THE MERRY-GO-ROUND OF MULTIPLE SHIFTS The Merry-Go-Round of Multiple Shifts: And the Effects on One’s Health Maggie Miller Jakaitis Arizona State University 1 THE MERRY-GO-ROUND OF MULTIPLE SHIFTS 2 ABSTRACT There is a myriad of industries that require round-the-clock manning for their businesses. Throughout this essay, I address the health concerns that arise due to the rotating or constant states of shift work faced by employees. I also consider the production concerns faced by companies enforcing a shift work policy at their plants or businesses. While looking at a few solutions for the issues that arise from shift work, while acknowledging the benefits and needs for two- to three-shift operations of companies. To hit a note that I have personal knowledge and experience in, I look specifically into the shift work experienced by flight line personnel, specifically those of maintenance personnel. While there is much difficulty that comes of being in the military or an employee of a company enforcing shift work, I look to make solutions and changes in policy for the better for these specific people. Keywords: Shift work, military, maintenance, health, sleep THE MERRY-GO-ROUND OF MULTIPLE SHIFTS 3 As anyone who has spent most of their night awake working on a paper for school or studying for an exam knows, sleep is an incredibly important and necessary factor for one to be motivated to work and be productive in that work. Some companies and agencies absolutely require round-the-clock operation or support, there are some where it is a more necessary practice than others, like that in the U.S. Military. As businesses and organizations at higher tiers tend to not think about the in’s and out’s that enable 24-hour operation, people that are expendable are often forgotten and their wellbeing falls second to the whim of their business. This analysis of shift workers in a military and organizational processes has incredibly negative effects on their health as well as productivity within the workplace. While yes, there are a many viable solutions to having shiftwork set or rotating through shifts, are either of these really viable solutions to the issues occurring? I believe the best option for shift work when it is needed would be a three- to four-month schedule in which employees can choose to rotate or stay on their desired shifts. When employees are given the opportunity to choose when they desire to work, within the means of what the employer can offer, the motivation of said employee could easily be boosted. When people are working when they want to and find their balance between professional and personal life, their work performance should increase along with their happiness and job satisfaction. THE MERRY-GO-ROUND OF MULTIPLE SHIFTS 4 However, allowing employees to choose whenever they desire to work, most employees will choose the shift they feel the most comfort with, day shift. With the massing of employees on day shifts, your off-shifts will be critically manned and stretched far too thin across eight or twelve hours. Morale would of course be through the roof for those who choose to work when is convenient for them, and the rest of the employees experience horrible sleep deprivation, burnout, and overall job dissatisfaction. While data on whether working a desired shift exists, there is quite a bit of evidence that extended (twelve to thirteen hour) shifts do not exactly raise productivity as one would think. In a study conducted upon officers working three thirteen hour shifts per week. The shorter work week was a benefit to the officers, however no difference in their productivity could be noted in data. Yet their level of alertness on these long days was recorded as significantly lower than officers who worked eight-hour shifts, five days a week (Dall 19Ora, 2016). A lengthier shift with fewer days of the week to work could be an increase for morale among workers, however there would be a drawback with their alertness which could lead to accidents in the workplace. No matter how you look at any study or scientific journal, a common complaint among the twenty percent of industrialized employees undergoing shift work, one of the most common complaints is insomnia and other sleep related disorders (Basner, 2005). Sleep hygiene techniques given by the Center for Disease Control are often unable to apply to those of us on off-shifts just based of the normal human circadian rhythm (CDC, 2015). Not only among shift workers, there is an epidemic sized problem nationwide of adults not getting enough sleep. THE MERRY-GO-ROUND OF MULTIPLE SHIFTS With the knowledge of how large of a percentage of adults falling asleep at the wheel or during the day at work, we can understand how great of a risk sleep deprivation is. As well as being based on studies published by the CDC, The New England Journal of Medicine, and the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, sleep disorders and shift work almost inevitably go hand in hand. Whether rotating shifts, chosen shifts, or set shifts are implemented, shift workers will feel the effects of sleep disruption. The easiest solution to attempt to avoid health problems caused by that of shift work is to educate and inform workers on off shifts. 5 THE MERRY-GO-ROUND OF MULTIPLE SHIFTS 6 References Basner, R. C. (2005). Shift-work sleep disorder--the glass is more than half empty. The New England Journal of Medicine, 353(5), 519-521. Chiu, H., & Tsai, P. (2013). The impact of various work schedules on sleep complaints and minor accidents during work or leisure time: Evidence from a national survey. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 55(3), 325-330. Dall 19Ora, Chiara. (2016). Characteristics of shift work and their impact on employee performance and wellbeing: A literature review. International Journal of Nursing Studies., 57, 12-27. Insufficient Sleep Is a Public Health Problem. (2015, September 03). Retrieved July 27, 2017, from https://www.cdc.gov/features/dssleep/index.html Lowden, A., Moreno, C., Holmbäck, U., Lennernäs, M., & Tucker, P. (2010). Eating and shift work — effects on habits, metabolism, and performance. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health,36(2), 150-162. Wang, T., & Chuang, L. (2014). Psychological and physiological fatigue variation and fatigue factors in aircraft line maintenance crews. