The 2am Advice Gap

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Imagine it's two o'clock in the morning, and one of your workers is exhausted. They're halfway through a run of nights, they're sleeping terribly, their stomach is playing up, they're starting to wonder how much longer can I keep doing this? Who do they talk to? Probably the person standing beside them. And what advice do they get? Maybe it's good. Maybe it's something that that person's been doing for 20 years that has absolutely no evidence behind it. It might work for them. Or maybe it's simply, mate, that's night shift. You'll get used to it. But what if that conversation could be different? What if there was somebody already on that shift who understood the basics of shift work health, understood the workplace, understood the roster, and could point the person in the right direction. And that is the idea behind Shift Work Champions. And today I want to explain exactly what I mean by that because it doesn't have to be this way. For far too long, we've accepted fatigue, poor sleep, burnout, and declining health as simply part of working in a 24-7 environment. I don't believe they are. 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 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.

Education That Sticks On Shift

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And welcome back to a healthy shift podcast. You are so welcome. I'm absolutely thrilled that you have joined me on this episode. I want you to grab a coffee, sit down, because today I want to talk about something that's really important part of where a healthy shift is heading. Shift work champions. Now, if you listen to the previous two episodes, if you've listened to the previous 400, you'll know how we got here. In the first episode of this series, I talked about why I don't believe one-off shift work training is enough. Don't get me wrong, it absolutely has a place. Education is the foundation. But if I walk into your organization and spend an hour or two with your people and then disappear, who is continuing that education? Then in the last episode, we spoke about motivation and why I believe most shift workers don't need someone telling them to try harder. They need to understand what it is that's happening to them. So today I want to bring both of those conversations together. Because if education is the foundation and understanding is what we're trying to create, how do we keep that understanding alive? And that's the problem that I've been working tirelessly to try and solve. And this answer actually came from thinking about how workforces already operate.

The Trusted Go-To Colleague

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Think about the people in your organization who everybody goes to. Every workplace has them. You know who they are. Somebody's got a question about the job. I'll go and ask Sarah. Something isn't working. Yeah, Dave, go and see Dave. A new employee isn't sure what to do. Go and have a chat with John, he'll sort you out. They may not have a champion written anywhere in their job title, but people trust them. They've got experience, they're approachable, they understand the workplace, they lead by example, and they're there. They are there. And that is really important. Because at three o'clock in the morning, I'm not there. And neither are you. Your external well-being provider isn't there. Your dietitian won't be there. And the person who ran the sleep seminar six ago six months ago certainly isn't there. But their colleagues are. And that's when I started thinking: what if we could take the right people inside your organization and give them a deeper understanding of shift work? Now, we don't turn them into health professionals and we don't overload them, we don't turn them into coaches. What we do is we actually educate them one-to-one, we support them and we give them the confidence and knowledge to keep good shift work conversations happening inside their own workplace. And it was that moment that I started developing the Shift Work Champions framework. Now I

What Champions Do And Don’t Do

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want to make something really clear. Because whenever I explain this concept, this is important. Shift Work Champion's not a doctor or a psychologist or a nutritionist, and they're certainly not diagnosing sleep orders, disorders. They're not providing medical advice, and they certainly are not replacing your EAP. They're not replacing your workplace health and safety teams, and they're definitely not walking around checking what everyone has in their lunchbox. That is not their role. What their role is, is education, reinforcement, and support within appropriate boundaries. Think of them as an informed internal voice around shift work. Someone who understands the foundational principles, someone who can help keep the education alive. And importantly, someone who knows when something is outside their scope and that person needs to be referred elsewhere. I'll give you an example. You've got a worker who's just moved on to nights and they are really struggling. They're sleeping four or five hours during the day and they wake up feeling dreadful. They're drinking caffeine right through the shift because it's the only way they can stay awake. Then they get home and can't sleep properly. They wake up exhausted and repeat. Now their colleague might normally say, Yeah, nights are terrible. You'll eventually get used to them, mate. Imagine instead that they have a conversation with a shift work champion. Nothing complicated. How are you preparing for the first night? Have you thought about having a nap before you come in? What time are you having your last caffeine? What are you doing with light when you finish? What's your sleepy environment like during the day? Let's go back to what Roger talked about during that training session. That's it. We're reinforcing education. We're helping the worker to think. We're bringing them back to the foundations. And if that person says, I'm falling asleep driving home every morning, that's not, here's another sleep tip. That's a safety issue. The champion understands their boundaries and their organization's appropriate escalation pathways. And that's what responsible implementation looks like. Now

