Safe To Work November 2021

Page 42

Fatigue management

How to automate fatigue risk management systems FATIGUETECH IS THE EASIEST WAY TO IMPLEMENT, MONITOR AND MANAGE A WORKPLACE FATIGUE RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.

F

atigue presents health and safety risk to a workplace, its workers and others, and can be caused by a number of inter-related workplace and/or personal risk factors. Workplaces with higher fatigue risk will often have factors that include, but are not limited to, shift work, extended work hours, limited breaks, job demands or adverse environmental conditions that need to be considered. Under legislation, workplaces are required to eliminate or, where elimination is not possible, minimise the risks identified in their work activities. However, controlling workplace factors is the only solution to managing fatigue risk because the workplace cannot control what workers do when they are not at work. Workers are often best placed to know whether they are fatigued and play a critical role in managing workplace fatigue. Thus, workplaces which have identified fatigue as a risk are faced with three distinct problems: training the workforce about fatigue risks factors and mitigation solutions, implementing and monitoring fatigue mitigation strategies, and engaging, and supporting workers to manage personal risk factors.

makes it easy to meet health and safety obligations and support workers with the necessary knowledge, skills and resources to: 1. MANAGE PERSONAL FATIGUE RISK FACTORS FatigueTech has adopted a stepped care model (see table, right) to help engage and support people manage their personal fatigue risk factors. A stepped care model is a staged approach to the delivery of services comprising a hierarchy of interventions. This ensures that employees can access the most appropriate services for their needs at any time, including the ability to step up and step down to different levels of care if their needs change. FatigueTech Personal Risk accommodates low-risk workers all the way to workers who have had a fatiguerelated incident, or are managing severe or complex risk factors. A low-risk worker such as an office-

based day worker that may periodically work extended hours who could access the self-help resources in the knowledge centre. At-risk workers such as a shift workers might be required to complete online competency-based training. Workers experiencing fatigue or wanting more personalised information could undertake the online fatigue selfassessment to guide them to self-help information in the knowledge centre. Finally, those workers who have been identified as high fatigue risk or have had a fatigue-related incidents combine their fatigue self-assessment with a consultation with a workplace fatigue specialist to develop a personalised action plan; and if they are identified with severe or complex needs they could be referred to multidisciplinary or specialist care. Subscribed companies can refer workers directly from the platform, which will track utilisation of the service and consultation can be FatigueTech is a digital solution that makes it easy to meet health and safety obligations.

SOLVING FATIGUE MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES For workplaces that need to implement a fatigue risk management system, FatigueTech is a digital solution that

SAFETOWORK.COM.AU 42 NOV-DEC 2021


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