Managing fatigue and reducing risks in mines

By Rebecca Todesco, Editor, Mining Magazine

With their heavy machinery, often monumental scale and occasional use of explosives, mine sites aren’t always considered the safest places to work. But now a new safety concern is making its way into the industry spotlight: the mental health and fatigue levels of mine employees. A recent University of Queensland (UQ) report looks at fatigue and its impacts on health and safety, and employees’ mental health on mine sites across Queensland and, ultimately, the whole of Australia.

Recent years have seen an increase in safety precautions and awareness in an attempt to mitigate the risks and hazards at mine sites to ensure the safety of workers. Now, more than ever, this awareness is extending to include the mental health and wellbeing of mine workers, not only their physical wellbeing.

As such, the industry has seen an increase in studies and programs working to safeguard employees’ mental health.

A recent report by the Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association is tackling the way the resources industry views mental health and removing associated stigma, as well as the Building Safe and Respectful Workplaces pilot program that took place in November 2022 demonstrated the industry’s willingness and commitment to progress.

Taking worker fatigue into consideration

In the aftermath and continued recovery from COVID-19, as well as Australia’s ongoing labour and skills shortages, workplaces across a variety of sectors – and the resources industry in particular – are dealing with overworking and workers suffering from fatigue and ill mental health.

A Worksafe Health and Safety Queensland report¹ defines fatigue as the feeling of being tired or drowsy and, in a work context, fatigue is a state of physical or mental exhaustion which can negatively impact a worker’s ability to carry out work effectively and safely. Fatigue can be caused by a number of factors including inadequate or interrupted sleep, physical or mental exertion, excessive work or prolonged waking times.

Fatigue-related incidents can have three-pronged consequences: individual, workplace, community. Individual consequences include impacts to cognitive function and short-term memory, poorer psychological and physical health, and an increased likelihood of being involved in an incident. Workplace consequences include an increase in fatigue-related error and incidents, increased costs associated with incident management and potential dissatisfaction and morale in the workplace. Community consequences include an increased need for trauma counselling services and ripple-on effects of serious injury, disability and death in the community.

A study exploring fatigue and mental health in the resources industry is explored in the recent report by UQ. Fatigue Management in the Queensland Mining Industry and its relationship with Mental Health highlights study findings and works to raise awareness of and mitigate fatigue in Queensland mines.

The report also explores the correlation between fatigue and safety, and mental health in mining. The study was one of the first projects to explore the correlation between fatigue, and mental health and safety in mining, and utilised a wide range of materials and documentation – including safety performance and health reports and reports of fatigue-related notifiable instances held by New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australian mining regulatory bodies.

Analysing fatigue and its management

In order to measure the potential relationship between these factors, a fatigue management baseline was established by researchers, including:

♦ A focused review of ongoing information about fatigue management from industry, academic and regulatory resources

♦ Analysis of incident data in order to better understand fatigue as a hazard factor in Australian mining

♦ A gap analysis to assess the effectiveness of current fatigue management processes at a selection of mine sites

To better understand the prevalence of fatigue, fatigue-reported incident data was collected from Queensland, New South Wales, and Western Australia. The Queensland data indicated fatigue as a factor in 2.5 per cent of all reported notifiable incidents, with most fatigue-related incidents occurring when heavy vehicles were driven on surface mines.

The relationships between fatigue, mental health, and health and safety were also explored through additional fatigue management literature review. This review showed that a variety of interventions were used in mining and related industries, including training, lighting and environmental conditions. The greatest number of these studies, however, focused on shift design and rostering.

Drawing conclusions

Following the extensive study, analysis of fatigue-related incident reports and review of the current fatigue intervention process in place the report came to a variety of conclusions and offered suggestions and recommen

dations for the future.

Fatigue incident data collection

Further commitment and work to collect more extensive fatigue incident data is necessary, as there is a high likelihood that the registered fatigue incident numbers are under-reported.

Fatigue incidents

Proposing action plans that target fatigue risks for heavy vehicle drivers on surface mines during night shifts, with a necessary emphasis on the initial shifts of the roster cycle.

Fatigue management

The effectiveness of fatigue management controls should be established and substantiated, with the controls undergoing regular review. The report also proposes a review of legislation against best practice for continuous improvement. his

is of particular importance given the obstacles sometimes encountered when workplaces seek to execute fatigue management controls but are prevented by mandated thresholds for agreement in consultation processes.

As part of this, studies that are well-designed and can evaluate the effectiveness and success of fatigue management interventions are necessary.

Fatigue management gaps in the industry

After careful review of mine site documents, the report advocates for better monitoring of the long-term health effects of fatigue, an assessment of mental health outcomes, greater use of fatigue detection technologies, and an increased emphasis of the significance of mining fatigue management.

Fatigue and mental health

The report also strongly encouraged the industry to do more in terms of mental health, including investigating fatigue as a factor in mental health outcomes, and mental health as a potential predictor of fatigue and health and safety outcomes.

Mentally healthy workplaces toolkit

The report proposes that government and industry stakeholders collaborate to develop a toolkit which can assist workplaces in the assessment of psychosocial hazards and risks that may relate to fatigue and mental health outcomes. As well as being used during major mine site changes, including the introduction of automation, and during incident investigations, this toolkit can also be used to inform prevention activities

Despite the difficulties in quantifying its direct link to injuries, incidents and illnesses in the workplace, fatigue has been linked to performance decrements in Australia’s minerals industry. Although the percentage of reported incidents that mention fatigue as a factor is quite low, it’s still a relatively preventable risk.

With the ongoing labour and skills shortages continuing to plague Australia’s mining industry and showing no signs of abating, the action plans, greater use of fatigue detection technologies, and toolkits to assess fatigue-related risks suggested in the report can help employers to strive towards safeguarding workers’ safety on mine sites.

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