Hi, rnj1980, and welcome to allnurses!
I think this is a good opportunity for you to learn leadership skills. I was an RN supervisor in LTC for a number of years and started out in the job coming from the acute hospital having been a supervisor in the acute hospital. Basically, I was responsible for making the CNA assignments for our shift at the beginning of the shift. Sometimes if we were short a charge nurse I had to fill in and take an assignment as a charge nurse. During the shift I lent a hand and helped the nurses and aides where I could, especially when there were little crises that came up. If a patient had to be transferred out to the hospital I helped with the paperwork. I was also heavily involved with the paperwork involved in the monthly changeover of the medication and treatment sheets and the reconciliation of the doctor's orders in the charts. I made rounds of the facility. I was making sure that things were being kept clean (refrigerators, cupboards, shower rooms, etc.). At night, making sure the workers were not sleeping was kind of a universal problem (even in the acute hospital). I saw some pretty sneaky behavior where sleeping was involved. It has to be confronted and resolved.
Discipline is part of a supervision job. As a supervisor you have to know the facility rules and regulations as well as the discipline policy. You use them as the shield you stand behind. You can still be a nice person and enforce the rules and be known as a fair and nice supervisor. This is what passing the buck is all about. You would discuss with the DON (director of nursing) how she wants the rules enforced so you know her feeling on this and how strict he/she is about enforcing the rules. As a supervisor, you represent the DON and the administrator(s) when he/she is not in the building, so you need to know their views and carry them out. The DON may have you give yearly evaluations to employees as well on the off shifts since you are the one who is there and he/she is not. In some cases I was writing yearly evaluations which were then reviewed and approved by the DON before I gave them to employees.
In my jobs as a supervisor I learned about discipline, particularly in LTC. Some of the CNAs act like little children and must be treated the same way. It was a great education! I thought Weeping Willows comment about getting "lip" from those you supervise was interesting. This is similar to insubordination and you learn to deal with it or you forever become spineless and fear anybody that challenges you. You earn respect by applying rules and regulations fairly and not loosing your temper. RNs are leaders--keep that in mind. Today's hospital RNs are spared the anxiety of having to be the old battleaxe leaders and supervisors they used to need to be. In LTC, however, you have to, and are expected to, be that kind of strong leader. Many of them are LPNs who have stepped up into these positions and do a fine job of it. I used two books to help me learn to deal with the problems of insubordinate workers:
- Managing Difficult People: A Survival Guide for Handling Any Employee by Marilyn Pincus
- Working With Difficult People by Muriel Solomon
- I also had to read Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis by Eric Berne, M.D. in my BSN program which is a wonderful work about recognizing manipulative behavior that we all engage in
I also used my computer (Word program) as my word processor. I had a template for a memo on it that I used to write people up when the situation called for it. The DON can't do any kind of effective discipline (or firing) of problem employees without proper written documentation. Most of the staff charge nurses won't take the time to do it. That is where the supervision staff must help out. As a supervisor in the acute hospital and LTC I never did as much writing and documentation as I did as a staff nurse. We documented all kinds of things that went on and it wasn't all about bad employee acts. Records of unusual things that occurred had to be documented and kept somewhere. And, I'm not talking about documenting in the patient charts.
I would encourage you to re-think your decision to take this job. It would be a marvelous experience to see a whole different part of nursing that you were kind of exposed to briefly in nursing school but never really had a chance to develop as a staff nurse. As a supervisor you have a great deal of autonomy on the job to affect the work of the nurses around you. It is a step up the career ladder. If you keep an open mind, keep your communication line with the DON open, and are willing to learn as you go, there is no reason why you shouldn't do well in this position. LTC is a wonderful place for opportunities and one has just been laid before you. It is unlikely that you would get this kind of opportunity in the acute hospital. Don't pass it up.
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