Test & Measurement

Tip of the Week: Are Your People Tired?

March 6, 2017

Take steps to guard against overworking your employees

We can run machines into the ground and replace them. When it comes to people, you don’t want to be doing this. When people are fatigued, you greatly increase the likelihood of outcomes such as these:

• Errors of judgment.

• Memory problems; forgetting things that are pretty important.

• Inattentiveness.

• “Stupid” mistakes.

• Unsafe behaviors and carelessness.

• Lower productivity, both because of increased rework and decreased work speed.

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Watch for signs of fatigue, including:

• An increase in any of the outcomes above.

• Irritability.

• Frequent yawning.

• Red eye.

• Low energy.

• A sense of dissatisfaction.

If you’re short a person (or more) or overloaded on projects, it may seem sensible to just have your available people work more hours to fill the gap. But this isn’t sustainable, and at some point it will make you fall even further behind than “working a straight 40.”

To reduce the overload, you may have to just bite the bullet on projects of lesser importance. Burning out your people and taking your company down the path of bad work done unsafely really isn’t an option.

Here are some options to consider:

• Obviously, hire someone. If you can’t find a qualified electrician quickly enough, hire helpers who can handle support work that electricians are doing at the electrician burden rate. This can free up the electrician resource to a considerable extent.

• Contact your distributor about kitting. This can save several hours on even a small project.

• Contact a competitor and ask if they need work. Either subcontract something to them or ask if them to “loan” people they don’t have enough work for at the moment. Or hire them to do shop work like panel assembly for you, thus freeing up your people who were doing that.

• Look at how the work is being done and buy time-saving tools to improve productivity. Today’s power tools are vastly better than ones made even a few years ago.

• Streamline your work process. Do away with paper forms (in favor of electronic, e.g., smartphone-based) and reduce “paperwork” of all sorts as much as possible.

• Ask your people what things waste their time and fix or eliminate those things.

• Try to reschedule some work—offer a discount if need be. But don’t just not show up because you’re overloaded.

About the Author

Mark Lamendola

Mark is an expert in maintenance management, having racked up an impressive track record during his time working in the field. He also has extensive knowledge of, and practical expertise with, the National Electrical Code (NEC). Through his consulting business, he provides articles and training materials on electrical topics, specializing in making difficult subjects easy to understand and focusing on the practical aspects of electrical work.

Prior to starting his own business, Mark served as the Technical Editor on EC&M for six years, worked three years in nuclear maintenance, six years as a contract project engineer/project manager, three years as a systems engineer, and three years in plant maintenance management.

Mark earned an AAS degree from Rock Valley College, a BSEET from Columbia Pacific University, and an MBA from Lake Erie College. He’s also completed several related certifications over the years and even was formerly licensed as a Master Electrician. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and past Chairman of the Kansas City Chapters of both the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society. Mark also served as the program director for, a board member of, and webmaster of, the Midwest Chapter of the 7x24 Exchange. He has also held memberships with the following organizations: NETA, NFPA, International Association of Webmasters, and Institute of Certified Professional Managers.