Practical Guide to Managing 24-Hour Operations

Foreward
PART I Corporate Culture
TIP 1: Examine your business reasons for operating around the clock
TIP 2: Acknowledge the very real differences between round-the-clock and daytime operations
TIP 3: Recognize the realities of human physiological limits
TIP 4: Take care of the human "machine"
TIP 5: Educate yourself on the biological basis of shiftwork problems
TIP 6: Incorporate Alertness Assurance into your corporate values and mission statement
TIP 7: Take personal responsibility for assuring alertness
TIP 8: Position alertness assurance as a win-win for labor and management
TIP 9: Identify and monitor fatigue-related costs
TIP 10: Incorporporate human fatigue costs in your decision-making process
TIP 11: Remove obstacles to human performance
TIP 12: Eliminate the "invisible worker" syndrome
TIP 13: Build a seamless continuous operations culture
TIP 14: Don't treat fatigue as a disciplinary problem

PART II Management Development
TIP 15: Educate your corporate managers on the special challenges, risks and liabilities of shiftwork operations
TIP 16: Designate and certify a specific "shiftwork manager" at each site to coordinate alertness assurance
TIP 17: Recognize the value of shiftwork experience when you hire managers and supervisors
TIP 18: Expose your new managers to a shiftwork lifestyle for several shift cycles
TIP 19: Develop your expertise in shiftwork management
TIP 20: Spend some time hanging out with the night crew
TIP 21: Ensure human design specs are incorporated into company planning
TIP 22: Benchmark yourself against the best shiftwork operations
TIP 23: Don't make a critical management decision at 3 am if you can possibly avoid it

PART III Supervisor Responsibility
TIP 24: Train shift supervisors in techniques to keep their crews alert
TIP 25: Design call-in procedures with consideration for sleep time
TIP 26: Schedule meetings with consideration for the night shift
TIP 27: Build awareness of individual circadian sleep/alertness types and try to assign people accordingly

PART IV Shiftworker Lifestyle Training
TIP 28: Provide your shiftworkers with specific training on how to manage a 24-hour lifestyle
TIP 29: Include the shiftworker's spouse or partner in the lifestyle training program
TIP 30: Individualize the advice for different circadian sleep-wake types
TIP 31: Customize shiftwork lifestyle information for your specific schedule
TIP 32: Make training mandatory for all new shiftwork employees
TIP 33: Solicit ideas and tips from other shiftworkers
TIP 34: Consider providing an employee newsletter for shiftworkers

PART V Shift Scheduling
TIP 35: Determine the biocompatibility of your schedule
TIP 36: Determine the social compatibility of your shift schedule
TIP 37: Support employee initiatives to explore schedule alternatives
TIP 38: Incorporate both shiftworker desires and business needs in the schedule selection process
TIP 39: Use a schedule selection process designed to achieve an educated consensus
TIP 40: Evaluate compressed work weeks and 12-hour shifts with an open mind
TIP 41: Avoid mandating or imposing scheduling change
TIP 42: Determine the optimal shift starting times
TIP 43: Identify the true shift change time
TIP 44: Provide scheduled time for communication and team building

PART VI Overtime Management
TIP 45: Be aware of the true cost of overtime
TIP 46: Determine the proper staffing levels to manage overtime
TIP 47: Involve shiftworkers in the responsible management of overtime
TIP 48: Avoid double shifts
TIP 49: Ration the overtime hogs
TIP 50: Watch out for overtime abuses
TIP 51: Know the informal arrangements and overtime practices

PART VII Health Care & Wellness Management
TIP 52: Ensure the company medical staff has up-to-date knowledge of sleep disorders and shift maladaptation syndrome
TIP 53: Review your medical claims to determine incidence of shiftworker health problems
TIP 54: Provide individual counseling sessions for each shiftworker every two years
TIP 55: Develop screening procedures to identify and help support shiftworkers with adaptation problems
TIP 56: Use an objective screening procedure to evaluate claims of shiftwork incompatibility
TIP 57: Help shiftworkers manage their nutrition
TIP 58: Provide cafeteria coverage for all shifts
TIP 59: Supply the plant vending machines with light, digestible food alternatives
TIP 60: Provide refrigerators and microwaves to increase shiftwork food options

PART VIII Driving Safety
TIP 61: Increase awareness of the greatest safety risk of shiftwork operations — the drive home in a fatigued condition
TIP 62: Understand the legal liability that your company, and you personally, are facing
TIP 63: Intervene when fatigue-impaired employees are about to drive home
TIP 64: Create an area where excessively fatigued employees can nap before driving home
TIP 65: Screen for excessive fatigue risk at the end of a shift before your shiftworkers drive home
TIP 66: Help night shiftworkers to protect their eyes from excessive light intensity and glare on the drive home
TIP 67: Encourage car pools

PART IX Sleep Management
TIP 68: Develop a sleep management culture
TIP 69: Manage rather than ban napping
TIP 70: Train management and shiftworkers on how to use brief 15- to 20-minute naps to boost alertness
TIP 71: Establish a napping facility to allow shiftworkers a place to have a brief controlled nap

PART X Family & Social Support
TIP 72: Help employees organize and negotiate child care arrangements
TIP 73: Invite families and spouses to the plant for special family days
TIP 74: Help organize and support social activities for single shiftworkers
TIP 75: Negotiate with local colleges to provide educational/degree programs to fit shiftworker hours
TIP 76: Encourage a phone network for lonely shiftwork spouses or partners
TIP 77: Heighten your vigilance on drug and alcohol abuse
TIP 78: Encourage shiftworker teams to be responsible for shift-swapping coverage arrangements

PART XI Shiftworker Support
TIP 79: Provide support services round-the-clock, 7 days a week
TIP 80: Schedule training and informational meetings to cover all shifts
TIP 81: Schedule company outings/functions with the shiftworker in mind
TIP 82: Give your employees a tool for keeping track of work and family schedules

PART XII Work Design
TIP 83: Cross-train wherever possible and rotate jobs to break up continuous work routines
TIP 84: Identify the times when your shiftwork crews are most vulnerable to fatigue, and help them through those times successfully
TIP 85: Review work flow to eliminate sensitive tasks at times when alertness is most reduced
TIP 86: Create interactive opportunities to sustain alertness at night
TIP 87: Be realistic about monotonous jobs

PART XIII The Workplace Environment
TIP 88: Provide opportunities for muscular activity in sedentary jobs
TIP 89: Keep the workplace cool
TIP 90: Check out the light levels in your nighttime workplace
TIP 91: Identify and eliminate sources of glare and reflection
TIP 92: Install bright lighting systems in critical safety sensitive areas
TIP 93: Allow radios, with an emergency cut-off
TIP 94: Incorporate human design specs into equipment purchases
TIP 95: Strike the right balance between comfort and stimulation
TIP 96: Install aroma stimulation systems

PART XIV Measurement of Alertness
TIP 97: Measure employee alertness levels to document progress in the alertness assurance process
TIP 98: Approach alertness testing with a win-win attitude
TIP 99: Understand the limits of alertness testing
TIP 100: Be careful of which testing device you choose
TIP 101: Monitor human alertness

Shiftwork Benchmark Questionnaire
Shiftwork Myths and the Facts Behind Them

APPENDICES
I The $77-Billion Challenge
II Shiftwork and Marriage
III Lifestyle Training
IV Management Initiatives
V Glossary of Shiftwork Terms

About the Author

Resource Guide