What would make you feel appreciated on the job?

Not being made to feel guilty when you have worked your scheduled 36 hours plus another 24 extra in a weeks time. When you say well I do need at least ONE day off this week not being made to feel that you are letting the floor down. And the classic: Thank you we really appreciate all that you do. My patient's tell me all of the time but sometimes you need to hear it from your coworkers and management.

Yes! I could do without the guilt when I say "no, I am unable to work beyond what I am scheduled." If I wanted a full-time job, I would have asked to be put on as full-time. What is with the guilt from certain co-workers and management if I do not want to pick up extra time? There is a reason why I am not a full-time employee. I can't work full-time hours right now. Quit guilting me. Some people honestly do have things going on outside of work that they must attend to. I am not the only person affected by working longer/more hours. I would gladly work more if my life would allow me to do that. Quit guilting me. It will not get me to put in more hours.

How about management stop taking advantage of the good nurses who do stay late all the time and work the extra shift on their rostered day off. Obviously these nurses are totally exhausted having to work more than everyone else yet you keep relying on their goodwill because you cannot staff the department properly, and are allowing surgeons and administration to overbook the operating list. The rest of the nurses are switched onto this issue and refuse to work any more than we have to because you'll just keep on demanding more and more.

I was thinking about this very topic this afternoon. Meaningful recognition is a cornerstone of healthy work environments. To me, meaningful recognition is not the patronizing email sent to "the staff" after a particularly horrible shift telling everyone, whether they were involved or not, what a great job we do and how much our hard work is appreciated. I would be thrilled to the soles of my feet if my manager came to me and said, "I really like the way you interact with families and how carefully you explain things to them. That's a special quality," or some other comment that reflects my approach to my job. (I work peds critical care.) That would tell me that she has actually paid attention to what I do. But that kind of feedback is never proffered by our management. I hear it from coworkers and former coworkers, and I won't say that their feedback isn't important to me - it really is - but if I chose to change jobs, my potential employer would be talking to may manager, not my friends. A couple of years ago I was assigned to attend a training class that I had no interest in involving myself with; they had asked for volunteers to take on this particular specialty role, and I wasn't one but I was signed up anyway. When I was called into the office to discuss my umm... displeasure, I was told that the voluntary factor had been discarded and that all the nurses who were frequently assigned the resource nurse role were required to have the training. (We are supposed to have two transport nurses, an admitting nurse and a resource nurse who helps with admissions, mentors new staff, covers breaks, attends codes and acts as the charge nurse when the charge nurse is off the unit.) The look on my manager's face when I told her that was very interesting since I hadn't been the resource nurse in more than 6 months was quite funny. "What do you mean?" she said. That's how much attention she pays. And this is the person who can make or break my career.

I would also love to see our management actually address problems instead of ignoring them in the hope that they'll just go away. We have a nurse on nights who is a bully. We have a handful of nurses who are always given the best assignments and privileges the rest of us don't get, and another handful who are always singled out for the nasty assignments. There's another nurse who comes to work in chinos, a long sleeved t-shirt, motorcycle boots and an oilcloth vest that we know darned well she wears in the barn when she's milking cows. At the same time others have been instructed not to wear anything but scrubs... Never mind the nurses whose practice borders on dangerous, or the new nurse who is getting busy with one of our residents in the call room when she works nights... None of these things is ever dealt with.

Anybody looking for a good peds nurse?

I work SICU and I could have written this post -- except for the part about the barn attire. Even the nurses getting busy with the residents in the call room. (We have more than one.) When our manager quit, the acting nurse manager took care of the problem nurse with 63 sick calls over the past year, the nurse who had every symptom of a drug problem and the nurse who had no clue about ANYTHING. But the bully still remains. The favoritism continues and the same group of nurses continue to get the nasty assignments while others always get the best assignments. I know she's working on it, but I'd like to see something accomplished rather than always hear "I'm working on it."

I do feel appreciated when my manager acknowledges my teaching skills, but I've been in line for a promotion up the clinical ladder for a couple of years now. "It's the economy. No raises, no bonuses." The economy wasn't an issue a couple of years ago.

And I'd LOVE a manager who advocates for her staff, who stands up for them when someone else -- the NP from the step-down unit, the new resident, a family member or a patient accuses them of something. Innocent until proven guilty? No, it's "if they're upset, it must be something YOU did." Amazingly, I haven't been in trouble lately -- but others have and some of the accusations are so ridiculous I'm not sure how my manager can keep a straight face.

Patient satisfaction surveys are a joke -- I can't be responsible for the lousy food or the fact that the patient had a short term memory deficit BEFORE her surgery and now cannot remember why she's in the hospital. (Got marked down on that one recently.) One nurse got back a horrible survey because the physician made the patient NPO and the patient didn't believe the nurse's explanations of that. Also not a nursing responsibility . . . but when someone is unhappy, it must be the nurse's fault. Yet my manager takes each and every one of these complaints to the nurse involved.

I'd also like a "thank you" when I work overtime, pick up an extra shift, take on extra patients or teach an extra class.