Fatigue Management System and University Aviation Program Essay

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Fatigue is one of the main problems that affected the aviation industry and its employees. Depression, anxiety, irritation, and anger are common results of work-related stress. These usually lead to job boredom, burnout, and/or withdrawal in the forms of absenteeism and turnover. Fatigue has serious consequences for the organization as well-absenteeism, poor employee-management relations, poor productivity, high accident rates, high turnover, poor organizational climate, antagonism at work, job dissatisfaction, and decreased ability to make decisions self-management has been effective in clinical psychology with such behaviors as weight control, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, and anxiety reduction. A fatigue management system is aimed to reduce the amou8nt of stress and anxiety experienced by students and help them to create effective self-management programs.

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In aviation, fatigue is a serious problem as it affects pilots and other staff. “Fatigue is a Recognized Problem Pilot fatigue is an insidious threat throughout aviation, but especially in operations” (Caldwell, p.7). These behaviors are often caused by or are a direct result of an individual’s stress or reaction to an inability to manage stress. Research proves that the direct application of self-management techniques is effective if it directly relates to fatigue problems. Clearly, focusing people’s efforts on their most important goals must serve to minimize stress-inducing problems.

The effective fatigue management system should consist of several steps: training (theoretical and practical parts) and organizational support. For example, where “supervisory difficulty” is reported as a problem, the trainees should learn to define the term objectively, giving specific examples of actual occurrences and their consequences. The trainer should help the trainees to focus both on their own responses and on the actions taken by their respective supervisors (or coworkers if the problem lay with them). The trainees should record their responses on self-assessment forms thus clarifying for themselves the problem or problems that they want to overcome in order to increase job attendance.

During the program, pilots should understand the notion of fatigue and its main manifestations. This knowledge will help them to access and control risks, recognize problem situations and organize their schedule. By observing the amount of time spent on repetitive administrative tasks or informal conversations, for example, the individual can learn more about this behavior. The individual should record the type and number of such conversations in each workday and the conditions that existed at the time. If three hours are spent chatting informally during an eight-hour day, it becomes a bit more clear as to why the performance goals are not being accomplished. Furthermore, if most of the individual’s conversations begin at the coffee room, the person has useful information for managing the behavior, for example, by cutting down on trips to the coffee lounge.

Preventing methods should involve a healthy work environment and enough time given for rest, recognition of individual and team fatigue, frequent breaks, and flexible working schedule, etc. Also, Caldwell (2003) admits that “several sleep-disorders centers across the nation have implemented fatigue-avoidance programs at their facilities, and a variety of professional and industry training conferences now include alertness-management workshops on their agendas”. Pinpointing the interruptions as specifically as possible can help the manager or employee decide which interruptions are the most troublesome and which should be targeted for modification through self-management. The trainees should be asked during the orientation session why they had volunteered for training. The trainer should be able to explain the underlying assumptions and rationale of self-management and take measures of self-efficacy and outcome expectancies (to be taken again immediately after, three months after, six months after, and nine months after the training). A learning test should be also administered during this session (and again at three months, six months, and nine months following training).

A university aviation program should teach students how to recognize the state of fatigue and avoid further stress and anxiety. In the face of competing demands on time and resources, it is essential that a pilot has clearly stated objectives. But objectives alone are not sufficient for managing effectively within an often unpredictable and chaotic work environment. Training in self-management can improve an individual’s behavior and lead to the exercise of greater control over aspects of his or her decision-making and performance. Similarly, negative emotions arising from disagreements or conflicts within a group may focus attention on interpersonal processes in the group and how group members treat each other. In essence, the emotions experienced in groups in response to internal and external stimuli and events imbue those stimuli and events with meaning and significance for group members. Moreover, the moods that group members experience are likely to influence their information processing and behavior. For example, when members of a group experience negative moods, they may be more critical and discerning, and when they experience positive moods, they may be more helpful to each other, as well as to people outside the group. Just as groups clearly experience broad dimensions of affect such as positive and negative mood, they also experience more specific emotions nested underneath these broad dimensions. For example, group members may collectively experience shame on learning of a missed opportunity, pride for a job well done, anxiety in an uncertain situation when the stakes are high, and enthusiasm while working on an intrinsically interesting task. Caldwell admits that: “Despite unavoidable operational constraints, an effort to resolve misunderstandings about human physiology and the basic nature of fatigue in aviation will reduce this strain to more manageable levels” (36). Some affect regulation that takes place in groups is relatively passive. It may be unconscious or automatic and is not the result of group members’ taking active steps to regulate or manage their own or each other’s feelings. This does not necessarily imply that people are unaware of the fact that their moods and emotions are being influenced, but rather that the influence process is carried out without deliberate intentions or interventions.

In sum, in order to develop effective fatigue management programs, it is crucial to involve three main parts of the program: preventive methods, reporting methods, and monitoring methods. To the extent that members of a workgroup are high on emotional intelligence, they may be able to generate and maintain excitement, enthusiasm, confidence, and optimism in the group, as well as a sense of cooperation and trust. Interpersonal influence effects on affect regulation include both social comparison processes and socialization processes. The study of affect regulation in groups necessarily evokes consideration of factors at both higher and lower levels of analysis. While factors at the individual level of analysis that impinge on understanding affect regulation in groups are somewhat readily apparent based on the nature of the mechanism under consideration, factors at the organizational level are somewhat less apparent.

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Works Cited

Caldwell, J.A., Fatigue in Aviation – A Guide to Staying Awake at the Stick. Ashgate Publishing, 2004.

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IvyPanda. 2022. "Fatigue Management System and University Aviation Program." July 16, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/fatigue-management-system-and-university-aviation-program/.

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