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Fatigue Management Plan
Regardless of what industry your organisations is conducting your business, Fatigue Management is a shared responsibility of both employers and employees. A Fatigue Management Plan is an extremely effective form of managing fatigue and the associated hazards in the workplace.
The purpose of a Fatigue Management Program is to identify and assess the fatigue related risks within a workplace and then implement a process to control the fatigue-related risks.
There are five basic steps in the risk management process, as outlined in section 22 (s) of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995. The following table demonstrates how to implement a Fatigue Management Plan in your workplace.
For further details please refer to your relevant state government safety body.
Guideline on Fatigue Management
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Getting Started
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1.Establish an approach to controlling the risk,
through consultative forums |
Consult the workforce throughout the process
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Agreeing how
to do it |
2. Establish a process that supports effective control, including an education and communication strategy and adequate resources.
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3.Identify hazards that can cause fatigue
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4.Assess the risk factors
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5.Decide how to control the risks
associated with fatigue |
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6.Document the control measures in a
Fatigue Management Plan |
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Setting it up
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7.Implement agreed controls
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Making it work
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8.Evaluate the effectiveness of controls
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How to assess risk factors of fatigue:To assess the risk factors of fatigue, it is necessary to consider both likelihood and consequences. The fatigue calculator takes the guess work out of assessing the likelihood of a fatigue incident occurring. If employees are rated medium or high risk by the Fatigue Calculator, then the consequences need to be determined when deciding what control measure to implement.
| CONSEQUENCES | DEFINED |
| Insignificant | No medical treatment required |
| Significant | Objective but reversible disability requiring hospitalisation |
| Moderate | Moderate irreversible disability or impairment to one or more persons |
| Major | Single fatality or severe irreversible disability to one or more persons |
| Catastrophic | Multiple fatalities or significant irreversible effect to 50 or more persons |
Control options when dealing with fatigue hazards:
- Eliminate sources of high risk eg eliminate night shift, have employee driven home
- Substitute safer practises eg increasing length of breaks in shifts, job rotation
- Engineer controls eg improve ventilation and heating, physical activity
- Administer controls eg procedures, training
Fatigue Management and the Fatigue Calculator
1. Identify hazards that can cause fatigue:
- List the job descriptions, job tasks, relevant conditions that exemplify fatigue hazards.
Example one: job description - operating heavy machine/vehicle has been identified as having fatigue hazards.
Example two: job task - monitoring security camera’s during night shift for prevention of theft.
2.Assess the risk factors:
- Employees working in fatigue-related conditions are to use the Fatigue Calculator at the beginning of the fatigue-related activity to assess their personal fatigue risk levels
If medium or high risk are obtained, supervisor to determine the consequences of an incident occurring in the workplace.
Example one: fatigue calculator assesses risk as being medium; Consequences of an incident occurring can be death of employee or members of community.
Example two: fatigue calculator assesses risk as being high; consequences of an incident occurring are minimal – no injury to employee or members of community. Consequences become financial in nature, rather than safety.
3.Control the risks associated with fatigue:
- For each separate condition that has been identified as having potential fatigue hazards, list control measures to implement under medium and high fatigue risk scores and dependent upon consequences of an incident.
Example one: under these conditions the supervisor may determine the best course of action is to substitute safer practises. Driver given extended breaks, with shorter periods of operation or job rotation – driver taken out of operation of heavy vehicle and given another job that has little or no consequences of an incident occurring.
Example two: under these conditions, the supervisor may decide to engineer controls to maintain safety standards. Room temperature can be cooled, increase lighting in the area, implement mental distractions to prevent monotony of job eg music, direct employee to get active when possible –stand up and down in chair, pace the room etc.