General well-being, mental health, work-life balance, and crew fatigue are closely related. Working irregular hours is becoming increasingly common and is always challenging for us humans as we are not well-suited to work during the night. (If we were, our night vision would for example be much more on par with nocturnal animals.) We are meant to sleep during night-time and as soon those night hours are impacted, we are not functioning entirely well.
The strain put on airline crew is bigger than workers in many other industries as the work/rest schedule rarely repeats itself, there are frequent changes to the roster at late notice, and crew may have little or no influence over the roster content. Being able to choose, and be granted, days off where needed or start late or finish early on certain days, plays a major role in solving the life-puzzle with family and friends - but only if the published roster can be trusted.
A very good presentation, highlighting the importance of influence and stability, but also going further, was recently given at the recent IASS gathering in Paris by Paul Cullen, Researcher, Trinity College Dublin. Paul says the industry needs to stop just ‘pulling people up from the river’, but also go upstream to learn why they are ending up in there in the first place. Please consider watching the recorded presentation in his LinkedIn post. It's short and to the point, found via this link. Enjoy.
Comments