Last October, the Health and Safety Authority of Ireland launched a new information campaign aimed at raising awareness of the damaging effects of work-related stress. Work-related stress is stress caused or made worse by work. It refers to situations where employees perceive their work in such a way that they have serious and ongoing difficulty coping with day-to-day demands.
To assist employers manage this, the Health and Safety Authority, in conjunction with the State Claims Agency, developed the ‘Work Positive’ online tool. Available at workpositive.ie, it helps employers to implement a structured and collaborative approach to managing work-related stress.
According to Patricia Murray, Organisational Psychologist with the Health and Safety Authority, “Employers need to be alert for the signs of work related stress in their organisations. All employers have a duty of care to provide a safe and healthy workplace and this duty extends to mental as well as physical safety and health. The benefits of doing so not only extend to employees themselves but also to the business in the form of reduced absenteeism and increased employee engagement, performance and productivity.”
Driving for work, whether part of a fleet operation or otherwise, is hazardous and poses many challenges such as driving in adverse weather conditions, driving whilst distracted, drink driving and driver fatigue. But despite these being some of the main risks associated with driving commercially (and generally), they do not specifically pinpoint work-related stress issues that might crop up in the case of night driving, when delivery times are too tight, in intense traffic conditions and certainly when workload planning falls short.
Telematics in these instances can be an excellent ally: from assessing risks to managing them, from assisting drivers and fleet managers in correctly scheduling jobs with realistic delivery times to rewarding drivers for good performances and therefore increasing engagement and productivity, there are multiple ways in which telematics can make drivers feel less stressed. Its implementation has to be properly planned and communicated in order to make things effective, but it’s not a hard task if you choose to rely on SynX by Transpoco!