Don’t Let Your Night Staff Become a Separate Team

The training session takes place at 10am. The manager visits during the afternoon. A team celebration happens over lunch, and an important update is discussed while most night workers are asleep.

Nobody intended to exclude them. Yet repeated arrangements like these can leave night and weekend staff experiencing a different organisation from their daytime colleagues.

Skills for Care’s newly released workforce report covers recruitment, retention, training and qualifications. It offers a timely starting point for examining whether workforce support reaches employees across every shift.

For services operating around the clock, belonging needs to be built into working arrangements. Staff should have access to information, development and support during the hours they actually work.

Check who your arrangements are designed around

Review recent training sessions, meetings, consultations and recognition activities. Ask which employees could realistically participate and what alternatives were available. An invitation sent to everyone does not establish equal access. A night worker may technically be welcome at a daytime meeting but face a choice between attending and getting enough rest.

Ask night and weekend staff what they miss and which arrangements would help. Include part-time employees and those working patterns that rarely overlap with management hours. Use their answers to identify specific changes rather than assuming one solution will suit every shift.

Make updates available without relying on word of mouth

Important information should reach employees through a clear, approved route. Avoid assuming that a daytime conversation will eventually be repeated accurately to everyone else. Provide concise written updates that explain what has changed, when it takes effect and whether staff need to act. Give employees time to read them during work and a way to ask questions.

Where a discussion is needed, consider repeating short briefings at different times or arranging appropriate overlap. Check understanding of significant changes rather than treating a message being sent as confirmation that everyone is prepared.

Make training workable for every shift

Offer realistic opportunities for night and weekend staff to complete learning, practise skills and receive assessment. That may involve repeated sessions, suitable online options or planned time away from usual duties. Practical learning still needs appropriate supervision and access to the people authorised to assess it.

Do not routinely depend on employees attending unpaid sessions outside their working hours or completing training immediately after a night shift. Plan training within paid working arrangements, with appropriate cover and consideration of rest. Ask employees whether the arrangements allow them to concentrate. Being physically present at a session is a limited measure of whether learning has been accessible.

Give staff meaningful contact with managers

Night workers should know their manager as someone they can speak with, rather than a name attached to emails. Plan occasional visits or conversations that fit their working pattern. Use that time to listen, provide feedback and understand how the service operates overnight.

Contact should include ordinary support and recognition, alongside responding to incidents. If staff see managers only when something has gone wrong, opportunities to build trust are limited. Explain the on-call arrangements clearly, including what to do if the first contact cannot be reached. Employees need confidence that help is available when they need it.

Recognise the work you do not regularly see

Managers may have more opportunities to observe daytime staff. That can affect whose contribution is remembered when praise, development opportunities or additional responsibilities are discussed. Seek a fuller picture through supervision, appropriate feedback and direct contact across shifts. Recognise the judgement, coordination and care involved in overnight work without assuming every shift has the same pressures.

Make recognition accessible too. A celebration held during the day may need an equivalent arrangement for colleagues working later. Ask what would feel meaningful rather than simply leaving something in the staff room after everyone else has finished.

Consult before decisions are settled

Night and weekend employees may identify practical issues that are less visible during office hours. Changes to equipment, staffing, records or emergency procedures should take their experience into account. Provide enough time for them to respond while working. Explain which parts of a proposal are open to influence and how feedback will be considered.

Return with an update on the decision and what their input changed. Repeatedly asking for comments after the main arrangements have been agreed can make consultation feel tokenistic.

Strengthen the relationship between shifts

Listen for language suggesting that daytime and night-time colleagues have become opposing groups. Complaints that another shift never completes its work may signal unclear responsibilities, workload pressures or weak handovers.

Bring the discussion back to specific examples. Establish what needs to be handed over, which tasks belong within each shift and what should happen when unexpected demands prevent completion.

Create opportunities for colleagues to understand one another’s working conditions without expecting them to sacrifice rest. Brief shared discussions during planned overlap can help where staffing arrangements allow. Avoid treating differences in working patterns as differences in commitment.

Respect life outside the shift

Working nights can affect sleep, family routines and access to everyday support. Some employees finish work and begin another period of caring at home.

Our article, From Night Shift to School Run: When Healthcare Workers Have Two Caring Jobs, explores that experience.

Ask about scheduling needs without making assumptions about someone’s circumstances or expecting personal disclosure. Give reasonable notice of planned activities and avoid creating an expectation that staff monitor routine messages while off duty.

Employees can also explore Thriving on Nights: Your Guide to Surviving and Enjoying Night Shifts. Individual wellbeing resources are most useful alongside working arrangements that support access to rest, learning and help.

Check whether inclusion is improving

Review who attends training, receives supervision, contributes to consultation and accesses development opportunities. Look at differences between shifts and ask employees what the figures do not explain.

Choose a few practical improvements, assign responsibility and revisit them with staff. That might mean repeating a briefing, changing supervision times or reviewing access to overnight support.

A service may operate through separate shifts, but employees should still experience a shared team. That connection grows when information, recognition and opportunities reach them during their own working day, even when that day begins after dark.

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