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 to a Healthy Shift Podcast. My name's Roger Sutherland, as you know, and I am your guide on this shift working journey. I've taken a bit of a different tact in relation to a few of the podcasts recently because I want to open up and let people know in these services, like the military or emergency services, that you are being seen. One of the biggest issues that I see for a lot of people in relation to particularly this topic today is that you feel like you've been targeted. You feel like you're being bullied. And in effect, you actually may very well be. But I want you to know that you're not Robinson Crusoe. You are not on your own in this situation. And I can talk about my own situation here as well. And I'm going to sprinkle some examples through this. So if you're listening, listen carefully as I detail some of the things that occurred to me over my final few years in VicPole. It's important. But the thing that I have learned out of all of this is I'm not alone. And I read books and I've interviewed people on the podcast like Nick Riguerio. I've also interviewed Michael Sagrew. And they're both their books have been fantastic books that have helped me to realize that this is actually a worldwide problem, a big problem today. And I think it's something that needs talking about here more. This is discussed more in the US in circles that I actually follow and deal with there. But I want to talk about it here today because I think it's important. If you work in the military or in emergency services, this is going to feel really uncomfortable and good because it actually should do, especially if you're a leader or a manager or you know who you are listening to this podcast, because you really need to hear what I'm about to say. Because somewhere along the line, somewhere, somehow, discipline systems stop becoming the last resort. What they did was they became a management shortcut. And shortcuts always cost someone. And it's usually the people doing the actual work. Now I'll repeat that. Those shortcuts from management always end up costing a staff member, and it's generally this the people who are actually out there doing the work. I'll just give you an example from my own experience. As you're aware, I did 40 years of shift work, 40 years and four days, in fact, in Victoria Police. And over that entire journey, at no stage did I work an eight to four job. I was 24-7 for the entire 40 years until I retired. And I handled a police dog for 17 years of that. And in that time of handling a police dog, I can tell you that I went the entire journey without any complaints at all. So I had no internal investigations along anywhere at all. And at the 37-year mark, all of a sudden I received an email which was in relation to a discipline matter, and I didn't even know what the terminology was. It meant absolutely nothing to me because I'd never been in trouble. I've always been able to use my voice, I've been able to get myself out of things, talk my way around. I've always been pleasant and done the job and done it to the best of my ability right the way through. But I received this email and there was this issue that they had to be dealt with and I had to be spoken to about it. And you wouldn't believe it. But someone, and I know who, I know who now, but someone had actually screenshot something that I had shared on an Instagram story. And those of you that know an Instagram story last 24 hours and then it disappears, but someone had actually screenshot something that I had and they sat on it for eight months before they actually lodged it as a a they didn't speak to me about it. I was never spoken to about it until all of a sudden there was a what we call a PSC file, which is uh an internal affairs file. If you're listening from the US, it's an internal affairs file, and it came down. And I was asked about this file and if if it was me. And I said, Yeah, that's what I shared. That was eight months ago. So how offensive is it if someone's been sitting on it for eight months? They sat on it for eight months. It wasn't offensive until they dropped it in February of 2020. And I think to myself, my God, what is with that? Like, you've actually stored that and you've kept that with you for eight months, and then you've dropped it. But what I didn't realize was they also dropped another four complaints on the same day. And every single one of them were of an historical nature. Every single one of them was of an historical nature. One of them was nine months old, one of them was seven months old, one of them was six months old, and the other one was two months old. Crazy. So I've gone 37 years in a career, and all of a sudden I've had five complaints lodged on one day. What does that tell you? Anyway, let's be clear about this from the start. So, this is how the discipline system is used. Because I can tell you, at no stage in relation to any of those, was I spoken to in any way. No one said, hey, about this, this is uncool, or about this, this is the wrong thing to do, or about this, this is how. And nothing was major. All very, very minor and trivial things. Like one of them, I'll I kid you not, I'll talk about it a bit later, was about a piece of paper that went missing. A piece of paper. Anyway, let's be clear from the start. Right from the outset of this one here. Discipline systems were actually designed to deal with serious misconduct. That's what discipline systems are. They were not designed to replace conversations from management. They were not designed to manage performance. And they were not designed to build trust. Yet here we are. Managers or so-called managers, people who think that they're a manager or a leader, reaching for a discipline instead of leadership, paperwork instead of presence, process instead of people, no conversations, just a snipey little back room, pass it on so I don't have to deal with it. And then these organizations, like the police, and in particular Victoria Police, then act shocked when the trust collapses. Now, this is something that I've seen out play seen play out more than once. More than once. And since I opened up in relation to my part one and part two