their chances of sustaining avoidable workplace injuries, and reduces performance. It also impairs workers’ cognition, hampering things like decision making, emotion control and memory. It makes it difficult to appreciate complex situations and recognise risks in addition to impairing hand-eye coordination and communication – raising valid safety issues.

Some key contributors to fatigue include the mental and physical demands of work, work schedules and times, the environment and the individual’s circumstances.

Worksafe Victoria recommends some best-practice measures to reduce risks associated with work scheduling and planning. They include limiting time spent on physically and mentally demanding work, scheduling critical work outside low body clock periods (2am – 6am and 2pm – 4pm), ensuring enough rest between shifts, and ensuring there are enough staff to do a particular job. For further information, please visit the Safe Work Australia website.

Mitrefinch Time and Attendance solutions enable businesses to better measure, analyse and manage employees’ working time, and deploy human resources more effectively and efficiently. The system enables you to monitor employee data, and carefully plan rosters and work schedules, while automating alerts and warnings. In the event of an accident, you can rest assured knowing that a complete, auditable trail of compliance can be quickly produced.