Mike works in a large consumer goods warehouse, driving a forklift. For the past week or two he hasn’t been himself. Coworkers have noticed the change.
In today’s workplace, fatigue is four times more likely to contribute to workplace impairment than drugs or alcohol, Susan Sawatzky of In-Scope Solutions said Monday. Yet this prevalent health and safety risk is still largely under-recognized by the majority of organizations and industries, she said.
Before you blame the worker, or even the PPE itself for some workplace incident, consider that the worker may be sleep deprived. Often, when a worker is confronted for violating a policy, he or she will shrug and say, “I forgot.” Many safety professionals are realizing that human errors, behavioral drift and even recklessness can be traced to a growing threat to workplace safety –a lack of sleep.
The expected increase in visual impairment in the workplace is an emerging issue for employers. As the 30 million so-called baby boomers age, the number of Americans who will experience vision loss will grow; it is expected to double over the next 30 years, according to the American Foundation for the Blind.
Hearing loss among older adults appears to be associated with faster cognitive decline than people without hearing loss, researchers found, in a report published in the Los Angeles Times.
The term "blindness" can have many connotations and is difficult to define precisely. To many people, blindness refers to the complete loss of vision with no remaining perception of light.