podcasts going back a few episodes ago, I've had literally, and I mean literally, hundreds of people reaching out to me. It's been totally overwhelming in relation to their own stories and their own situations, which has brought this podcast. People are getting slaughtered with a discipline system instead of being sat down and spoken to because the leaders out there are weak. They're weak as piss because they can't actually have a conversation with someone and have it dealt with. Like, hey, what's going on? Are you okay? Like, this is out of character for you. Oh no. What we do is we type out a form and we send it off so that we don't have to deal with it. Then what we do is we throw our hands in the air and we go, oh, it's out of my control. It's in the discipline system that's got to be dealt with, and I'll be bound by that. You are pathetic and you are weak. Now I want to say this plainly. If you're a manager and you're listening to this, you're actually paid to manage. You're getting more superannuation and you're getting more dollars to actually manage these people. It's your job to talk to them, it's your job to listen to them. It's your job to coach them, to mentor them. It's your job to actually observe them and intervene early. You're not paid to outsource leadership into a disciplinary framework. And that's what you're doing. Using discipline as a performance tool is lazy leadership. And worse than that, you are toxic because of what you're doing. And you might think you're doing the right thing, but you are pathetic because what you're doing is you are slaughtering good people doing the actual job. Now let's talk about what actually happens when discipline is misused. Because the moment a subordinate feels the discipline system is being used against them as a performance issue, something breaks. And what's the first thing to go? Trust. Psychological safety is the next thing that goes. Honesty then disappears. People stop speaking up, they stop flagging risks and they stop admitting making mistakes because mistakes now feel dangerous. They don't feel like you can talk about things because you don't trust the people that are above you. And this is what happens. I want you to think about the time that you saw this exact thing happen. Now, this is common in the military. It's also very common in police. And I know that there will be you that are working in nursing or working as a paramedic, working in ambulance services, working in other areas that will also be putting your hand up. And I want to be very clear. Even though I'm saying police here, I know that this is rife in other organizations. Because when did the discipline system become a performance management tool? In emergency services in the military, silence actually kills. And here's the part that really gets ignored. Because most performance issues are not misconduct. What they are is workload issues. They are fatigue issues. There's training gaps. There are staff shortages, system failures. But discipline systems don't care about context, do they? Everyone says, don't worry about all the fluff around the outside. No, we've got to keep it simple. Let's look at the actual fact of what happened. But it's the actual fluff around all the outside that created the issue. And this is the problem. So instead of asking, sitting down with the person and saying to them, what's going on? What's actually happening in your life? What actually led to this? What does a manager do? The first thing he asks is, Well, how do I protect myself? How do I make it look like I've got nothing to do with this? So what they do is they put the report in and bang, up the line it goes, and then they wash their hands of it because it's out of my control. This is what I'm the victim of. By a pathetic and weak person that thought he was a leader. And betrayal was the worst. The worst. And as much as I've always wanted to know why, I have no reason to ask why, because I know I wouldn't get a straight answer because I don't trust. I don't trust him. I don't trust anything to do with him or around him in any way whatsoever because he is a weak and pathetic person. And showed that, actually showed his hand and has absolutely no idea how much I know about what he did. I've seen it written. All of it.

And he's still out there. Because this is when leadership turns inward and it becomes rotten.

And let's talk about operational amnesia, will we? Because operational amnesia is a great term. And this is where our senior leaders, this is where our people who are paid to manage us forget what it's like to be out at the coal face. They forget the pressure, they forget the pace, they forget the chaos, and all they do is remember their own time through nostalgia, not reality. They say things like, oh, oh, we copped it worse, oh, this is just how it is. Oh, we survived, it's always been this way. Now, if you've heard that said to you, you'll know exactly what I mean. But here's the truth. They don't know. Because the environment's changed. Short staffing is chronic. Demand is relentless. Public scrutiny is brutal today. Media scrutiny is brutal today. The documentation, the paperwork is endless. There is no recovery time because they're so short staffed because of the way you've driven them out. People don't feel supported by management. They don't feel supported by the judicial system. They don't feel supported by the public or the media. Why would you do it? Lower ranks are actually carrying the pressure that their leaders never faced at this scale today. And instead of recognizing that, what do the managers do? Oh, they respond with discipline. There, there's the solution. Now that's not strength. That's actually denial and poor management. So let's call out the real problem, the real pattern. People are exhausted. They make small errors. They're chronically fatigued. They fall short on a minor admin detail. They miss a checkbox. They get a little heavy-handed because they're tired and they're frustrated and they're dealing with everything, the pressure. And instead of a conversation, they get a notice. Instead of support, they actually get scrutiny. And instead of coaching or mentoring, what they get is fear and lack