Safety Daily Advisor : Napping at Work? You’re Not Dreaming!

Taking a nap at work for sometime in between helps in reducing the errors and increasing the productivity, so says this article. It is well known that chinese will get time to sleep during the work. I also saw in a paint factory, when I went for inspection, that in the lunch time of 30 minutes they quickly finish their lunch and sleep. Exactly at 1230 hrs when they hear the siren sound, they get up and resume work. During this time, even if the top most person comes, they do not get disturbed. They switch off all lights and will have their nap.

Workers who had put long hours earlier will be unable to work continuously as they enter into fifties and definitely some rest in between helps the organisation more than the worker because if there is some mistake, then organisation also is at loss and may lead to shutdown of the plant for sometime depending of the severity of the consequence.

Then, it is wrong to assume that only those who do physical work will be strained/fatigued. It is also true for all as mental strain also can lead to tiredness, more errors and reduced output. The article mentions that tired doctors are prone to 700% errors and this can be true for other professions.

Safety Daily Advisor : Napping at Work? You’re Not Dreaming!

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Fatigue and reasons for it

There is an article in Safetyatworkblog on fatigue and the reasons for it. Based on a survey, it mentioned that this is due to workplace and some of the reasons are,

1. reduced head count - more work, less people i.e overload
2. overlapping of office and home life - taking the work to home, ignoring family members which can lead to increase of distance with family members. Only after retirement, one will realize the distance but it is too late.
3. part time job after regular job - taking up additional jobs to get more income can increase take home pay but this stretches the person's ability to do to the maximum and after sometime, he will fail to deliver the targets and may be fired
4. nature of the person to do entire work - due to lack of confidence on others. (I do this as I think that scribbling on a paper or giving dictation for the clerk to do typing puts additional work on me to correct again and again. Further, if I type the report on my own, I can incorporate my thoughts during typing itself. Else, I have to do correction in the typed matter by others. May be, I am ineffective in giving dictation or writing the draft)
5. staying extra time - some employees stay extra time to do more work. This is like S.No.3 above. The reason can be to reach target in time or before time; or to be in the good books of the boss; or to use internet; or he did not have any work at home. This will lead others also to stayput extra hours, but at the cost of losing relaxation and increasing the mental stress (there is an article circulating in the Groups reportedly written by Infosys Chief on the impact of this and his advise to stay in office only as per working hours)
6. using the leave - I was told by one my very senior officer that one should use the paid leave to relax to get charged and do productive work

The above are the reasons as well as solutions to avoid fatigue. One may think only physical work is strenuous. But, mental exhaustion also leads to tiredness and incapacitates the person to do anything at home for the family. Fatigue in any form can lead to accidents either at the work place or during travel to reach home at the end of the day.