In the past, work primarily took place during the day. Now, particularly with the development of information technology, work happens around the clock.

While this type of schedule may allow more work to be done, it goes against human physiology. Human beings have circadian rhythms that are linked to being awake when there is daylight. Studies have correlated shift work with a number of health disorders, including sleep, cardiovascular, reproductive, and gastrointestinal disorders. Paying attention to a few details can help reduce the impact that evening and graveyard shifts have on your workers' health and safety.

What can your workers do to improve health and safety when working evening and graveyard shifts? Get a copy of Shift Work: Health and Safety Checklist for Workers with Nonstandard Shifts and find out!

Consider the following when developing work schedules that include evening and graveyard shifts:

• Provide training for workers who will work evening and graveyard shifts. Workers who are given information on lifestyle changes that will help minimize the impact of working evening and graveyard shifts on their bodies and their personal and family relationships (such as sleep management, healthy diets, exercise, and tips for how to maintain personal and family connections) fare better. You may also want to consider making counseling and stress management resources available to shift workers who may be experiencing difficulties.



• Provide support. Whenever possible, ensure that evening and graveyard shift workers have the same facilities available to them as the day shift does, such as eating facilities, transportation, and health and safety resources.



• Maintain a regular and predictable work schedule. If schedule changes are necessary, try to provide advance notice to workers so that they can adjust their sleep schedules and family commitments to accommodate the schedule change.



• If possible, consult workers about work schedules. There really are early birds and night owls when it comes to how well people function at different times of the day. If you can, take advantage of your workers' natural propensities by allowing them to self-select for the evening and graveyard shifts.



• If you rotate shifts, rotate forward. Studies have shown that if shifts are rotated, workers do better if the shift rotates from day to evening to graveyard rather than graveyard to evening to day or a random rotation.



• Rotate shifts over longer periods of time. Weekly shift rotation does not allow workers time to adjust their sleep schedules. Workers who are allowed to remain on shifts for longer periods--two to three weeks or more--are able to adjust their sleep schedules accordingly. This is particularly important for jobs that are of a routine or repetitive nature and are particularly likely to cause fatigue in evening and graveyard shift workers.



• Pay attention to pre-break and end-of-shift safety. Workers are more likely to let down their guard as they approach a break time or the end of the shift. If you notice that these times are when accidents are occurring on the evening or graveyard shift, consider ways to maintain worker momentum by scheduling more stimulating activity before the break or the end of the shift, increasing supervisor floor time during these periods, or scheduling a change in activity.

Your 24-Hour Operation May Be Affecting Your Workers

But there are steps that workers can take to help reduce the impact of shift work. Shift Work: Health and Safety Checklist for Workers with Nonstandard Shifts provides valuable information on how to improve both off-shift sleep and work alertness, safe driving, and life/work balance.

Download your copy today!