Overtime Or Heart Attack - You Decide

Who knew that working overtime could kill you? An 11-year study of 6,000 British civil servants doesn't provide absolute proof that overtime causes heart attacks but it does show a clear link - likely due to stress.

According to the report, "In all, there were 369 cases of death due to heart disease, non-fatal heart attacks and angina among the London-based study group -- and the risk of having an adverse event was 60 percent higher for those who worked three to four hours overtime. Working an extra one to two hours beyond a normal seven-hour day was not associated with increased risk."

Work/Life Balance is a key to health in the workplace. Giving every waking moment to your job is a lousy way of maintaining your physical and mental health. In fact, long hours creates other issues: poor diet choices leading to weight gain, improper sleep patterns leading to burnout and increased alcohol consumption in an attempt to wind down. And if you're a smoker, well it gets even worse.

As a manager, asking your employees to work an additional four hours of overtime is creating a health risk. Instead, perhaps offer some telecommuting time (a couple of days working from home where the boundaries between work and home are blurred giving a better sense of not feeling as much like work) or offering your people a chance to come in for a few hours on a weekend during the day so it's not a marathon time stretch.

Oh, and I suppose you might consider one more option instead of overtime: hire more people so you're not so short-staffed.

Feel free to show the news story to your bosses to get a budget bump for more people. Think about what could happen if an Injury Lawyer reads this story and can show that you worked your people too much overtime. It's going to cost you either way. Right now, you decide though.

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Kevin Burns - Corporate Safety Attitude/Culture Strategist
www.safety.kevburns.com
Toll Free 1-877-287-6711
Creator of the 90-Day System To Improve Safety Culture!

Getting To Zero Means Getting Tough

Zero is a real possibility in safety. In fact, many companies are achieving zero right now. If others can do it, why can’t you?

The truth is that in order to achieve zero, companies, supervisors and VP’s of Safety are going to have to become vigilant and make the tough decisions. It’s not going to be easy to do it until you figure out where the hazards and job site issues come from in the first place.

Work sites are safe. It’s people who screw them up. Have a look at the following list and tell me it’s not people who screw things up:

• Park an unsecured piece of equipment where it shouldn’t be.
• Leave an extension cord running across the ground with no markings.
• A quick trip up the ladder to fetch something – no need to tie-off.
• No need for a seat belt since I’m still in the yard and not on the road yet.
• No need for a truck walk-around – I did it fifteen minutes ago.
• Maybe I should have adjusted the side mirror when I was stopped – oh well.

You getting my drift here? If it weren’t for people, everything would be exactly where it’s supposed to be. Of course, if it weren’t for people, nothing would ever get done. So there’s the conundrum.

It’s your people who give you the safety record you have. Your results on the job are the direct result of the line you take with those who do the job. The more vigilant you become in instilling a Safety Attitude, the more your results will improve.

SAFETY ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: What’s the difference between a driver who’s been drinking and a driver who’s exhausted? Sit in the passenger seat and you’ll figure out the answer – not much. So why do you allow your people to come to work after being out all night? What about letting them work hung-over? What about someone popping cold pills that make them drowsy? What about a parent who spent most of the night at the hospital with a sick child?

Are these people alert and ready for whatever happens or are they barely conscious? Could they be considered a hazard on the job? Fatigue and impairment cause accidents both on and off the job.

Do you ever wonder why Cops park a block away from the bar at eight o’clock in the morning? It’s to catch the driver retrieving his car who, although he seems coherent, is still over the limit to drive. And you’re going to let him work?

There are no more reasons and excuses for not achieving zero. If your crew knows that they are going to lose a day’s pay for showing up hung-over, sleep-deprived, stuffed full of cold medications or trying to hide the fact that they’re still drunk, then my guess is that they wouldn’t show up that way at all. People rise to level of expectation. But if you don’t impose any consequences for being impaired, then your safety record will just have to suffer the consequences alone.