Shift work can be brutal, but it doesn't have to be. Welcome to a healthy shift. My name is Roger Sutherland, certified nutritionist, veteran law enforcement officer, and 24-7 shift worker for almost four decades. Through this podcast, I aim to educate shift workers using evidence-based methods to not only survive the rigors of shift work, but thrive. My goal is to empower shift workers to improve their health and well-being so they have more energy to do the things they love. Enjoy today's show. And welcome back to a healthy shift podcast. My name is Roger Sutherland, and today we're going to have a look at this through the Frontline Leaders lens. Now, what I want to do is I want to support you if you are a leader or if you are someone who is in charge of people in a shift working environment. What is there that we can look for? Let's get straight to the critical stuff that you need to lead your team. We're talking to the leaders, the managers, the supervisors, the captains, everyone that's in charge of staff in our frontline essential services and our healthcare teams. Now, if you have recently stepped into a leadership role or you are a veteran leader wanting to up your game, this episode is actually for you. Because the question that I want to address is direct and it is vital. As a leader, what are the key things to look for to support my shift working team? And how do I do the absolute best by them? This is such a great question. And it's a question that was actually asked of me by a follower, Catherine. And Catherine has asked me this as she has stepped into a leadership role and she wants to know how to support her team. What a fantastic question and a great topic. Let's address this so that we know as leaders what to do. Now you all know the deal. Your staff are police, they're nurses, we're paramedics, fire crews, and the people who run towards the chaos. They work shifts, they deal with trauma, and their jobs are literally about life and death daily. Now, doing your best by them isn't just good leadership. It is actually a non-negotiable part of operational safety. And we need to really get a firm handle on this. So let's break down the two essential parts of this identification and then intervention. So part one, let's get into the three Ps of identification, the things that you must actually look for. Because as a as a leader of shift workers, you need to see past the roster. Shift work messages messes with the absolute core of a person. It really does. It impacts on their sleep, it impacts their nervous system, and their ability to actually regulate stress. The signs are there, but you've got to know where to look. I call them the three Ps performance, presence, and persona. So let's get into performance to start off with. The cognitive dip. This is the most critical area that you need to watch for as it directly impacts safety. Fatigue is not just about being tired, it's about a literal cognitive deficit. So what can we look for? Number one, look for increased errors and near misses. Simple mistakes on routine tasks. For the police, it could be errors in paperwork or procedures. For health, it could be dosing or charting mistakes. And where people are sleep deprived, their executive function, which is the part of the brain that manages complex decisions, is literally the first thing to go. Stress makes us stupid. I want you to remember this. It's not your fault, but we need to manage it. Number two, we need to look for a slow reaction time or poor judgment. Do you notice that there's hesitation? Are they taking an unnecessary risk? Are they actually overthinking simple things? Because if a response that usually takes five seconds now takes 20, then their operational capacity is compromised. And this is a direct sign of a possible mounting sleep debt. Number three, look for lack of ownership. Are they pushing responsibility onto others? Because a thriving team member actually takes charge, but a struggling one just wants to get through the shift and doesn't want to get involved. You all know them. So let's identify that as what the issue is. Now, number two, presence. That's the second P. The attendance red flags. Now, this is about how they're showing up and how they manage their time away from work. Let's have a look for unplanned leaf spikes. One off sick days, especially on the first shift after a night shift rotation. This is often not a cold. It's their body finally collapsing under the weight of a disrupted body clock. Are they using sick leaf to recover, not just to get better? Have a look into that. Number two, look for last-minute roster swaps. Constantly trading shifts or adding an overtime when they clearly don't need the money. This often points to chaos at home, a struggle to keep up with their family life, that mortgage or a complete lack of personal time. Are they actually using the roster to get away from home? Have a think about that. Look for poor punctuality or rushed handovers. Now this might seem very minor, but if someone is rushing out the door the second their shift is over, it actually signals a complete lack of personal margin. They're running on fumes and have nothing left to give their team, or even themselves. Alright, now we've covered performance, we've covered presence. Let's get into persona, an emotional shift. Now there are subtle early warning signs of a nervous system that is completely out of whack. What you need to do is you need to start looking for increased irritability and snapping. That person, who is usually the easy-going one, is now short-fused, isolated, or really quick to argue over simple things. Shift work puts the body into a near constant state of fight or flight, and their stress bucket is absolutely full. Even the smallest things will trigger a massive reaction. The wick is very, very short. Number two is look for social withdrawal. They are isolated during their downtime. They skip the team meal or they avoid the muster room chats. Now, for front blind people, connection is their safety net. And withdrawal is a huge red flag for burnout or mental health strain. And we need to be aware and be looking for those things. And let's have a look at this one as well, because this is really important. Start to look for a decline in self-care. Now, I'm not just talking about a messy locker. I'm talking about a constant drop in their usual standard of uniform, or even just their grooming, or even just looking like they are quote unquote looked after. This is often a sign of deep depletion that they have zero energy left for themselves. They're the things that you need to watch for in persona. Now let's get into part two of this podcast, which is the