Why Good Staff Still Struggle

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If you've ever looked at your workforce and thought, we've given them all the information, why are they doing anything with it? I want you to consider something. Could it be that motivation isn't the problem? Because I can tell you, after more than 40 years of working shifts, most shift workers are not lazy and they're not stupid. And they certainly don't need another person telling them to try harder. They're tired and they're overwhelmed. And in many cases, nobody has ever properly explained to them why they feel the way they do. And that is a very different problem. And that is what I want to talk about today. Because it doesn't have to be this way. Whether you're a shift worker, trying to feel better, or a leader responsible for the people who keep your organisation running around the clock, you're in the right place. Welcome to a healthy

Personal Responsibility Needs Education

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shift. I'm Roger Sutherland, and after more than four decades of working 24-7 shifts with Victoria Plus, followed by years of studying nutrition, circadian biology, human performance, and working with literally thousands of shift workers, I've made it my mission to change the conversation around shift work. Because healthier people create stronger teams, and stronger teams build better organizations. And it all starts by understanding how to work with your biology and not against it. Let's get into today's episode. And welcome back to a healthy shift podcast. My name is Roger Sutherland, and you are so welcome to this episode. I want to say thank you for joining. I really appreciate you being here. If you listened to the last episode, we talked about why I believe one off-shift work training isn't enough. Now, education is extremely important. In fact, I believe it's the foundation. But if we're serious about creating healthier 24-7 workforces, we literally have to build on that foundation. And today, I want to come at this from a slightly different direction. Because there's one thing I've heard through my entire shift working life, and I still hear versions of it today. People know what they should be doing. They just need to make better choices and they need to take some responsibility. They need to be more disciplined. And you know what? There's actually some truth in part of that. And I firmly believe in personal responsibility. I have it in practice myself. I teach it. And one of the most important things that I tell shift workers is control the controllable. Now your employee can't go home with you and make you sleep. They can't make you go outside, and they can't make you exercise, and they can't choose what you eat. At some point, you have to take responsibility for the things that are within your control. But there's a problem. How can we expect somebody to make good decisions around shift work if nobody has ever taught them how? Now let's think about what we do. Somebody joins an organization. Maybe you're a nurse, a police officer, prison officer, paramedic, factory worker, a minor. You get trained in your job. You learn all the systems, you learn all the safety procedures, you learn the policies, you learn what you're responsible for. You know where to park your car, where to get into the building, where to get changed, where to do your job, how to do your job, how to access what you need. Then you put onto a 24-7 roster, and quite often that's it. Nobody then sits down and says, Now, before you start doing this, there's something you need to understand about your biology. Nobody explains that their biology has evolved to expect certain signals at certain times. Nobody explains what happens when we start moving those signals around. And nobody explains why they can be absolutely shattered at four o'clock in the morning and then struggle to sleep properly once they get home. Who explains that? Nobody explains why they might suddenly start experiencing digestive issues on nights. Nobody explains why daylight matters and why light at night matters, or why food timing matters, or why movement matters, or why sleeping until midday on every day off just probably isn't helping the recovery like you think it is. Instead, what they're doing is they're actually talking to people that they're working with, the person standing beside them in the workplace. And that person, where did they learn from? They learned from somebody else. Mate, this is what you do on nights. So that's what they do. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. And eventually habits become routines, and routines become years. Then someone tells them you just need to make healthier choices, okay? Based on what?

Explain The Why Before The How

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Now, this is where I think we've got things backwards because we keep trying to change behavior before we've literally created the understanding, and I don't think that that works particularly well at all. Because once someone understands why something matters, the behavior change starts to make sense. Let me give you a really simple example. I can tell a shift worker, now go outside when you wake up, okay? Why? Because some health bloke told me to? That's not enough. But if I explain that light is the critical and most important signal that your brain uses to understand what time of the day it is, now we got somewhere. Suddenly that 10 or 20 minute walk outside isn't exercise, there's a reason for it, and they understand what it is that they're trying to achieve. And the same goes with food. If I say don't eat overnight, I'm giving them another rule. And shift workers have enough bloody rules. But if I explain what happens to our digestion and metabolism across the biological night and why that might be contributing to the bloating, the reflux, the IBS discomfort you're experiencing, now the conversation changes. And people start thinking, oh, that explains so much. And that's the moment that I'm looking for. Not Roger told me to do this, but now I understand why it might want to, why I might want to do this differently. And that is what I call education. And this is important to me. Now, this matters enormously for organizations. Because if you are responsible for people and culture, workplace, well-being, or a manager in a 24-7 operational workforce, I don't want you looking at your exhausted people and thinking, right, how do we motivate them? I'd rather you ask, do they actually understand what's happening to them? Because motivation disappears very quickly when you're chronically fatigued. Think about the shift worker at three o'clock in the morning. They've been awake for hours. They're tired, they're hungry, they've got another three hours of work to go, and then they have to drive home. And then once they get there, they've probably got kids, they've got to do school drop-off. Maybe they're trying to sleep while the rest of the world is awake. And then we give them a well-being program that says, right, now you've got to get eight hours of sleep, you've got to eat three healthy meals, exercise five times a week. Now make sure you get 15,000 steps a day, drink more water, meditate, meal prep. Don't forget your ice bath, get in the infrared, don't forget some self-care. Come on. They're already totally overwhelmed. And what we've done is we've just given them another list of things that they have to do. Now, this is one of the biggest lessons that I've learned over four decades of shift work. And it took me to the end to learn. Shift workers are incredibly pragmatic people. They don't need another complicated health system. You don't need calories, macros, gym programs, everything else that goes with it. All you need to know is why is it I feel like this? What's actually important? And most importantly, what can I realistically do about it given my circumstances? And that's it. That's all they need. Because once they understand those things, something changes. Then they start taking ownership. Not because we frighten them, not because we've shamed them, and not because we've given them another challenge to complete. Because it just finally makes sense. And this is why one of those principles behind everything I teach at a healthy shift is explain the why before the how.

