Have you ever had the feeling your employer was looking for a reason to fire you

[Nola009]

...I was just wondering. I got an eval done today, and one of my marks was the lowest it could be (a 1/5).... and this was because I didn't do half of an online portion of one inservice, and the reason for that was that HR 'accidentally' d/c'd my id and password. The rest of my eval was average. I was just wondering if this sounds odd or like they would like to get rid of me. It's a prn job, and I'm feeling like I might not fit in with their company culture all the greatest?

[ArtClassRN, ADN, RN]

Sounds like they are telling you to get your inservices done on time. I would suggest getting them done well ahead of time to account for any goofups like you mention.

[Mulan]

I think with some PRN positions, an average eval goes with the territory.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

I have held many different PRN positions.

Some of them I "walked on water".. some of them I was just a body.

It's all about the manager's perception of YOU.

[amoLucia]

They'll start a paper trail if they want to dismiss you. That way, they'll have reason to deny you unemployment.

Just my opinion.

[TU RN, DNP, CRNA]

I'm not sure how the workplace dynamics of a PRN job are, but sometimes I feel like the politics/changes in business on my floor are designed with the intention of burning workers out. No reason why they would want that, maybe in an attempt to scare employees off and cut their pay from the budget? You might have heard of "onboarding" where employees are made to feel part of the workplace culture, fulfilled in their role, and willing to stay around and advance themselves/their business (or in our case, unit). I sometimes feel like my employer is "offboarding" with the way staffing ratios are changing (understaffing RNs and CNAs), requiring more "competencies" and "tests" as basic job requirements, and expanding our role while effectively removing others. Just a thought. Anybody else made that observation?

[NoviceRN10]

I'm not sure how the workplace dynamics of a PRN job are, but sometimes I feel like the politics/changes in business on my floor are designed with the intention of burning workers out. No reason why they would want that, maybe in an attempt to scare employees off and cut their pay from the budget? You might have heard of "onboarding" where employees are made to feel part of the workplace culture, fulfilled in their role, and willing to stay around and advance themselves/their business (or in our case, unit). I sometimes feel like my employer is "offboarding" with the way staffing ratios are changing (understaffing RNs and CNAs), requiring more "competencies" and "tests" as basic job requirements, and expanding our role while effectively removing others. Just a thought. Anybody else made that observation?

Yes! I have reviews coming up and I am not expecting to be marked as anything other than average, even though I would rate myself higher in certain areas. My current mgr is new in her position and has no clue what I am like at work, besides what my peer reviews will show. I am not looking forward to sitting down with a "stranger" to be evaluated.

[BusyBee91]

In my non-nursing job, my supervisor (whom I like and get along with well) gave me 3/5 across the board on every single item on my annual review. I was surprised, and asked her about it. (I'm pretty sure I do very good work) She said it wasn't a big deal and that it's almost impossible to get above average marks.. I also asked one of my peers about it, and she said she thought our supervisor just doesn't care to take the time to fill out the paperwork extremely thoroughly... and so she just marks everything thing as 'acceptable' on each of her reports' forms. Made me feel a bit better. I agree that if they're giving you one really low mark, maybe just make a point of demonstrating that you are doing an excellent job of that one thing, and don't worry too much about average marks in the rest of the checks.

It's unfortunate that many companies don't stress praising good work, but definitely let you know if you're making a mistake... but I guess it is what it is.

Just an anecdote :)

[jadelpn, LPN, EMT-B]

Usually, if one gets a "1" there's some sort of "improvement plan" that comes with it. Which means "get the inservice done".

I would be sure that in the future, if HR loses anything that doesn't allow you to complete what you need to, I would keep your supervisor in the loop. That way, she can also get to HR to do what they are supposed to. That is perhaps why the low score, as your supervisor did not know what was happening, and should have.

Which stinks, but you can only go forward from here...

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

It's too bad they are blaming you for not getting the inservice done on time, esp when it wasn't your fault. Some places will use even one late education thing to lower your eval, some are not that strict. But I don't think they are trying to fire you, just letting you know how important keeping up on competencies is. By us we are written up if we are late with anything, and some things like letting your BLS or ACLS expire or not keeping up with TB tests will get you taken off the schedule till its fixed.

Also I wouldn't be surprised by an average eval because this whole merit based system is really about keeping the budget down, not about rewarding people. Sure it's marketed, falsely if you ask me, that you can get a better raise than average if you are a really good worker, but it doesn't turn out that way because it is based on say a 2-3% across the board raise, so if one person gets a 4% another person has to get 0% to keep within the budget. Many people are deceived by merit evals and feel they are all above average and they will be rewarded against the "slackers". In reality if anyone gets an above average raise it is at the expense of another coworker and there is no way to know if it was based on true merit or on favoritism. I would prefer a standard across the board raise where everyone knew what to expect as long as they are doing their job. If they are not, then that should be addressed thru the discipline process. Nowadays we don't even know if we are getting a raise or what it will be. We are told after all the evals are done we will find out what sort of raise if any we are going to get. No one knows ahead of time, not even the managers I believe! Also many places will pay an older, experienced worker less for the exact same eval score simply to keep the costs down. At least if you are union you are more likely to get a raise as opposed to finding out they decided to skip raises for the year to save money. Many places have been doing this esp since the recession started in 2009. Also you would usually know in advance what to expect for a raise as long as you are doing your job.

[Nola009]

I'm told no one (except maybe management?) at this facility has had a raise in 5 years. They say they can't afford it. The administrator even gets on people about turning lights off to save on energy costs. I did tell HR and the DON (separately) about the trouble with my pw/id. Nothing was changed on my eval and I'm not gonna risk ******* someone off by pushing the issue. Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but I thought that the 1/5 for that was pretty harsh.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

I have, and they were, and (eventually) they did.