Fatigue risk: effective strategies for managing fatigue in a major hazard facility

Fatigue is often an underestimated safety risk in our industry, where demanding work schedules, long shifts, and high-risk operational environments are the norm. Unlike physical hazards – such as noise, corrosion, or pressure – which can be directly observed or measured, psychosocial hazards like fatigue are less visible, more individual, and often subjective. Yet fatigue-related impairment can be just as dangerous, increasing error rates, accident likelihood, and negative health outcomes. Effectively managing fatigue is therefore not only essential for individual well-being but critical to maintaining safe and reliable operations. At Esso’s Long Island Point Plant, we partnered with fatigue expert Dr Kirsty McCulloch to undertake a comprehensive review of our Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS) and implement holistic improvements to ensure it remains effective, sustainable, and industry leading. This deep dive informed a new ‘defences in depth’ strategy, acknowledging that no single control is perfect. We redesigned the system to strengthen how fatigue is assessed using predefined controls, identify and classify fatigue symptoms, expand prevention focused education, improve reporting, and refresh staffing and workload processes. Fatigue-related incidents rarely occur without warning, emerging through multiple layers of risk, each with identifiable hazards and opportunities for intervention. Our updated FRMS addresses these layers to better protect our people, our community, and our facility. Early results show promising cultural and operational shifts: reporting of fatigue indicators has increased, leaders are more regularly verifying job-specific controls in the field, and overtime has been materially reduced. These improvements are already delivering benefits to both safety and well-being.