Four Signals That Change Everything

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Because the how becomes so much easier once they understand why. And the foundations really don't need to be complicated. I keep coming back to four biological signals sleep, daylight, movement, and nutrient timing. Now, there are obviously many, many other things that affect health, but these four are what actually gives the shift worker somewhere to start. And it's free and it's important. Because if someone is already exhausted and overwhelmed, giving them 25 things to change is going to result in them changing none of them. So let's simplify it. What can I control today? Maybe today is getting outside after I wake up. That's enough. Maybe it's preparing something to eat before night shift rather than relying on the vending machine at 2 a.m. Good. Now maybe it's taking a planned nap before the first night. Oh, brilliant. Now we're talking. Maybe it's simply starting to create a little more regularity around sleep. We're building. We're not chasing perfection.

Shared Responsibility And Realistic Change

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And this is also why I push back against the idea that employee well-being is either entirely the organization's responsibility or entirely the workers' responsibility. It isn't that simple. An organization cannot live someone's life for them, and it should not even try. But we can also put someone onto a biologically disruptive roster and give them no meaningful education about how to manage it and then blame them when they struggle. Now we have to find middle ground here. And for me, that middle ground starts with at the very minimum education. Education enables responsibility. Give people the knowledge, help them understand their biology, give them practical strategies that fit the roster that actually work. The roster that they are working, not a roster, their roster. And then let them decide what they do with it. And I think that's fair. But there's still another problem. And this takes us back to what we talked about in the previous episode.

Shift Work Champions In The Workplace

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Understanding can fade. Someone attends the training and then they leave thinking that was brilliant. Now I'm going to change a few things. Then life happens. Three months later, they're struggling again. So how do we reinforce that understanding? How do we keep the conversations happening, keep the motivation up? How do we stop good shift work education just becoming another thing that people heard once back then? And that is exactly why I've created the Shift Work Champions framework. Because the first part of the framework is workforce education. Give everybody the foundation. Let them understand the basic biological signals and why shift work affects them the way it does. Then identify people within that workforce who can develop a much deeper understanding. People who already know the workplace, know the roster, know their colleagues, know the environment, and train them to become an ongoing internal voice for a healthy shift work. No, they're not a health professional and they're not a counselor and they're not the sleep police or the food police. They're just educated people who can help keep good information alive inside the workplace. Because imagine the difference. Someone is struggling with their first run of nights, and instead of waiting six months for another well-being presentation, there's someone on shift who understands what they're experiencing. Someone says, I'm absolutely wrecked. And I don't know what I'm doing wrong. And instead of, welcome to the night shift, mate, you'll get used to it. The conversation becomes, have you thought about what you're doing before the shift? How's your sleep been? Are you getting outside? Have you tried a nap before coming in? Let's think about what you can control because that's a completely different workplace conversation. And those little conversations matter. They're coming from a person that the colleague trusts. So if you're a leader listening to this because your organization is dealing with fatigue, unplanned leave, staff turnover, burnout, or people simply struggling with their roster, I want you to consider this. Maybe your people don't need another well-being motivation campaign. Maybe they need some understanding. And maybe your organization doesn't need another collection of well-being information. Maybe it needs internal capability. Because when people understand why they feel the way they do, they're in a much better position to do something about it. And when that understanding exists inside the organization, rather than disappearing when the external educator leaves, you've then got something you can actually build on. And that is exactly what the Shift Work Champions Framework is designed

Internal Capability And Next Steps

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to do. If this episode got you thinking about your work files, scroll down to the show notes where you can find a link. Click that link to learn more about the Shift Work Champions and the Enterprise Framework. Have a look. Perhaps ask yourself this: are our people really unmotivated? Or have we simply never taught them how to work shifts properly? We've taught them everything else, we just haven't taught them how to go about shift work. I'll catch you next time. And remember, it doesn't have to be this way. Because real change starts with awareness. And awareness changes conversations, and conversations change organizations. And organizations change lives. So thank you for spending this time with me. And until next time, I want you to remember this. It doesn't have to be this way. Take care of yourself and take care of each other.