More than 29,000 employee deaths between Monday and Wednesday, March 15 to 17, 2010, can be tied directly to Daylight Savings Time. Add to the annual equation the fact that Wednesday is St. Patrick’s Day, known for increased alcoholic consumption, and the death toll could be even greater.
Daylight Savings time is set to begin Sunday, March 14, 2010, in the United States and Canada.
Here is how the number of deaths is calculated: On an average day 128,000 people die acress the planet according to Annmarie F., Answers Expert at Ask.com. The labor force represents 65.96 percent of the total population according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Historically, there is a six percent jump in the death rate on the Monday following the day the clocks are moved forward by an hour and the Wednesday after the change sees a ten percent jump in the death rate,
according to a study from Sweden. The same Swedish study found no offsetting reduction in the death rate following the return to standard time.
In the United States only employees from Hawaii, Arizona, and Puerto Rico will be exempt from the rising death toll as they do not observe daylight savings time. Joe Mikla, a former Kmart employee in Troy now living in Arizona, says, “It’s just one of the thing I have to remember when I visit [Michigan]”
Preventing this deadly attrition
Although the likelihood of increased attrition through time change at your specific place of business remains remote, a decreased productivity rate is possible.
Many employers have taken some proactive steps. Macomb Community College has used their marquee to remind passersby about the change and displayed signs through their campus to alert students and employees to the change.
Some other ideas to prevent a lowered lack of quality output by employees attempting to function minus an hour’s sleep include:
Schedule meetings for Monday afternoon, not Monday morning.
Meetings scheduled on the Monday morning following the time change can cause embarrassment when the employee has forgotten to reset their clock. Of course this also means that a key player in the meeting was either late or missed the meeting altogether. Move Monday morning meetings to the afternoon. You can bet all employees will have figured out the time change by or during the lunch hour – and they will be more alert and functional.
Reduce pressure
Use less pressure to get people to meet deadlines during the increased death period. Set the employee’s deadlines fairly and make them well known, but refrain from continual badgering prior to the deadline. In workplaces where firm deadlines are established along with a vivid vision of why the deadline is important to the mission, vision, and bottom-line of the organization produces better results than demands made without connection to the value of the task.
Recommended reading
- Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time
- Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time
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