Health Management
All persons have a duty of care to themselves in that they are fit for work for the duration of their work assignment. Manpower encourages all candidates and employees to pro-actively seek beneficial health assurance information that will assist them to lead a healthier work life. We stress that where your health may require more than mere personal references and choices, that you engage a professional general practitioner to offer the right advice on your relevant health improvements.
Fitness for Work Policies
Manpower and its clients enforce strict provisions to ensure all persons are fit for work prior to commencing work, and during work. As a candidate or employee, this means you must not be influenced by alcohol or drugs when you enter a workplace, operate machinery or supervise others.
Upon entering the ManpowerGroup, your induction informs you of the Manpower Fitness For Work Policy which includes the prohibition of being influenced by alcohol or other drugs whilst in our employ. You also give consent to be tested at any-time in the workplace, and abide by the instructions given by Manpower and / or the Client.
If you are not sure of these requirements, or require more information on Manpower's Fitness for work Policy provisions, please click on the icon below to access this Policy.
Fatigue Management Advice
Fatigue presents itself in many ways to each person, sometimes in an obvious form, sometimes not. The following list indicates the differing types of fatigue factors that can affect a person's cognition, or ability to think and act in a safe manner.
Sleep Debt Fatigue
- This occurs when you have less than 8 hours continuous sleep per day over a significant period. The broken sleep patterns can be in excess of 50% of your sleep period giving you around 4 hours rest every 8 hours sleep. If this broken sleep occurs continuously (and depending on other aspects of your health) you may experience micro sleeps or [pass out during a crucial task at your workplace. A known contributor to broken sleep patterns is obesity at any level. Another risk to sleep debt is reduced sleep periods (less than 8 hours) or shift sleeping (where the 8 hours is deliberately broken up into shorter more frequent sleeps.
Candidates and employees must ensure that their sleep periods are adequate enough to provide good rest periods to let the body and mind replenish. Shift change meetings in certain industries (such as mining) train their supervisors to assess each person for signs and symptoms of fatigue and have counter measures to ensure you cannot enter the workplace in this condition.
Illness
- Persons who insist on arriving at work with a known illness (the flu, strains, disease, etc...) are now fatigued as their body has already been busy fighting their illness, and they have probably experienced some sleep debt on top of this.
Influence of Alcohol and Other Drugs
- Being under the influence of alcohol or other drugs is prohibited as the impairment upon cognition is unquantifiable - therefore banned. If persons have an addition to a substance, Manpower encourages the confidential disclosure to the OHSE Unit so that referral to our Employee Assistance Program can occur for on referral to rehabilitation. Everyone must remember that if this opportunity is not taken by a candidate or employee, an addiction cannot be recognised, nor are any concessions made for future test results and associated actions.
Manpower and its client will also require you to immediately disclose the use of prescription drugs to the OHSE Unit so that a search can be performed on the medication to ensure that prohibitions for machinery or vehicle use are verified and complied with.
Poor Diet
- Your diet is an important factor in being fit for work. It is common knowledge that excessive intake of certain food groups with little exercise contributes to obesity. You must also consider how your type of diet will affect your energy levels in certain environments, for example, the consumption of heavy / saturated fatty food in the hot summer will draw the blood away from your extremities to the digestive system to process digestion. This makes it harder for your blood to cool through your extremities and circulate through your body to reduce your body temperature.
Prolonged Work / Shifts
- The effects of working long hours are well known and sparked the reasonable hours test case last decade. Prolonged work hours or shifts, simply tires a person physically and mentally to the extent that the person's reduced physical strength and cognition adversely affects their ability to perform reliably safe work.
Manpower does employ controls for reasonable hours of work that includes travel time and is contained within its Fitness For Work Policy. The most important issue that candidates and employees must manage, is the reporting of their fatigue issues to their supervisor and or Manpower consultant and implement controls that reduce your potential for a work or travel related incident.
Personal Fitness
- Personal fitness is reduced by varying influences in and outside of the work environment. A person's inactive lifestyle / social habits where physical activities performed are of low levels, may be a contributing factor to immobility, weight gain, and over-exertion.
Prior to the commencement of physically demanding work, you should perform stretching exercises with your body parts that are most likely to be used the most for your job. This will ensure a degree of limbering is achieved preventing strains and sprains.
Dehydration
- Fitness for work is affected by persons not frequently rehydrating in hot work environments and climates. A low rehydration replenishment rate would be 4 - 6 litres per day with hotter climates and excessive work demands requiring a higher rate. It is essential that workers being placed to work in remote or isolated locations must have adequate water to rehydrate for the duration of their task.
The most effective rehydration fluid is water. Isotonic drinks, soft drinks, cordials and fruit juices do not offer rehydration as effective as water. To assist in the reduction of dehydration, supplementary controls such as brimmed hats, long sleeved shirts, the provision of shade, rest regimes, neck coolers and ventilation should be provided at the work site.
Symptoms / signs of dehydration may involve the following-
- Headache
- Dizziness
- Nausea / Vomiting
- Fainting
- Dark urinary discharge
If you experience these, seek immediate rehydration, report it to your supervisor and rest. If required, a first aider should refer you to professional treatment.
Influence of Alcohol and Other Drugs
- As explained in ManpowerGroup's Fitness for Work Policy, persons who are under the influence of alcohol or other drugs may be deemed as unfit for safe work. As an individual's tolerance and intolerance levels to these may differ due to their physiology, all levels of influence are difficult to attach to levels of impairment. Due to this anomaly, all levels of influence are treated as potential triggers for impairment which cannot be tolerated when lives may be at risk. Therefore blanket prohibitions for any detected level of alcohol or drugs levels in a person by a tester, will apply across most client sites and industries.
Alcohol and Other Drug Testing
- As an employee / candidate, you have given your consent to be tested for alcohol and other drugs during your employment and may be subjected to testing either by Manpower, and or the client. There are two mainstream testing methods used -
1. Breath Air Analyser - this is a calibrated device operated by a qualified person who takes a sample of your breath through the device which will detect and measure the level of alcohol in your breath air sample.
2. Salivical Tester. This is a swab which you are required to place in your mouth and provide a compliant sample. The mid-range testers will detect a positive or negative reading of the presence of 5 different drug groups within your system on an indicator built into the swab device. Manpower's preference of equipment for salivical testing is the Drugwipe 5S product.
In the event of returning a positive reading for alcohol or other drugs, you will be required to either proceed to a registered testing provider or a GP for further urine or blood testing, or be stood down from work pending further testing. Persons delivering positive results are not permitted to work.
Illness and Disease Management
- Persons who have known diseases or illnesses that are openly contagious must not frequent a workplace where other person's health is put at risk. If and when you decide not to attend work due to these circumstances, it is important that you give your Manpower consultant and the client enough notification so that a replacement can be made. Where a person has a significant illness that has prevented them from being away from work for more than two days, a doctors certificate should be provided to Manpower indicating that they are fir to return to full duties.
Occupational Health Surveillance
- Some aspects of higher risk work may involve passive exposures or unplanned exposures to materials that required medical assessment, and ongoing health surveillance programs. These programs may involve spirometries for occupational dust exposures causing lung diseases, blood testing for poisoning, absorption of toxins, exposure to isocyanates, etc...
