[414] - Part 1 - The Hidden Cost of NOT Educating Your Shift Workers?

And welcome back to A Healthy Shift, the shift workers podcast.

This episode's probably a little different because I'm speaking directly to the people, you, the leader, the manager, the person that makes the decision with an organisation that are operating around the clock.

But if you are a shift worker and you're listening to this, I want you to stay with me because this conversation is absolutely about you.

Now, I spent more than 40 years working 24-7 shifts myself, and there's one thing that I keep coming back to after all those years.

I just didn't get any education.

It was just surprising as to how little education we are traditionally given about how to actually live around the roster.

And I want you to think about that for a moment.

I know that I am the person that I wish I knew when I started my shift working job.

If I had known me, things would have been completely different.

And it's my mission, and this is why I returned to study to help you, the shift worker, with this.

Now, an organisation employs somebody into a role that requires them to work overnight.

We tell them when their shift starts.

We tell them when it finishes.

We teach them how to do their job.

We train them in the policies, the procedures, the control, safety, systems, compliance.

We tell them who to report to.

They even know where the bathroom is and when their breaks are.

And then when we send them out to work at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning when their biologists tell them they should be asleep.

But how much time do we spend teaching them about that biology? And how much do we teach them about their circadian rhythm and light? About how to prepare for the sleep after night shift? About caffeine timing? About eating overnight? About movement, recovery? What about how to transition between nights and days? Because in far too many workplaces, in fact in nearly every workplace, the answer is...

None or very, very little.

So what happens? So what happens is the people start working it out for themselves, trial and error, or they learn from their peers that are ahead of them.

They copy the person sitting beside them.

They scroll social media.

They try something that somebody at work told them to do.

They make mistakes.