A Practical Night Shift Conversation

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there's another reason why I believe this works. Shift workers will listen to shift workers. I know this because I've spent more than 40 years walking alongside working alongside them. We are a pragmatic bunch. And sometimes the person standing at the front of a conference room can have every qualification in the world. But the workers sit in the back thinking, hey mate, have you ever actually worn shift? And that's one of the reasons lived experience matters so much to me. But it doesn't have to stop with me. Because the people inside your organization already understand the workplace, they understand your roster, and they understand what happens at two in the morning. They understand what food is available and they understand your break structure. They also understand the pressures of that particular role and the culture. I don't. Not in the way they do. So instead of pretending that an external provider can understand every detail of every workplace, why don't we build internal capability in the people who already do? And this is where I think that the Shift Work Champions becomes very different from bringing someone in to deliver another well-being presentation. The

Peer Credibility Plus Local Context

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external educator brings expertise and the internal champion brings context. Then we put those two together, and now you've got something really interesting. Now I can teach biological foundations, why sleep matters, why daylight matters, why movement matters, when to get it, why nutrient timing really matters, why fatigue behaves the way it does, why you feel how you do. And then the champion can help to translate those principles into the reality of your workplace. And that's the part that I could never do alone. And then there's another benefit here that the organizations really need to think about: staff turnover. People leave, managers change, new people arrive. Someone who attended your training this year might be gone next year. So what happens to that knowledge? If all of your shift work education exits inside the head of the external consultant, you're renting knowledge. And I want organizations to start owning some of it. That's what I mean when I talk about it. Internal shift work capability. It's not about removing the need for external expertise. There will always be a role for that. It's about creating a foundation inside the organization so that you're not starting from zero every single time. And

Owning Capability Inside The Workplace

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the champions themselves, they need support. And this is another thing that's really important to me. I don't want an organization saying, congratulations, you're a shift work champion, off you go. That is not capability. That's giving someone another job. And the last thing that an already busy shift worker needs is another title with no support behind it. So the champion development process has to be structured. They need education, they need time to learn to understand it, they need opportunities to ask questions, they need clear boundaries, they need resources, and they need ongoing access to support because we are developing people. We're not handing out certificates, and the certificate comes at the end because they've earned it. The capability is the important part. And who should become a shift work champion? That's a great question. I don't necessarily want the person who knows the most about health. In fact, that wouldn't be my first criterion. I want people who are trusted, people who are approachable, people who are curious, people who genuinely care about their colleagues, people who can have a conversation without making someone feel judged. Because if someone is exhausted, struggling with their weight, living on takeaway food and barely holding their life together, the last thing they need is a workplace fitness fanatic telling them they're doing it wrong. They need someone who can say, Yeah, I understand. Let's work out one thing that might help. And you see, that's a very, very different conversation.

Culture Change And Next Steps

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And this is where the culture piece starts becoming interesting. Imagine you've got several champions across your workforce, different teams, different shifts, maybe different locations. Now the conversation around shift work starts changing. Instead of that's just nights, we start hearing, what can we control? Instead of, oh, you'll get used to it, we start hearing, have you thought about why you're feeling that way? Instead of people quietly struggling until they reach breaking point, maybe we start having conversations earlier. Now, I'm not suggesting a shift work champion solves every well-being problem. Of course they don't. But culture is built through conversations. And if we can improve the conversations happening around shift work, that's a really good place to start. Now, there's also something that organizations need to understand. Shift work champions isn't designed to shift responsibility away from management. And it isn't designed to shift responsibility away from the worker. It's actually about capability. The organization still has responsibilities, the worker still has responsibility for the choices within their control. The champion just sits in the middle as an educated peer who can help to reinforce what people have already been taught. And that's it. Simple. And ultimately, this is what I want to see. I want to walk into an organization and educate the workforce. I want to stand in front of them and teach them the basics. And then I want people leaving that room understanding their shift working biology better than when they did when they walked in. Then I want us to identify the right people, develop them, support them, certify them as shift work champions, and eventually I want to become less important to that organization. Think about that. That's actually the goal. Because if every question still has to come back to Roger, we have not built capability. We've built dependency. I want the knowledge living inside the workplace. I want somebody working at two o'clock in the morning to have access to good shift work conversations without needing to book a seminar. I want the new employees starting six months later to work enter a workplace where people actually understand shift work. And I want the organization to know we've actually built something here. So if you are responsible for a 27 24-7 workforce, here's a question that I want to leave you with today. Who are the people in your organization that everyone trusts? You know who they are, because they could be your future shift work champions. They already know your people, they already know your workplace, and they already understand your roster. What they may not have yet is the education, and that's where I come in. If you'd like to learn more about the Shift Work Champions and how the enterprise framework works, go down to the link in the show notes. Click through it, have a read through it, download the executive brief, have a look through it, and perhaps start looking around your workplace, maybe a little bit differently through a different lens. Because your future Shift Work expert might already be standing beside you right now. Have a think about how beneficial this could be in your organizational long-term teaching more people. I'll catch you in the next episode. And remember, it doesn't have to be this way. Share it with a colleague, a manager, a friend, a leader, or someone who has the opportunity to improve the lives of people working in a 24-7 environment. 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.