Case Study:
Fatigue Awareness & Management

The Challenge

Our client has global trucking operations that operate 24/7/365. In snow-covered mountain passes and searing desert heat, the trucks and drivers need to run reliably and safely at all times. Despite heavy investments in the best equipment and training, motor vehicle and tanker crashes resulting in fatalities and product spills continued to occur. The company's incident and injury policy is "zero is attainable." They were determined to root out all contributing factors in order to reach this goal.

The Discovery

We reviewed the client's incident investigation reports and interviewed surviving and other active drivers. While the company rigorously monitored and enforced standards and regulations governing a driver's time behind the wheel, drivers mentioned a broad array of off-the-clock influences that sometimes contributed to not getting enough quality rest between work shifts. Two things became clear:

• Fatigue awareness efforts were too limited to "rules and regulations";
• Fatigue awareness and management tools needed to support the drivers taking personal responsibility for outside-the-gate factors.

The Strategy

• Make fatigue the villain and make colleagues and their families the quiet heroes in the fight against it;
• Take the fight into the home and directly engage families and colleagues to actively share their experience, knowledge and motivation;
• Illustrate the consequences of fatigue in a personal and impactful way;
• Provide specific guidance on ways to manage the many factors that contribute to fatigue;
• Empower colleagues and their families to be alert, aware and vigilant.

The Creative

RedUmbrella Group created and deployed a fatigue awareness and management campaign using peer-to-peer voiced messages targeting both colleagues and their families.

Elements

• Monthly one-page multi-panel comic strip with engagement elements (contests, tip solicitation, story sharing) sent directly to colleagues homes;
• Quarterly ‘Incident Related’ poster distributed to and displayed prominently at terminals and offices;
• Quarterly PowerPoint Discussion Starter used by terminal managers in weekly safety meetings.

The Result

The response from drives and especially their families is typical of the following note sent to the vice president of logistics:"Thank you for caring enough to involve us and not just preach to us! We look forward to each issue and finding out how we can help keep my husband well-rested and safe."

During this ongoing campaign, drivers and terminal operations staff are sending in useful and insightful stories and tips that have fueled ongoing creative.

Senior management has expanded the reach of the campaign by is using the campaign’s multimedia content to motivate colleagues and demonstrate the organizations deep commitment to the personal safety.

Compelling characters and relevant storylines are connecting emotionally. When a terminal manager asked: “Why is the young driver always the guy who screws up? I want him to get a break!” we knew these initially 2-dimensional characters where jumping off the page and into the hearts and minds of our audiences.