How is teamwork where you work?

mstearns09 · Mar 15, 2014

There are always going to be the people who don't pull their equal weight, the people who want to be SuperAide, the people who work hard and get the short end of the stick, and the people who know how to work together. It is impossible to work somewhere that these people don't. The key is to work around it. I'm sorry you supervisor buys into this aide's drama; you are wise to look for another job.

Where I work, the lone wolf approach and the I can't do it all by myself approach doesn't work. We do teamwork and we work together to get things accomplished. It is expected by each of us CNAs (with the exception of one), by the administration, the DON, and the nurses. Some branch out and don't play along but more gets accomplished by our approach. The ones who don't play along usually don't last or they get reprimanded.

Perhaps some reverse psychology on your fellow CNA could help: Make a bargain with her that if she wants your help, she has to help you first. If the supervisor is upset by it, well, you weren't hired and assigned to her position and your own.

Missingyou, CNA · Mar 19, 2014

I work in an awesome nursing home. We all have great team work! If someone is finished with their work or has a few minutes, we go help another aide out by answering their call lights...etc.

Yes, we have our moments when we have to say "sorry, I'm having a difficult night, can you find someone else?" but when that happens we respect that and we find someone else, then try to go back to help that aide catch up if we can.

The nurses even help when they can and if they can't, they let us know that they appreciate what we do!

I love my job and where I work. I know I'm lucky and that is not often the case for other nursing homes!

Kill 'em with kindness until you find something else.

msygrnbw · Mar 19, 2014

I feel like I work in a good environment where everyone works together well, but I've started to realize lately that some others on my floor don't necessarily feel the same. I'm of the notion that if you have extra time and you're not doing something, you should be checking if anyone else needs help. I am only a new RN and before was a PCT on the unit, so as a PCT I found that since I was always running around in my free time offering help that everyone was also happy to help when I asked. As a new RN I have found that there is a bit more to the situation than I noticed. There are other PCTs that I've not worked with all that much, or not for a year or more and the RNs feel that they don't help out enough, and to the same token, I've seen a few of our PCTs get over assigned patients and be running their legs off. It's hard when staffing doesn't really suit the actual needs of the floor and at least for my floor and what I've seen, that's where our tensions actually come in.

I still try and maintain my help everyone as much as you can motto. I love when we all get to the door at the end of the day with a big PHEW that was a hard shift, but I'm sure as heck glad you were here cause we kicked butt together. So I try and make that my goal, and just hope that it wears off/encourages others to do the same.

It's hard to give advice since I'm not directly in your situation, but I guess my first thought would be sitting down and evaluating one on one with your manager. Have a list of your concerns and address them professionally. For example, "I really feel like a team player and I like helping out, but I'm having trouble because I also want to start my shift off on the right foot. My daily routine is to do X, Y, Z for my patients and in between/when I have free time, I also want to help CNA Needy out. However, lately I feel like I haven't really had the adequate time to take care of my patients and I was wondering if you could help me examine my priorities in daily care/assisting others so that I know I am fulfilling your objectives and expectations." Or you could take the more straight route and say "I feel like I'm unable to adequately complete my work because CNA Needy is asking for help often. I am more than happy to help her, but she seems really pressed for time lately while completing ADLs and I wonder if you have some suggestions on how we could support her better so that our team can provide the best care for our patients."

Or if you are confronting the CNA personally, which I don't know if I would do but I am kind of a nonconfrontational person, especially when it's someone with an attitude like that. Maybe something along the lines of "I feel like we really got off on the wrong foot the other day. I'm sorry if I've come off as rude or unhelpful, and I do want us to be able to work together so that we can both get all our work done. Do you want to start off the day getting our independent patients ready and then we can team up and tackle the full assist patients together?" or "I feel like we're really not working well together lately. I want to be able to support each other and provide our patients good care. I think it would be good if we could communicate better and have mutual support. Would you be willing to sit down and come up with some ideas for how we can work together better?"

I hope that you figure something out. I have worked with people like that before and it just makes the day miserable - especially if you are really trying to be cheerful/helpful to them!