actionable intervention. How can we as leaders actually support them? Seeing the problem is literally only half the battle. As a leader, your role is to intervene with empathy and practical shift work aware solutions. This is different to a normal nine to five job. Acknowledge and educate on self-regulation. You are a trauma-informed leader. You are that because you are literally working in a trauma environment. So you have a handle on what it's like. Use that knowledge. Don't tell them they look tired. Tell them I've noticed a change in your energy and performance. An actionable step is to talk about the nervous system. Explain. Understand yourself, but explain the way that we breathe directly impacts our stress level. Now you don't need to be a coach, you just need to share simple tools. And my suggestion is to introduce the one-minute physiological sigh or box breathing technique at the start of a brief. Frame it not as a wellness fluff exercise, but as a mandatory operational tool to reset the brain. What you're doing is you're actually giving them a self-regulation strategy that they can use in the field themselves. You're educating, you're showing leadership. Number two, we need to protect the recovery period. For shift workers, the time off is just as important, and I would argue even more important as the time on. You must be the barrier between the job and their rest. What we need to do is we need to educate our staff on how to maximize their off-duty time or their away from work time. Because when they do this and they thrive outside of work, they actually turn up to work a lot better. So what's an actionable step? We need to guard this post-shift recovery. Fight for the adequate rest between shifts. If you call them on their day off, make it absolutely essential and brief. Better yet, let's create a clear communication protocol that respects their recovery time and leave them alone. Is it really necessary? Do we really have to do this right now? Do I have to make that phone call? Because what is this phone call going to do? That phone call that comes to them from work while they are not working is going to keep them in that work zone. Let's give them a break from it. There needs to be an actionable step. Encourage real fuel. You know the vending machine is often the go-to. Frame nutrition not as a diet, but as a fuel for the critical job. Acknowledge the struggle. Suggest simple pre-made options that they can stash and grab. You're educated, you've done this for a long time. Teach them. Replace one afternoon caffeine hit with water or a whole food snack. Don't put heaps of pressure on them. Let's just pick little things that they can do, things that you've picked up that really help, and pass it on. And let's foster a culture of self-connection and safe connection. We know your team leaders are all current or ex frontline themselves. You are. And they're trauma informed, and this is your greatest asset. An actionable step is to use your team leaders for genuine check-ins because they walk the talk, they build trust. They shouldn't be focused on performance reviews, but on a quick relational question. Hey, how's your family balanced life going right now? Are you finding time for that activity, whatever it is that usually grants you? And if you don't know what they're doing in their off-duty time, you need to find out. And you need to be asking them about it. Are they actually doing it? Because the answer can be simple. I don't have time, or I'm too tired. And that is the red flag. Actionable steps, model the behavior. If you're stressed, talk about the boundaries that you're setting for your own recovery. When you see a team member doing well, managing their sleep, packing a healthy lunch, taking a proper break, publicly recognizing that behavior. You are normalizing the well-being practices that make them safer and a more effective operator. What about in a handover at the end of a shift that we actually check in with each other? What are you doing between shifts? What are you planning on doing? How are you planning on recovering? Asking the simple questions. Leading shift workers in a frontline service means being a leader of human biology and psychological safety. What you are actually looking for as a leader is a decline in performance, an irregularity in their presence, and a shift in their own persona. And if you start looking for those three Ps, it gives you the opportunity to actually intervene by providing simple tools for nervous system regulation and fiercely protecting their recovery time and fostering an environment where they know that their exhaustion is seen, it is being validated, and it is actively being managed. This is how you do the absolute best for your team. You can't just put a flyer up on the wall anymore. Not in a shift working environment. This is not a nine-to-five environment. It is very different, it is very unique, and you need to be doing more. So as a manager, I can help you with this. And what we do now is what I am looking to do is through the seminar experience is to champion shift workers in your shift working environment. I will coach your staff or selected staff that you actually choose. And I will coach them to become shift work champions. They are then on shift, working with your staff, working through whatever the staff members are with. You know as well as I do that your staff are more likely to listen to a peer or a colleague than they are to any management or a HR meeting. And I will help you with this. So if you go to the link in the show notes, which is the seminar experience, on that page, you can actually download my ebook, which is the seminar experience, which is a free ebook, which talks all about the strategies that I can support your team with. And championing shift workers is a huge strategy that I will be focusing on very heavily through the back end of 2025 and heavily in 2026, because I sincerely believe that championing people in the shift working environment is the way to improve health and well-being. This is how you do your absolute best for your team. They're out there holding your line. Your job is to hold space for them. That's it for this week. Be the leader who sees beyond the badge and the scrubs. Be the leader who actually sees the person. Have a think about that, and I'll talk to you in the next episode. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you get notified whenever a new episode is released. It would also be ever so helpful if you could leave a rating and review on the app you're currently listening on. If you want to know more about me or work with me, you can go to ahealthyshift.com. I'll catch you on the next one.