In the Deep of The Night

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here is increasing evidence that people who work the night shift pay a physiological toll as they depart from the basic time clock dictated by their circadian rhythms. They also have more frequent job-related accidents and have to struggle harder to maintain their at-work focus. And when workers suffer, companies suffer. Dr. Martin Moore-Ede, CEO of Boston-based Circadian Technologies and author of The Twenty-Four-Hour Society, observes that the firms that have chosen to "push it to the max get hit later by the hidden problem of fatigue, burnout and stress." Sometimes the results can be disastrous. According to Moore-Ede, industrial deaths and injuries related to shiftwork cost the U.S. economy as much as $1.5 billion a year, and airplane crashes and plant explosions another $5 billion. Truck drivers alone are involved in fatigue-related accidents that cost $5 billion annually. Disasters and accidents aside, human fatigue costs the U.S. economy an estimated $6 billion in health costs and $55 billion a year in lost productivity.

Ed Coburn, publisher of the newsletter ShiftWork Alert, says American companies have gradually become more aware of the problems inherent in altering human circadian rhythms. Yet he observes that U.S. job culture still has not woken up, so to speak, to the need for more adaptation. Doctors, he notes, enter residency programs expected to work 36 hours in two days, having been taught almost nothing about how to sleep during the day or how to use naps to offset the effects of exhaustion. "The macho thing is very significant," he says. "Those who have been living with this for so long believe that the people who did not make it were the wimps. Very often the only catalyst for change [in such environments] is an accident."

Peggy Westfall-Lake, a consultant and author of Shiftwork Safety and Performance, is not about to let any accidents happen at the organization where she works, Williams, an Oklahoma-based energy and communications company. She firmly believes education and "fatigue-countermeasure training" can prevent the problems and costs caused by tiredness.

Westfall-Lake and "wellness supervisor" Jill Thieman have spearheaded a pilot project at a gas-gathering and -processing operation in the Four Corners. Some 400 shiftworkers, including field technicians, plant operators, maintenance workers and office staff, receive information about health and safety via an Intranet site, corporate fairs, family events and special classes. Employees can use company-owned vehicles to car-pool (thus minimizing driving fatigue), take time off while at work to exercise briefly on treadmills and stationary bicycles, and use light boxes that are designed to suppress melatonin, which induces sleep. So far, a third of those involved in the Williams program have reported improvements in their alertness and energy levels. Many other U.S. companies, like Sony Electronics, Brown & Williamson Tobacco and Dow Chemical, are offering their employees innovative programs similar to those at Williams. Some--though not many

No matter how many adjustments corporations make, of course, some people will never embrace the off-hours routine. For six years, John Wheeler, 39, was a night news writer and producer for CNN in Atlanta. "I was out of synch with the rest of the world," he recalls. He quit last fall, and insists, "You couldn't pay me enough to go back." Instead, he chose to become a 9-to-5 public relations specialist for United Parcel Service--a company that happens to be one of the major employers of nightworkers in the U.S.