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 44(1), 107-113. Living in the Bay Area, Northern part of California, can be a phenomenal place to grow up. Many people like my mother have lived in the Bay Area her entire life and refuse to relocate anywhere else. Me on the other hand, love the Bay Area, but I see a trend developing. Even though the trend has gotten better over the years, I like to think in the future and I do not want my kids to become victims of the typical, Bay Area murder. Our community seems to have turned a blind eye to the murders that take place in our land just because they have always occurred, but I beg to differ. I believe we as the Bay Area community need to team up to stop the murders that take place in our beautiful area. The youth in our community needs our help. They are in desperate need of guidance as they believe this to be the Wild Wild West. I know that I speak to all of the Bay Area community when I say that I stay away from certain areas because the youth are outside looking for trouble. We need to target the youth in our communities and instill in them that violence is not the way. “41 percent of homicide victims and 53 percent of arrestees were aged 18-29”. (Bulwa, 2015). We need to ask ourselves, why is this happening? What can we do? I do not know about you, but this next story was heartbreaking for me. This story lit a fire inside of me to seek change for us. Do we remember the story of Terrance Kelly? The star football player who moved to the outskirts of Richmond to stay away from the violence that occurs in Richmond on the daily. Just because he was doing the right things by going to school, getting good grades and playing a sport he loved at a high level, he was gunned down out of pure jealousy. While Terrance was only home for a few days because he was at an Oregon football camp, he went to pick up his friend, but instead met his fate. “He pulled his father's white Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme in front of the son's girlfriend's house and used his cellphone to let him know he had arrived. Minutes later Darren fired the first shot from three feet outside the passenger door. When the car started rolling, he walked alongside it and fired at least three more times, working the bolt action on the rifle between shots. Bullets hit Terrance twice in the right cheek, in the head and in the back” (Dohrmann, 2008, p. 58-59). Terrance Kelly could be any of our sons and daughters. We as a community need to come together to stop this nonsense. I have a friend that lost his life to gun violence back in 2007. He was not even the intended victim of the murderer, but for whatever reason the bullet found my friend. There was a shock wave that was sent throughout my town. I also knew the shooter who is now serving life in prison for committing his crime. The shooter did not have a mentor while growing up and was always hanging around the wrong crowd. How many kids can be saved if they had a mentor while growing up? What the city of Richmond is doing with their mentorship program should be a model for other Bay Area cities. Richmond city launched a program with DeVone Boggan called the Office of Neighborhood Safety. There is a focus group of 50 kids that DeVone and a few other mentors look after. The 50 kids are high risk youth individuals that are heavily involved in gang violence. This program has been very successful because the youth listen to DeVone and his team. DeVone was once like the high-risk kids so it is only natural for the kids to instill their trust in him. “In 2007, when Boggan's program began, Richmond was America's ninth most dangerous city, with 47 killings among its 106,000 residents. In 2013, it saw its lowest number of homicides in 33 years, and its homicide rate fell to 15 per 100,000” (Murphy, 2014, p. 36-65). If the mentorship program can work in the ninth most dangerous city then it can work in surrounding cities. The surrounding cities are still very much in need of help as you can see by the statistics in Figure 1. I believe the answers to our problems within our city can be solved by reaching the youth. After school programs for children and young teens will help because it will get in the minds of young kids and instill leadership qualities in them that will last a lifetime. The program BAWT, Bay Area Wilderness Training, is a fantastic after school program that other up and coming programs should pay attention too. “BAWT's mission is to create opportunities for urban youth to experience wilderness first hand. At a time when studies show that the young generation's alienation from nature is contributing to an ever-growing range of behavioral problems” (Burdette, 2013, p. 15-15). Programs such as BAWT gives the youth something to look forward to after school. Besides sports, this gives the urban youth and opportunity to step outside of their neighborhoods to realize that there is more out there in the world. We as the Bay Area community need to come together as a whole and help our youth. The murders need to come to an end. We need more people like DeVonne Boggan to step up and become mentors to our youth. We also need more programs like BAWT that gives our youth something to partake in after school. It will only work if we come together as a community to put an end to the madness on our streets. References Bulway, D. (2015). CALIFORNIA’S FALLING HOMICIDE RATE, BY THE NUMBERS. SFGATE. Retrieved from http://blog.sfgate.com/crime/2015/01/19/californias-falling-homiciderate-by-the-numbers/ Dohrmann, G. (2008). THE HARDEST LOSS. Sports Illustrated, 108(26), 58-59. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=ace2772c9a94-46cf-9adc668ac3aad9bf%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=32786 212&db=aph Murphy, T. (2014). LIFE IS CHEAP. Mother Jones, 39(4), 36-65. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=c98ecba8-72db4d84-a96d2948c090174e%40sessionmgr4010&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=96532 765&db=aph Veklerov, J. P. (2017, April 07). IN RICHMOND, HIGH NUMBER OF HOMICIDES GO UNSOLVED. Retrieved from http://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/In-Richmond-manymurders-go-unsolved-11055724.php Burdette, J. (2013). GETTING URBAN YOUTH INTO THE GREAT OUTDOORS. Earth Island Journal, 27(4), 15. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=92f024e2-0ee84e63-ad0854f1a962ba40%40sessionmgr4010&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=84198 743&db=aph
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