The following appeared in a memo from the Board of Directors of Butler Manufacturing.
“During the past year, workers at Butler Manufacturing reported 30 percent more on-the-job accidents than workers at nearby Panoply Industries, where the work shifts are one hour shorter than ours. A recent government study reports that fatigue and sleep deprivation among workers are significant contributing factors in many on-the-job accidents. Therefore, we recommend that Butler Manufacturing shorten each of its work shifts by one hour. Shorter shifts will allow Butler to improve its safety record by ensuring that its employees are adequately rested.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The recommendation that Butler Manufacturing shorten its shifts by one hour will improve the company’s safety record by ensuring that its employees are adequately rested. However, that claim is not supported by statistics. Butler Manufacturing does not report having higher accident rates than Panoply Industries. Moreover, there is insufficient evidence to support the conclusion that longer shifts are the cause of more accidents than shorter shifts. One possibility is that Panoply Industries employees are not adequately rested. If workers at Butler Manufacturing are sleepy and drowsy, then it stands to reason that their drowsy driving could have caused more accidents than would sleepiness among Panoply employees. If the two companies have the same number of accidents, then longer shifts at Butler Manufacturing may not have resulted in more accidents, but shorter shifts at Panoply would have. The other possibility is that because Panoply employees work shorter shifts, they may work longer hours, resulting in fatigue. If fatigue is implicated in the accidents, then reducing shifts may not necessarily reduce accidents.
A second consideration is whether shorter shifts will reduce fatigue. If so, then reducing shifts by one hour may not necessarily reduce fatigue. A three-hour shift is eight hours of continuous work. During that eight-hour period, employees may not feel fatigued, but by the time they leave the workplace, they may feel exhausted. If fatigue is a factor in accidents, then reducing shifts to six hours may not result in fewer accidents. Moreover, workers may tire more easily after working six hours than after working eight hours, so reducing shifts to six hours may not necessarily result in fewer accidents.
The third consideration is the frequency of accidents. If the frequency of accidents is high, then reducing shifts by one half hour may not substantially reduce accidents. Workers may be prone to accidents when they are tired, so reducing shifts by one hour may not be effective. In addition, if accidents are associated with the negligence of managers or supervisors, then reducing shifts by one hour may not be effective.
If the frequency of accidents is low, then reducing shifts by one hour may improve safety. In this case, reducing shifts to three hours from five hours per day may result in fewer accidents than reducing shifts to six hours from eight hours per day. However, reducing shifts by one half hour may not result in fewer accidents. In this case, reducing shifts from five hours per day to four hours each day may result in fewer accidents than reducing shifts from eight hours per day to six hours each day.
Shorter shifts may also reduce fatigue. However, fatigue may not be the primary cause of accidents. If employees are not adequately rested, then reducing shifts by one hour may not result in fewer accidents. If fatigue is implicated in the accidents, then reducing shifts by one hour may not prevent accidents. If the frequency of accidents is low, then reducing shifts by one hour may reduce the number of accidents. If the frequency of accidents is high, then reducing shifts by one hour may not reduce the number of accidents. The length of shifts is a factor to be considered, but other factors may also contribute to accidents, such as fatigue, inadequate rest, and the negligence of managers or supervisors.