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Shift work and its impact on organizations and individuals can be discussed from several approaches. Due to the limited extent of this work I want to summarize and discuss the importance of attributes of 12-hour shifts in the mining industry under social, psychological, physiological and performance aspects. Of these attributes, the first three are more important for the employees. Social attributes include domestic life and social life. A longer period of leisure time allows workers to go home, although this probably depends on the location of the mine. The chance to join family and friends, to watch the development of the children, to experience ‘full fathering’ (ACTU report, 2001) and to participate in other leisure pursuits has a positive impact on the social life of the employee. “Twelve-hour shifts offer larger and more frequent blocks of leisure time…” and “…minimizes the number of trips to and from work.”(Williamson, Gower and Clarke, 1994, p 287). “Being able to take several days off at a time is the greatest attraction” for employees (Nelson and Holland, 1998, p 11). The fact that the majority of the workers in the mining industry live near the mine during the shift may decrease the worth of the reduced number of trips to and from the mine in this particular industry. Nevertheless the attraction of large blocks of off-days is the major incentive of the 12-h shift schedule. Among the employees the compressed workweek is very popular and this preference for the 12-h roster should be taken into account. Psychological well-being and the reduction of psychological distress are important concerns of the employees. The workers prefer 12-h schedules because they experience less tension, positive changes in mental state and better mood and this leads to an increase in well-being (Williamson et al., 1994). Physiological attributes include, for example, sleep patterns, circadian rhythms and short-term and long-term health outcomes. The empirical results considering health outcomes are ambiguous and one should interpret them carefully.
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