Transforming Sleep, Health & Daily Routines Through Intelligent Scheduling
Client: Let’s Talk Shiftwork
Industry: Occupational Health, Shift Management, Lifestyle & Wellness
Services: Requirements Consulting, UX/UI Design, Mobile App Development, Data–Driven Recommendation Engine, API Integration, Subscription & Payments, Admin Portal Development
Overview
Let’s Talk Shiftwork is an innovative mobile application created to help shift workers understand, manage and improve their sleep patterns, daily routines and overall wellbeing. Developed in partnership with occupational health expert Angela, the app combines intelligent roster tracking with personalised, evidence-based recommendations that guide users through the physical and cognitive challenges of irregular working hours.
ERS was engaged to turn this highly specialised concept into a robust, commercially deployable application available across iOS and Android. The resulting platform brings together dynamic rostering, daylight and lunar tracking, behavioural prompts, sleep analytics, personal profile management, and partner visibility—supported by a secure backend portal for full administrative control.
The Challenge
Shift work presents a unique set of physiological and lifestyle challenges. Workers frequently rotate between day shifts, night shifts and periods off duty, each requiring different sleep timing, food intake patterns and exposure to daylight. Traditional roster apps simply track hours worked—they do not help users navigate the biological and behavioural implications of shift work, nor do they support preparation for upcoming transitions.
Angela identified that there was no single tool available that could combine accurate shift rostering with personalised guidance grounded in circadian science. Workers needed a way to build or select rosters, track their sleep cycles, understand the daylight available to them, and receive adaptive recommendations based on where they were within their shift cycle. Partners also needed visibility into a shift worker’s schedule to help coordinate family life without gaining access to private health information.
Beyond user-facing functionality, the application required a sophisticated rules engine capable of applying Angela’s formulas to each user’s roster, location, demographic profile and sleep data. These rules would need to generate actionable prompts such as bedtime recommendations, wake-up guidance, blue-light exposure advice and food timing reminders. The app also had to support unusual requirements such as allowing a user to check how a future date aligns within their roster cycle, showing their previous and next shift relative to that date .
Finally, Let’s Talk Shiftwork needed a scalable backend portal for administrators to manage standard rosters, update recommendations, oversee user accounts, integrate with Stripe for payments and maintain subscription access across app stores. Building an application that blended all of these elements—behavioural science, intelligent scheduling, user wellbeing, data capture and commercial deployment—required a fully integrated approach to design and development.
Our Solution
To support circadian-based guidance, ERS integrated the app with global time and daylight APIs. This allowed the system to calculate sunrise, sunset and lunar data for a user’s exact location, enabling the recommendation engine to determine whether the user should seek daylight exposure, avoid bright light, prepare for sleep, or adjust their behaviour as they transition between shifts. The uploaded notes emphasised the importance of daylight reports and lunar insights for sleep quality, which ERS incorporated into the design .
A behavioural rules engine was then developed to apply Angela’s formulas to each user’s roster, profile and sleep patterns. The app generates personalised prompts throughout the day—including wake-up guidance, bedtime preparation reminders, optimal meal timing suggestions and blue-light recommendations. Sleep recording functionality allows users to log when they went to bed, when they woke up, and how they felt upon waking. The system also encourages reflection through quality-of-sleep ratings and “feel refreshed” prompts, supporting a feedback loop that improves recommendation accuracy .
The Result
Let’s Talk Shiftwork launched as a science-driven, user-friendly solution that fills a critical gap for shift workers. For the first time, users can view, understand and improve their shift patterns through a single application that links roster data with personalised wellbeing recommendations. The platform helps users navigate the biological strain of rotating shifts and provides actionable insights that enhance sleep quality, daylight exposure, daily routines and overall health.
The app has also given shift-working families a practical way to coordinate life around unpredictable schedules, while providing administrators with the tools needed to manage the platform efficiently. By combining complex logic, real-world behavioural science and elegant UX, ERS delivered a product that positions Let’s Talk Shiftwork as a leading wellbeing solution for shift-based industries.