The Four Day Work Week and Overexertion Injuries

High gasoline prices last year and the economic down-turn this year are affecting both employees and businesses. Doing more with less in an already Lean environment as well as the rising costs of material and general overhead has number of businesses considering going to a four day work week. As part of this consideration, the effect on employee safety must be considered.

While survey results so far show that generally employees are more satisfied with the 4 day schedule, the long term effects of near miss accidents, reportable and lost time injury rates have yet to be assessed. Keep in mind that lengthening the time employees perform heavy labor contributes to muscle fatigue. Granted employees will generally have an extra day to recuperate. However, the length of time between the day to day labor may not be enough to properly remove lactic acid build up – one cause of overexertion injuries.

Many manufacturing companies' demands are also cyclical. What happens when the demand increases and the needs of 4 ten hour days are not enough to meet those demands? Generally companies will offer over-time during these periods. If you add another hour or two to the beginning or end of the shift, the lactic acid buildup will be greater. Extending the week to include overtime on Friday may not leave enough time for recuperation, especially if your employees tend to be active on their other days off.

Some progressive companies have hired ergonomic professionals in the past to help them determine recommended lifting requirements of specific jobs. Adding an extra two hours to a shift may lower those recommended weight limits. See yesterday's post for more on lifting requirements.

I would be the first to appreciate a four day work week and the last to tell you not to do it. However, the possible detrimental costs of increased injuries, must be assessed along with economic considerations.

Fire Safety in the Workplace

As far as possible, a company should take proactive approaches to prevent fire. An active, committed safety committee is one of the foundations for this approach. Extensive training, both through formal methods, and informal tool time talks, not only in fire safety, but also in proper equipment use are the keys. Diligence in separating materials and processes which could cause ignition is an effective approach. Proper hot-work methods, and permits are necessary measures to minimize fire hazards. Limit switches, detector switches, and alarms for both building systems and individual machine areas are all proactive measures. Safety department sign-off for any adjustment or reuse of the area can detect and minimize potential fire hazards. Consistent safety and 5S audits can catch such issues as potential electrical hazards, ventilation hazards, housekeeping problems, and other potential problems that could cause fire hazards. Proper security must be put in place, to prevent non-employees intent on harm from entering the building.

Because there is no perfect system to prevent fire, there must be a system in place to manage the fire. Automatic, self-contained, fire suppression canisters can stop fire spread before whole-system back-up sprinklers are activated. Again here, effective, consistent, training is needed to make sure every employee understands what to do during a fire. Proper methods for egress will need to be addressed. Fire Safety Guidelines will need to be developed and readdressed each year. A method must be established so that visitors, the disabled, and other at-risk groups will be able to safely exit the building.

Fire department operations design is an important area for consideration. However, other measures should be given priority. If other measures fail, fire department operations are measures of last resort. For fires necessary for fire department support, all other measures should have been exhausted and personnel removed so that firefighting becomes a property management operation, rather than a rescue operation.

Comments welcome.