How Appleton Institute supports workplaces

Strengthen your approach to fatigue risk with practical support tailored to your operations. We help organisations review systems and policies, assess fatigue-related risks, and put in place tools and processes that support safer, healthier, and more sustainable ways of working.

We help organisations strengthen fatigue risk management in ways that are practical, credible, and grounded in the realities of 24/7 operations.

Drawing on expertise in fatigue, sleep, and circadian science, we work with workplaces to identify, assess, and reduce fatigue risk across operational, organisational, and regulatory contexts.

This can include desktop reviews of fatigue-related systems, policies, and procedures to identify gaps, support regulatory compliance, and ensure alignment with current scientific evidence and industry best practice. We also provide hands-on support for fatigue risk assessments, working directly with leaders and teams to identify fatigue-related hazards, evaluate risk, and develop documentation that aligns with existing systems and processes.

Where useful, this work can be complemented by fatigue self-assessment tools and fatigue and wellbeing surveys to better understand workforce experiences and identify areas for improvement. Our focus is always on translating evidence into practical action, helping organisations build stronger systems to support health, safety, and performance.

How we can help:

• Review fatigue-related systems, policies, and procedures
• Identify gaps and opportunities for improvement
• Support fatigue risk assessments with relevant teams and leaders
• Develop or refine fatigue self-assessment tools
• Design surveys to better understand fatigue and wellbeing across the workforce

Create rosters that better support recovery, reduce fatigue risk, and meet operational demands. We review roster design and scheduling practices, identify areas for improvement, and support the rollout of roster changes in a way that works for both the organisation and its workforce.

Roster design has a direct impact on worker health, safety, and operational performance. We work with organisations to assess roster structures and scheduling practices for fatigue risk, identifying opportunities to improve recovery, reduce risk, and support more sustainable operations.

Our expertise is particularly valuable where rostering is complex, including on-call work, overtime, unplanned absences, and day-of-operations changes. We combine knowledge of fatigue science, human factors, and systems thinking to provide practical guidance that reflects both the evidence base and the operational demands of running a 24/7 workforce.

We also support roster change management, recognising that successful implementation depends not only on roster design, but on how change is introduced and embedded. This may include focus groups, consultation processes, and pilot implementation support to build workforce buy-in, minimise disruption, and refine changes before broader rollout. The result is roster design that is better aligned with operational needs and workforce wellbeing.

How we can help:

• Assess roster structures for fatigue risk and recovery opportunities.
• Review complex scheduling challenges such as on-call work, overtime,
  and unplanned absences.
• Identify practical improvements to support safer and more sustainable rosters.
• Facilitate focus groups and engagement processes to support roster change.
• Assist with pilot implementation and refinement of new roster arrangements.

Build knowledge and confidence across your workforce with tailored training for workers, leaders, schedulers, and executives. We deliver practical sessions that improve fatigue awareness, support better decision-making, and help teams apply fatigue-related insights in everyday operations.

We deliver tailored training that builds workforce capability at all levels of an organisation, from frontline workers to senior leaders, schedulers, and executives. Our training is grounded in scientific expertise and designed to be relevant, practical, and immediately applicable in the workplace.

Training can cover fatigue awareness, fatigue risk management, sleep and circadian science, and practical strategies to support health, safety, and performance in shiftwork settings. We also provide targeted education in the interpretation of bio-mathematical model outputs, such as FAID, to support more informed planning and operational decision-making.

Delivery options include in-person sessions, online workshops, train-the-trainer programs, and custom-developed online modules. Importantly, our aim is not simply to provide information, but to build confidence, strengthen judgement, and support the application of knowledge in day-to-day operations. With expertise spanning fatigue, psychology, mental health, human factors, and behaviour change, we develop training that is credible, engaging, and tailored to workforce needs.

How we can help:

• Deliver tailored training for workers, leaders, schedulers, and executives
• Build understanding of fatigue, sleep, and circadian science in the workplace
• Provide practical strategies to support safer and healthier shiftwork
• Support train-the-trainer approaches and custom online learning modules
• Strengthen confidence in using fatigue-related information in day-to-day
  decision-making

Give your workforce access to practical resources that support healthier shiftwork. We provide engaging materials on sleep, physical activity, and nutrition, with options to use existing resources, adapt them to your workplace, or co-develop new content to suit your needs.

Supporting healthy shiftwork requires more than policy alone. We provide practical, user-friendly resources that help workers and workplaces address the everyday health challenges associated with non-standard hours, particularly in relation to sleep, physical activity, and nutrition.

Our resources include infographics, videos, and public-facing website content designed to translate scientific knowledge into clear, accessible guidance. These materials can be used as-is, adapted to suit your organisation, or co-developed to create new content tailored to your workforce, communication style, and operational context.

This work draws on expertise across sleep, circadian rhythms, physical activity, nutrition, psychology, and behaviour change, as well as extensive experience working with industry. Whether the goal is to support workers directly, equip leaders with better tools, or strengthen health messaging across an organisation, we develop resources that are practical, credible, and fit for purpose.

How we can help:

• Provide practical resources on sleep, physical activity, and nutrition.

• Adapt existing materials to suit your workforce and operational setting.

• Co-develop new resources for workers, leaders, or organisations.

• Create engaging content such as infographics, videos, and web-based resources.

• Support consistent, evidence-informed health messaging across your workplace.

Work with us to explore challenges, evaluate change, and turn insights into action. We partner with organisations on surveys, evaluation, and applied research that support continuous improvement, innovation, and better outcomes for workers and workplaces.

We work with organisations that want to better understand their workforce, evaluate change, and develop practical solutions informed by evidence. Through research, evaluation, and industry partnerships, we help workplaces generate insights that support continuous improvement, innovation, and better outcomes for health, safety, and performance.

This may include survey design and delivery, evaluation of interventions or new initiatives, and collaborative research partnerships that support both industry innovation and academic advancement. These activities can help organisations monitor change over time, identify emerging risks, understand workforce experiences, and assess the impact of new systems, resources, or ways of working.

What underpins this work is a combination of research excellence and industry understanding. We bring expertise across fatigue, sleep, circadian science, safety and risk management systems, organisational learning, human factors, and systems thinking, allowing us to work effectively across a wide range of sectors and challenges. Whether the need is for a one-off project or a longer-term partnership, we tailor our approach to deliver useful insights and practical value.

How we can help:

• Design and deliver fatigue and wellbeing surveys.

• Evaluate new initiatives, interventions, or workforce supports.

• Identify emerging risks and opportunities through workforce insights.

• Support continuous improvement and organisational learning.

• Partner on applied research that translates evidence into practical action.