A health and safety problem

A Health and Safety Problem

Introduction

The workplace is a place, where an ordinary person spends around at least 40% of their time daily. Work has become an activity that continues round the clock without any breaks. The world reducing to a global village has now caused businesses to remain open on 24 hour basis, daily. People now work at the office in shifts. These are usually 6-8 hour long durations in which a person works at a for instance a desktop with a PC. Some of these shifts have odd timings, i.e. at night or half-nights. People who are in need of employment consent to these shifts because they need money, however, these odd timed shifts have a serious negative impact on a person's physical and mental well-being. These, in time lead to stress, fatigue, insomnia, memory-loss and numerous other problems. Another consensus concluded that in U.K a number of over 3.5 million people work shift duties. Another research showed that fatigue is the cause of 20% of the accidents that happen yearly in UK and cost the government around £115 - €240 million every year on work accidents (Walker, 2003).

Analyse all parts of the problem

The problem which occurs here is inconsistent and oddly placed shift-working hours. People need jobs and employment is hard to come by. So they end up taking whatever job they find that matches closest to their requirement regardless of the timings. The troubled timings have serious consequences on the individual's health. They get fatigued and over-stressed. Fatigue is the complications that arise from working in improperly designed shifts routines and excessive working times. It results in the unhealthy work performance, disturbance of the internal clock, and insomnia. Sometimes it can even start causing memory loses. Sometimes only the timing is not the issue, even monotonous or complex work can cause fatigue (Atkinson, 2010). This results in a reduced ability in processing information, forgetfulness, in attentiveness, slower reaction timings, lack of coordination and incomprehension risk seriousness. The fatigues can result in accidents, injuries to health, constant illness and as mentioned before, an overall reduction in the competence and capabilities of the employees. The short term problems of working in oddly timed shift schedules are Gastronomy issues like nausea, constipation, acidity, heartburn, or even diarrhoea, an overall high risk of injuries and accidents, sleep-loss, unhealthy lifestyle quality and by and large a general ill or sick feeling all the time. Long time effects of fatigue in odd shift working hours can lead to:

Cardiovascular disease (since the body is running at the time in which it's resting time), even found that the risk of having a stroke increases by 1% yearly for people employed in shift work.

Diabetes and metabolic syndrome: Researches have revealed that working shifts increases risks for a person to develop diabetes. In a Japanese study, it was concluded that people who worked 16 hour shifts, increased their chances of developing diabetes by 50%.

Obesity, High blood pressure, Depression, high blood sugar, obesity, and unhealthy ...