The Perth-based group developed the service to provide FIFO employees and their families with the information, tools and support needed to ensure they can effectively manage FIFO arrangements.

Specialty program manager for WHFS Fiona Reid has personal experience with FIFO working arrangements.

Her father worked up north for six months to help lay a stable financial foundation for his new family, while her husband worked a two-week on, two-week off roster on Barrow Island for five years.

“Like the majority of workers, they did not choose the FIFO lifestyle because of greed,” she said.

“They chose this type of work to provide financial security, more quality time and better opportunities for their families.

“However, I wonder if they and other FIFO workers would make the same choice if someone said to them before they started that despite their very best intentions, their family and relationships have a high chance of suffering.”

According to Reid, the new service will be tailored to suit individual company needs and requirements, with a suite of services including remote video-conferencing and women’s health exams for employees or family members.

The program can help companies to reduce staff turnover due to family problems, which will help the bottom line.

Key objectives include providing relationship education, support and counselling for FIFO employees and families relevant to FIFO dynamics, as well as offering training to middle management, who are usually the first people to notice a problem with an employee.

WHFS already sees a number of FIFO spouses and families, but the dedicated FIFO service offers a more strategic and coordinated response.

A main goal is to give families the tools they need to manage stress from the outset, which includes an induction for the spouse staying home as well as the family member working away.

Murdoch University FIFO researcher and provisionally registered psychologist Daniel Funsten said he believed part of the uphill battle would be encouraging employees to use the services available to them and ensuring partners knew about the services through the induction program.

“I think a lot of it is actually about generating a culture where you feel comfortable to use the support services and the communication of the support services is better,” he said.

“One of my fellow researchers investigated how much partners knew about support resources and how well they were used, and only about 50 per cent of them realised there were all these support resources around and around 40 per cent of them didn’t realise that the services extended to families as well as employees.”

At a panel discussion for the launch of the service, psychologist Dr Kim Cullen, who helped WHFS develop the program and whose husband has been working FIFO for eight years, said the first step in offering services was realising that FIFO was more than just a job.

“I think a good place to start is to just put it in the actual perspective that it is: FIFO is not a job, it’s a lifestyle choice and it impacts on the employees in a lot of ways but if the worker has a family, then they’re impacted just as much,” Cullen said.

From 2009 to 2011, the number of FIFO workers in the resources industry went from roughly 25,000 to 48,000, according to the Chamber of Minerals and Energy Western Australia, with numbers expected to reach 60,000 within the next three years.

National policy manager for the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies Graham Short also attended the panel and pointed out that part of the problem with FIFO was there was no perfect roster, and you might not know which roster worked best for you until you tried it.

“A popular roster four years ago was a two-and-one, so two weeks on, one week off,” he said.

“As the skills shortage hit and people jumped around a bit, the roster came down to a nine-and-five, and the very popular rosters now are the eight-and-six within the iron ore sector and we even see seven days on, seven days off.

“It’s good if you have kids and want to spend time with them, but for others a seven-and-seven isn’t part of their plan – they want to earn as much money as they can in two years so they want to do a three-and-one.”

Dr Cullen, whose husband works four weeks on, four weeks off, said that while money can be important, people needed to remember that distance does not always make the heart grow fonder.

“Obviously it doesn’t take rocket science to work out the longer the person is away and the less they’re back, the more sense of disconnection there will be,” she said.

“FIFO can definitely work and you can use it to your advantage, for certain relationships it works quite well, but it does take some effort.”

Manager of people strategies for the Chamber of Minerals and Energy Western Australia, Bruce Campbell-Fraser, stressed that employees and their families had to do some research about FIFO arrangements before going away, something the WHFS service wants to help them do.

“There are new people entering into the industry that might not be doing their research and making an informed decision about FIFO and how that impacts them, and that’s really important,” he said.

The estimated cost of the standard WHFS service is $A200 per annum per employee family, plus a one-off consultation/set-up fee, and additional fees such as video conferencing accessed from a third-party location.

The service will be available on extended hours, from 8am-8pm weekdays and 8am-2pm Saturdays, and can link to existing WHFS offerings, including alcohol and drug abuse programs, domestic and family violence assistance, and Aboriginal family support.

Dr Cullen did caution that you could not truly understand FIFO until you had done it.

“Psychologically if you’re going to be a FIFO spouse you need to be a mum, a dad, a worker, a taxi driver, a nurse, a coordinator – you need to be all those things and then you have to adjust back to being a wife who needs that other person where essentially you have to not need them, then make space for them again,” she said.

But as Joan Forward, clinic manager and health professional at WHFS, pointed out, it was better to go in with some information than to go in blind.

“I think planning for FIFO is incredibly important because even though they say if you haven’t done it you can’t know what it’s like, if you have some idea about what can happen at least you can understand what’s happening in your relationship when fights happen, when things aren’t working as well,” she said.

After launching the program last month, WHFS said it has already received interest from a number of companies.