Floating related to age

Nurses General Nursing

Published

The other thread got me to thinking....

We are looking at floating related to age. Currently if you are 55 or over with 10 consecutive years you are exempt from floating. [this also exempts you from call]

Many older nurses transfer to our rehab unit because "most" of the pts are more stable, they spend half the day with PT etc. So most of the rehab nurse do not float. But, we have a couple 60+ nurses that do not fit this criteria.

Is it fair to make the 2 or 3 other nurses float all the time, or do we exempt the whole unit from floating? We are going back to see how many nurses {hospital wide} we have over 60 to see if exempting all of them from floating is feasible.

It's very tricky trying to show appreciation to our older nurses without causing hard feelings from thsoe that will continue to float.

Any thought????

Specializes in pediatrics, public health.

At the hospital I used to work at, nurses with 20+ years of seniority did not have to work weekends. They did have to float, but I would have been ok with them not floating either. I agree with others that basing anything on seniority is ok, but basing it on age is discriminatory (and I say that as someone who would have to wait till I'm 69 to have 20+ years of experience!)

The only people at this hospital who didn't have to float were nurses with less than 6 months experience -- this makes sense to me too -- a new nurse needs time to get up to speed on her (or his) home unit before dealing with getting used to other units. Once I started floating, I actually enjoyed it, because it gave me a chance to see how other units in the hospital worked, and to get exposed to a broader ranges of patients and diagnoses.

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Specializes in Trauma ICU, Peds ICU.

I don't think anyone should be exempt from floating.

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Are you sure the policy is for "older nurses" or those with more seniority who will probably be older? I personally loved floating. It broke up the monotony. Policy sounds like it was originally meant to keep nurses at this facility. I'll bet it's an old policy. :confused:

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I vote that nobody should have to float, just get more pool nurses :twocents:.

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Specializes in LTC.

I'd check with HR to see if this is even legal. Basing floating on age seems like it could get you into a lot of trouble.

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Specializes in OR Hearts 10.
Are you sure the policy is for "older nurses" or those with more seniority who will probably be older? I personally loved floating. It broke up the monotony. Policy sounds like it was originally meant to keep nurses at this facility. I'll bet it's an old policy. :confused:

It's not an old policy . Our last retention committee came up with the 10 years 55 age perk. And now as we see anytime you give a perk, someone else wants.

Thank you for your replys and keep them coming. I will show this thread to some of the other members on the Nurse Staffing Committee.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, educator.

We offer different perks for different levels of year worked. We can retire after 30 years service, so this is a great thing if you have made it 20 years. At 25 years we have the option of not only not floating, but only working one winter or summer holiday. If you stay after 30, you don't float, don't work ANY holidays. I believe in rewarding people that have stayed in one area for all those years. I like the thought of living out my final 10 years there with some perks to look forward too. :) We have a high retention in our hospital and esp in my unit.

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Specializes in L & D; Postpartum.
We offer different perks for different levels of year worked. We can retire after 30 years service, so this is a great thing if you have made it 20 years. At 25 years we have the option of not only not floating, but only working one winter or summer holiday. If you stay after 30, you don't float, don't work ANY holidays. I believe in rewarding people that have stayed in one area for all those years. I like the thought of living out my final 10 years there with some perks to look forward too. :) We have a high retention in our hospital and esp in my unit.

Every time we renegotiate our contract, (and I've been on the "team" for 12 years now, we try to stress how important retention is, but our administration is lame.....and in more than just that way. I was accused by a bad manager of not trusting adminstration much. GUILTY AS CHARGED, but not for no reason.

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Specializes in Hospice / Psych / RNAC.

It should be based on years of employment and not age; sounds discriminatory if you do it by age and what about the nurse whose been there 10 years and then someone else comes in whose 60 and they get to not float and the long term nurse wanted it; hmmmmm............... sounds stupid (sorry; that's how I feel) and will make for dislike and petty arguements.

Extremely unprofessional IMO.

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Specializes in OR Hearts 10.

You all have given me (us) a lot to think about. I never would have thought that something that was supposed to be a perk would be thought of in such a negative light. :confused:

So much for retention......

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Specializes in OB/GYN, Emergency.

You say "so much for retention," but a benefit of retention would be to reward seniority. Seniority does not mean which nurses are the most senior in years! You could have a 40 year old who'd been with your organization 20 years, which should trump the 60 year old who's been there 10. :)

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Specializes in OR Hearts 10.

It's actually the retention & recognition committee, I guess the age part was part of the recognition part. Like I said the original 10 years/55 age was started by last years committee now we are trying to deal with the fall out......

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