of trust. And I know that you will be able to sit there because you know that you have colleagues that are going through this. And then what do they do? They isolate you. You get in trouble, you're out of work, you're suspended, or you're away from work, and then no one's allowed to communicate with you, so you're isolated. And how does that help? And then some moron will text you and say, just checking in. How does F off sound? Weak and pathetic management. And then the leadership sits there wondering why morale has gone. And this is exactly how organizations eat their own. And here is the part that leaders absolutely hate hearing. People are not leaving because the job is hard. The job hasn't changed. It's about going in and doing your job. Nothing's changed there, but they leave because they feel unsupported, they feel unseen, and they feel unsafe. They leave because trust has gone. They leave because every interaction feels adversarial. And they leave because the system feels completely stacked against them. And if you've ever watched good people walk out, you know that this is true. Now I've had examples of a podcast. I appeared on a podcast, I was a guest, and I discussed shift work and in policing and how it works and family and things like that. And this week, pathetic, pathetic leader kept a copy of it, forwarded it, and said, Oh, he's talking about Victoria Police, but it wasn't mentioned. Not anywhere was it mentioned because I was very careful not to. That file hung around for 18 months. It couldn't even be dealt with. 18 months that that file hung around for, and they denied all knowledge of it until suddenly it came out and boom, oh, here it is. And then I had to be interviewed for it. And then it was reviewed and it was found that no didn't mention Victoria Police at all. Nothing. Piece of paper went missing. I was charged with malfeasance. Not charged, interviewed for malfeasance. Theft from a public office is malfeasance. A piece of paper went missing. A pathetic, useless piece of paper that is used as scrap. And they tried to charge me and spoke to me about malfeasance. Nothing. The piece of paper wasn't anywhere. It was lost by someone. But they tried to pin it on me. One thing after another. Chipping away, and that's what they do, and that's what these part one, two, and now three podcast is about. And once the belief sets into people, into your staff, no well-being poster is ever gonna fix it. So let's talk about what good leadership actually does look like. It looks like monitoring your staff and having early conversations. It looks like curiosity before judgment, and it looks like asking what's making this really hard right now. And it looks like acknowledging the pressure. It looks like protecting your people upward and not pushing the pressure downward. It looks like using discipline rarely, carefully, and transparently, if it's necessary. And it also looks like remembering where you came from in your world, not the current world, because you're looking down at it, and if you think that you as a manager are in a position where you came through the same, you are kidding yourself, and you have no handle on what is going on today because it's not the same. And here's the brutal truth that you need to hear. If your first response to performance issue is discipline, you are not managing, you are controlling, and control feels safer to an insecure leader. But control destroys trust.

And I've seen what happens to that. Now let's talk about the consequences.

You're seeing the consequences now. Police agencies worldwide, nursing worldwide, paramedics worldwide are hemorrhaging staff. Experience is walking out the door. Those mentors, the people with experience that have an understanding are gone. Capability is thinning, and leadership responds by tightening the screws even further with more discipline, more rules, and more compliance. And that does not stabilize a workforce. What it does is it actually accelerates collapse. Now, here's a simple test that every manager should apply before they invoke discipline. I want you as a leader to ask yourself this have I had a clear, private, and respectful conversation with this person? Have I explained my expectations and the expectations of the organization? Have I also listened to the barriers? Have I offered support? And most importantly, have I followed up? Because if the answer is no, discipline is not leadership. You are avoiding it. It's avoidance. And I'm gonna say this part very slowly. Discipline should end behavior that is dangerous or unethical. It should never be used to compensate for poor management. And if you rely on it to manage performance, you're a failure. And you have failed your people. And the organization will pay the price. Now, if you are in leadership and this stings, I want you to sit in that. Because defensiveness is easy. Come after me. I don't care. Reflection is a lot harder. And if you're on the floor feeling crushed by this system, you are not imagining it. Your reaction is human. Pressure plus fear equals withdrawal. Withdrawal equals attrition. This isn't weakness. It's biology and psychology doing exactly what they do. And the fix is not complicated. But by golly, it takes courage. If you want to be a leader, sit down and talk to your people. See them. Look at what they're doing. Remember the job. Use discipline sparingly and properly. Because leadership isn't about covering yourself, it's about carrying the responsibility. And if that feels too heavy for you, leadership might not be the role that you should be in. Now this matters because trust is operational currency. And once it's gone, no policy that you implement will bring it back. And right now, too many organizations are spending trust like it's unlimited. And it isn't. Let that sink in. This is a really important podcast today. And I want to say thank you very much for listening. It's taken it out of me today. If you got any value out of this, I ask you to share it. Let other people know that they're seen and let people know that this is the issue today. It's how I see it, and I'm sure you will agree. I'll catch you on the next one. 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.