About this course
Extended shifts, rotating schedules, and overnight production runs are common in food manufacturing, and each of them increases the risk of fatigue-related incidents. This course covers how to recognize fatigue in yourself and coworkers, and what facilities and individual workers can do to manage that risk.
There is no single OSHA standard dedicated to worker fatigue, but OSHA addresses it through Section 5(a)(1), the General Duty Clause, treating fatigue as a recognized hazard when job demands, scheduling, or staffing make impairment reasonably foreseeable. OSHA's own guidance on long work hours and irregular shifts notes that working 12-hour days is associated with meaningfully higher injury risk compared with standard 8-hour shifts, and that injury rates run higher on evening and night shifts than on day shifts — underscoring why schedule design and fatigue awareness matter as much as any single engineering control.
This course is intended for all employees working extended, rotating, or overnight shifts, as well as supervisors who build schedules and need to recognize when a worker may be too fatigued to safely perform a task. It works well alongside a facility's fatigue risk management policy, including non-punitive procedures for flagging fatigue-related concerns.
After completing this course, learners will be able to recognize the physical and cognitive signs of fatigue, understand how shift length, timing, and circadian rhythm affect alertness, describe practical steps to manage fatigue on and off shift, and know how to report a fatigue-related safety concern.
Topics covered
- How shift length, timing, and rotation affect fatigue and injury risk
- Recognizing physical and cognitive signs of fatigue
- Sleep, recovery, and lifestyle factors that reduce fatigue risk
- Facility-level controls: scheduling, staffing, and rest breaks
- Reporting fatigue-related concerns without fear of retaliation
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