Sleep Debt and Workplace Safety | Risk Matrix Episode 131
Risk Matrix #131: Sleep Debt and Workplace Safety
New research reveals that 48% of workers aren’t getting the minimum 7 hours of sleep before work, and most companies have no way to measure if fatigue contributed to their incidents.
In this episode Dr. Martin and James are joined by Marcus de Guingand, Managing Director at Third Pillar of Health, to discuss his workplace fatigue research involving 795 participants across construction and transportation. Marcus’s findings show that while fatigue accounts for 20% of road traffic collisions and 13% of workplace injuries, organizations lack the tools to measure and manage this invisible risk.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Organizations don’t have tools to measure fatigue. Marcus’s studies found that most companies have no idea if fatigue played a role in their incidents because they can’t measure it. If they knew fatigue accounted for 20% of crashes and 13% of injuries, they’d be discussing it at board level.
- The National Safety Council estimates fatigue costs $1,800 per employee per year. That’s $640 in healthcare, $620 in productivity, and $545 in absenteeism. For a 100-person company, that’s enough money to hire an extra worker instead of pushing everyone beyond safe limits.
- Workers can’t self-diagnose fatigue impairment. Research shows that as workers get more fatigued, they struggle to identify hazards and eventually reach a point where even if they see a hazard, they physically can’t avoid it.
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