Mass. company focuses on helping shift workers adjust

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Dec 28, 2008 (The Providence Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- CKDN | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Not everyone works from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., despite what it might say in the Dolly Parton song.

Some people work from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Some are on an overnight shift and work from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Some folks go back and forth from one shift to another, their body clocks in a constant state of confusion. Working to help employers deal with the problems of shift work is a company called Circadian, based in Stoneham, Mass.

Bill Sirois, senior vice president and chief operating officer for Circadian, said there are 25 million shift workers in the United States, and the number keeps growing. We are turning into a 24/7 society, Sirois said, thanks in part to the Internet, which never shuts down, and globalization. (It's always 9 a.m. somewhere in the world.)

Sirois said Circadian's clients include industries that need to keep their operations running 24 hours a day -- oil refineries, chemical plants, steel mills, paper mills. Circadian also has a variety of clients in the transportation world, such as railroads, airlines and trucking companies that need to keep things moving all the time. "The market that most needs our services is hospitals and health care, but they won't spend a nickel on this," Sirois said.

Sirois said Circadian cites figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics that indicate one in five American workers, about 24 million people, are shift workers. The company consults with its clients on the best way to schedule shifts, plus how shift work affects absenteeism, turnover, productivity, safety, overtime and legal issues.

The company was founded by Martin Moore-Ede, a former Harvard Medical School professor who led a research team that helped identify the biological clock that controls sleep and wakefulness. (Moore-Ede learned about fatigue firsthand as a surgeon-in-training working 36-hour shifts.)

Sirois said people have a natural biological rhythm, or chronotype, that determines sleep patterns. A relatively small percentage of us are night owls, wide awake after midnight. An equal percentage are morning people, rarin' to go at 5 a.m. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. "Unless you're Al Gore, you've got rhythm," Sirois said, adding that altering the body's natural pattern is extremely difficult to do.

Sirois has no use for daylight-saving time, which he calls "one of the most useless things in our society." A 1998 study found that traffic accidents rise 17 percent the day after spring daylight-saving time, when we "spring forward" and lose an hour of sleep.

Sirois said most shift workers simply aren't sleeping enough. The average male shift worker averages 5.5 hours of sleep per day, he said, while the average female shift worker gets 5.2 hours per day. People should be getting 7 or 8 hours of sleep a day, Sirois said, and it's that last hour that really makes a difference.

Cost-cutting measures on the part of many corporations, particularly eliminating staff, are only making matters worse, Sirois said. Eliminating staff reduced any "relief factor" built into the shift structure, and means people have to work longer and longer hours. Sirois said staff cuts often don't even save money because they lead to large increases in overtime.

Sirois said some of Circadian's recommendations, such as allowing employees to take "power naps" to refresh themselves during their shifts, go against years of corporate policy. After all, snoozing on the job is usually one sure way to get fired. But Sirois said a few oil refineries have actually started building "nap rooms" for employees.

Circadian also has some advice for shift workers who need to sleep during the day. Establish a bedtime routine, Sirois said, even if it's at noon. A routine signals the brain that it's time for sleep. He also recommends unplugging the phone, using heavy curtains to block out light, and perhaps investing in a "white noise" machine that generates a soothing sound to block out any daytime noise.

Sirois said that, so far, Circadian is holding its own despite the economic recession. When fatigue contributes to a major industrial accident, he added, business always picks up. He mentioned the 2005 explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, that killed 15 people and injured 180. Worker exhaustion was considered a contributing factor in the disaster. "We always get called in after the big bang," Sirois said.

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