Australia's shift-based workforce is engaged but stretched, with poly-employment, unpredictable rosters and cost-of-living pressure defining the mood
Australia's shift workforce is not disengaged – it's stretched, according to Ciaran Hale, chief technology officer at Deputy.
Speaking to HRD, Hale said the defining trend in this year's data is the rise of poly-employment, where workers – particularly younger generations – take on multiple part-time roles to secure enough hours and income.
"It's employees wanting to work across different industries and then have multiple roles, and that's giving them financial stability, ability to manage family commitments or study commitments," Hale said.
That trend is reshaping what engagement actually looks like on the frontline. Workers juggling several jobs are "generally engaged if they have the right technology and the right tooling to balance those multiple roles." But Hale was direct about where that engagement breaks down: "If they're not able to have predictability or they have rostering that's unpredictable, that's when we see those stress levels come in."
Backing up that view, Deputy's Shift Pulse Report 2026 – drawn from more than one million anonymous end-of-shift surveys collected in the year to April 2026 – found 81.14% of Australian shift workers reported feeling happy at the end of their shifts, a modest dip from 82.16% a year earlier, while unhappiness eased slightly from 5.90% to 5.73%.
'They're really emotionally invested in their work'
Nowhere is Hale's poly-employment thesis more visible than among Gen Z, whom he describes as engaged rather than disengaged despite carrying the heaviest emotional load of any generation.
"When things are going well and they're having a great experience, they're really happy," Hale said. "But throughout, the theme of what I talked about is when they have poor rostering or they're facing financial pressure, difficult customer interactions, they're really feeling those frustrations more intensely."
Accordign to the study, Gen Z posted the second-highest happiness score of any generation at 83.95%, behind only Generation Alpha's 87.23%, yet also recorded the highest unhappiness score of any cohort at 6.32%.
For Hale, the lesson for employers is straightforward. "Younger workers don't necessarily need motivation," he said. "They need stability, predictable schedules, and really clear communications and development opportunities."
Volatile industries, volatile moods
Hale also pointed to structural differences between industries as a major driver of sentiment swings. Controlled, relationship-based sectors such as healthcare are "more predictable, more controlled, more managed," he said, while "hospitality and retail are by nature much more volatile industries and are much more impacted by economic changes and cost of living pressures."
That assessment lines up with the report's parent-industry figures: hospitality recorded the highest happiness score of any sector at 82.91%, driven by strong team culture, but also the second-highest unhappiness score at 6.44% due to late-night and weekend demands.
Retail sat lowest on happiness (78.69%) and highest on unhappiness (6.83%), a result the report attributes to poly-employment and inconsistent scheduling – the same forces Hale flagged as central to this year's findings.
A turnaround built on 'micro changes'
Asked about the Australian Capital Territory's jump from the least happy jurisdiction a year ago to the happiest in 2026 – a happiness score of 85.28%, alongside the second-lowest unhappiness in the country – Hale said the shift shows sentiment is well within employers' control.
"The fact that it's turned around so significantly in the last year shows that it's something that you can impact as a business," he said. "With small changes in these businesses and more adoption of flexibility for your employees' ability to allow them to manage work-life balance, those little changes have a massive impact on the health of shift workers."
Hale also linked the improvement to recent policy movement, including minimum wage increases pushed by the Fair Work Commission and incoming psychosocial risk obligations for employers. "I do think the changes that are starting to come out now are of benefit to this industry," he said.
For businesses wanting to replicate that improvement, Hale pointed to real-time rostering and shift-swap technology, echoing points raised in Deputy's own analysis of how rate rises squeeze shift workers first, alongside broader efforts to support the wellbeing of shift workers through predictable rosters and regular manager check-ins.
Hale's closing message to HR and business leaders was blunt about the stakes. "They are the backbone of our economy," he said of shift workers. "Everything that you do every day is backed by a shift worker."
