Safety & Compliance News

Watch for pressure points

Certain parts of a work shift can create conditions that increase the likelihood of distraction, fatigue, or rushing:

Why safety risk can change

OSHA and NIOSH both recognize that fatigue can affect safety. As work hours increase, attention, reaction time, and judgment can decline. Factors such as extended shifts, demanding work, heat, stress, and nontraditional schedules can make those effects more noticeable. and dangerous.

Fatigue and other pressures can make it harder to notice changing conditions, follow established procedures, or choose the safest response. A routine task can become riskier when something changes, and no one recognizes it in time.

Situational awareness plays a role as well. As tasks become repetitive, familiar safety checks can start to feel automatic. When that happens, it may lead to overlooking a changing condition, a new hazard, or something out of the ordinary.

For example, an employee who has safely moved materials dozens of times during a shift may be less likely to notice an obstacle in the travel path or a load that has shifted unexpectedly.

Let your own records tell the story

There's no universally dangerous time that applies to every workplace. Your own records may provide the best insight. Review incident investigations, near-miss reports, first-aid cases, and hazard observations. Look for patterns involving:

• The point in the shift when the event occurred;
• Hours worked;
• Time since the last break;
• Overtime;
• Staffing levels;
• Workload and production demands;
• Environmental conditions; and
• Whether a break, deadline, shift change, or quitting time was approaching.

Look for trends rather than focusing on individual incidents. The goal is to identify when employees face the greatest pressures and determine what factors may be contributing to the risk.

Act on what you find

Once employers identify where safety pressure points exist, they can take steps to reduce the risk before an incident occurs. Practical strategies may include:

• Empowering supervisors to pause or adjust work when conditions raise safety concerns;
• Holding brief hazard reviews at the start of a shift or when conditions change;
• Reviewing overtime, staffing, workload, and production demands;
• Rotating repetitive or demanding tasks when practical;
• Providing meaningful opportunities for rest, stretching, and hydration;
• Assessing environmental factors such as lighting and temperature;
• Planning safe stopping points before breaks and shift changes; and
• Using consistent shift handoffs to communicate hazards and operational changes.

Key to Remember: Safety expectations don't change with the clock, but the conditions affecting your people do. Find your pressure points, dig into what's driving them, and fix them before they cause an incident.