Role of Fatigue in Active Failures Research Assignment

Fatigue
Name
Institution
Fatigue
The term fatigue has been defined by numerous researchers and while they might use different approaches, the idea communicated is always the same. Rogers (1 ,2008) defines fatigue as “an overwhelming sense of tiredness, lack of energy, and a feeling of exhaustion associated with impaired physical and/or cognitive functioning.” Elshennawy et al. (352, 2015), also defines it as “a decrease in physical performance associated with an increase in the real/perceived difficulty of a task or exercise.” The common feature between the two definitions is the reduction in a person’s physical functioning or performance. Over the years, the world woke up to sad news of disasters which after careful analysis revealed lapses in judgment as well as employees negligence. However, upon closer examination of these situations and the organizations involved, new evidence exonerated the employees of any blame while casting the finger to the management or leadership of these organizations. The above led to the introduction of two ideologies, ‘blame the victim’ and ‘blame the system’, which have been used to drive the narrative on some issues including fatigue in the workplace. While on one hand it seems logical to blame the lapses in judgment and the small mistakes on the employees, it also seems reasonable to blame an organization’s culture and decision-making structure. By delving deeper into these two ideologies or approaches, this article seeks to showcase the active role of fatigue in failures as well as provide evidence indicating why the ‘blame the victim approach should be rejected in favor of the ‘blame the system’ approach.
Role of Fatigue in Active Failures
Fatigue can arise as a result of several factors. According to Rogers (1, 2008), it can be as a result of “illness, a vigorous workout, or a period of prolonged concentration.” Additionally, one could suffer from fatigue because of monotony, working long hours, lack of morale, and changing or switching from day to night shift. While on paper these the factor listed above might seem small of less impact, their consequences could be dire and lead to catastrophic results. While citing data from the US Office of Marine Safety, Security and Environmental Protection and the Office of Navigation Safety and Waterway Services, Gordon (1996), shows that “operator status” was listed as one of the main factors which contribute to accidents. Among the factors listed under operator status is fatigue, inattention, and carelessness. Fatigue plays a major role in how people function and their commitment to their work. It also affects their concentration while in the workplace. Some of the roles of fatigue in active failures include:
* Fatigue impairs judgement which leads to bad decisions. When employees work for longer hours or are forced to work for longer hours, eventually, their judgment becomes impaired and the decisions they make will often not be the best. Human factors have been identified as one of the causes of accidents and other organizations failures in the workplace. In her article, Gordon (1996) stated that fatigue and problems between employees are some of the major causes of accidents in the workplace. When a person is fatigued, they are simply not working or delivering their services at their best. This means that they mental capability or competence is impaired and therefore, they cannot be considered as reliable or dependable in the workplace and so are their decisions.
* Negatively impacts productivity and performance of an employee. When employees are made to work for longer hours or are in a vigorous day and night shift program, they will indeed become fatigued. Apparently, a majority of organizations believe that truck drivers should be working long hours and have day and night shifts with only a few hours of rest. According to Belzer and Sedo (2017), fatalities emanating from truck crashes have reduced over the years. However, the researchers also state that “on average 11.4 people die every day in truck crashes” (Belzer and Sedo, 3, 2017). When computed yearly, the US alone loses thousands of people as a result of truck crashes. It is also important to note that “because of the difference in mass, truck-car crashes are more likely to involve high negative consequence for automobile passengers” (Belzer and Sedo, 3, 2017). While the above issues cannot be wholly attributed to fatigue, one cannot deny that it is indeed an important aspect in this discussion. While driving for long-hours, drivers are typically confined in smaller spaces, absorb vibrations, sit in a static lower and upper extremity posture and all of this takes a toll on their mental focus. The result is the possibility and increased propensity for accidents.
* Impairs one’s reaction time as well as the ability to recall details. There are always instances in a company where employees will be expected to respond fast or to remember certain things which are crucial to how some operations are conducted. For a fatigued employee whose mental capability is impaired, recalling details will indeed be a problem which would mean that response time will also be prolonged. In, for example, oil companies and refineries, response time is quite crucial and could mean life or death for hundreds if not thousands of employees. Therefore, working with a group of fatigued employees will indeed be disastrous in the end.
Blame the Victim vs Blame the System Approach
The performance of any organization is often dependent on the interaction and coherence of human, technical, organizational, social, environmental, and managerial factors. Gordon (1996) is keen to add that each of the above factors could be the cause of a catastrophic event within a company. It is true that human factors do indeed contribute to certain events in an organization after all, to err is human. As always, employees are often blamed for their inattention or carelessness whenever accidents or catastrophic events occur. However, taking into consideration the simple fact that the leadership often institutes all the laws in an organization, one is forced to consider the possibility of blaming the management whenever problems arise within...