Shift Work

Book excerpt: Shift work is a very necessary function in many enterprises, and has been—in an unofficial capacity—for as long as there has been labour needing to be divided within a community. With Shift Work: its Origins, its Effects, its Price, author Dacrison Worrell examines both the history of shift work and its current status in society. Today, the need for shift work is particularly heavy in the field of health-care, where the rigours can exact an intensely heavy toll at every level. That toll can manifest in the form of crippling emotional and spiritual difficulties, impacting all aspects of a worker’s life, as well as the development of serious health conditions and the worsening of existing ones. Shift Work calls attention to the obligation of employers to pay the strictest attention to the health needs of their workers, especially shift workers, devising meaningful programmes that would equip managers and colleagues alike with keener insight into worker behaviour.