Question for night-shift and/or weekend nurses

Tait, MSN, RN · Mar 12, 2014

When I was on nights a few years back our NM came in around 6:30 to check in with us, so I felt very connected to her. My joke however was that I didn't know who the CNO was until around year three!

Anna Flaxis, BSN, RN · Mar 12, 2014

Tait? Is that really you? Welcome back! Good to see you!

I don't often work nights, but I'm not a regular day shifter. Personally, I like the lack of contact with higher ups that can come along with working after regular business hours. At my last place of employment, our performance evaluations were done by our charge nurse. In my current place, we don't have a charge nurse, so our performance evaluations are a peer review system. I don't feel like this is disadvantageous at all, since it's the people who have frequent on the job contact with me who are doing the reviews, not some NM locked up in her/his office who never even sees me.

HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD · Mar 12, 2014

Nurse managers - or anyone who is responsible for a 24X7 operation - should understand the basics. This includes making sure you have face time with all of the staff including those who may only work nights &/or weekends. This is only one of the reasons that "first line nurse manager" is arguably the hardest job in healthcare.

Some organizations (smart ones) have explicit performance expectations for managers that include things like meeting schedules to accommodate nights & WE staff, ensuring that mandatory activities such as education & performance reviews are arranged to complement work schedules, etc. When I managed a clinical department, I scheduled myself for 1 week of nights & one weekend per month. The really great nurse executives I have worked with always made sure to 'round' on nights & weekends.

BTW, as a staff nurse (ICU) I loved nights.... much fewer road trips (taking patients & all their equipment to a diagnostic test) & dealing with 'tourists' (visitors and other gawkers).

bloodorange · Mar 12, 2014

Thanks, all of these responses are great (so far)! I have a feeling I'd love night shift.

nrsang97, BSN, RN · Mar 12, 2014

My boss is accommadting to our night staff. She schedules our evals before our shift or during our shift. She is easily available by phone and email. The only thing is our staff meetings are in the middle of the day. We aren't expected to attend if we work the night before. They are in the middle of the day because our department has mostly daytime workers. The rapid response team is the only group in our department who work the off shift. (Our department consists of RRT, PICC team, wound care, DM Education, CNS.)

sistrmoon, BSN, RN · Mar 12, 2014

I work weekend nights and before I added Thursday shifts in December, I could go 6-8 months without seeing my big manager(but saw assistant managers every once in awhile.) I have my reviews annually like everyone else, usually with an assistant manager before or after a regular shift. If I have an issue I want addressed by the big manager, I just email or call her. And I've never been required to attend staff meetings, just read the minutes.

Lennonninja, MSN, APRN, NP · Mar 12, 2014

One thing that my unit does which is a HUGE help to us on nights, for the vast majority of the staff meetings, we're allowed to conference call into them. I usually call in for morning ones as I'm driving home or an evening one if I'm not working. We also have 4 meeting times for each bimonthly staff meeting to make it easier for people to get to. I don't see my NM that frequently, but we have a position called Patient Care Coordinator (PCC) and that's basically middle management. We have a PCC that's just for night shift so I see her frequently, and she's the one that does our evals. She works 40+ hours a week, and often is the night shift charge nurse if needed.

I feel like sometimes I miss out on educational opportunities that are only available during daytime hours, but I like nights, I like my coworkers, and I like the extra money!

caliotter3 · Mar 12, 2014

Our night shift house supervisor went to bat for the night shift when it became obvious that this shift was being left out for "nice" things, like pizza for all (except night shift), but not for additional "make-work" tasks.

meanmaryjean, DNP, RN · Mar 12, 2014

Interesting you should ask this. I just completed a large-ish study and one of the things I looked at was this issue. I found that the larger the hospital, the less likely you were to see your manager if you worked nights. In fact, in the tertiary care hospital I studied (I studied 19 hospitals in all, from critical access to tertiary in size/ scope) 90%+ of night shift nurses had not seen their manger in over six months, and 95%+ of the time, the manager had not worked ANY PART of the night shift in a year.

bloodorange · Mar 12, 2014

What made me originally think about it was my volunteer shift, which is split between Sunday mornings and Tuesday mornings. Sundays are radically different for several reasons, but this past Tuesday, "my unit's" NM was particularly active on the floor. It led me to wonder if night/weekend workers "fly under the radar," for better or for worse.

BonnieSc · Mar 13, 2014

As you say, most night shift nurses seem to consider never seeing the management one of the "perks" of the shift. I go maybe two months without seeing the manager at this point (I saw her much more when she just started the position and was getting a handle on it). But we're often in touch by email or phone. It does have drawbacks--I sometimes feel like I hear news long after the day shift nurses, and if I have a complaint or issue, my options are basically email or the few rushed minutes after my shift ends. (And I would never be allowed to clock out even fifteen minutes late "just" because I had something I needed to discuss with management. If I stay late for anything like that, it's on me. That wasn't the case at my last job.) I don't feel like I have as much input into unit policy as the day shift does (or that anyone on night shift does, not just me). I don't feel like my manager necessarily understands what it is I/we do at night. And when it comes to performance appraisals, much of it comes from written/anonymous peer evaluations, but some of it (again, this is not just me, it's everyone on night shift) they just seem to pull out of the air. They get weird ideas about how competent/friendly/timely/etc a night nurse is based on what they observe at shift change.

So, pluses and minuses. For me, liking the work better, the atmosphere better, my co-workers better, and not having to work under management's thumb makes it worth it.

And it's just possible :whistling: the management feels the same way about us--our opinions of how well they do THEIR job are perhaps unjustified because we never actually see them work.