manager refusing comp time, and other issues

[Dean7]

Hello everyone,

First of all thanks in advance for any input anyone gives. I'm writing here to see if anyone else has experienced this, and if it's right or wrong or if anything can be done.

Our director for med/surg is refusing to give us comp time. He outright said "I'm not giving any of you comp time, I am not signing for it. You are not efficient with your work, that is why you are not finishing on time. I was told we are giving too much comp time." I heard the director came out of a budget meeting and I guess the hospital is having budget issues, and supposedly they are trying to cut back by not giving anyone comp time. However, I see this as unfair.

This is a tele unit, 28 bed, and we frequently have a patient load of 5-7 patients and they are high acuity (a lot of them require two people to clean them, a lot of them are very sick, need transfusions, oxygen, can't feed themselves, are on IV's, there are a lot on insulin, a lot of high fall risk patients) and we are frequently short on CNAs to help with the care (that or the cnas don't want to work together to change patients and ask for us to do time consuming 20 minutes long bed baths when we are already drowning in work and have a ton of meds and other things to do). Everyone is entitled an hour break, but usually we only eat for around 10 minutes and have to get back to work or else if we will have to stay after work for 2 hours finishing documentation. Not many people dare to claim comp time (time we can use that can add up to a paid day off) because we feel it will "look bad." Sometimes the manager has said "everyone should be getting their full hour lunch. There is no reason you shouldn't." Well the reality of the situation is if we take a full hour lunch, the other people covering for us will be drowned by taking care of not just their patients, but our patients as well (imagine being responsible for 12-14 needy patients including your own while covering another nurse on lunch), and we will end up having to stay late to finish up our paperwork.

On average, everyone stays after work an hour after their paid shift ends, finishing up paperwork. Nobody has been sitting around the nurses station talking or doing anything near wasting time. Everyone has pretty much been busy the entire shift. Being busy the entire shift, taking only a bit to swallow down our food and then get back to work, we still finish an hour late on average, sometimes it is longer, 2 hours. I have heard we used to have 5 nurses on this 28 bed tele unit, but there are only 4 nurses. In addition, nurses have to take turns being the charge nurse, which adds additional responsibilities on top of having a heavy patient load.

I feel that the director refusing to give us comp time is wrong. Is it illegal too? Should we go to the union (though I feel like the union representative will reveal who is the complainer because I have heard that she would tell the director who lodged the complaint and never keep it anonymous)? Or can this be reported to the labor board? The director also says we must email him to explain exactly WHY we are asking for comp time. It is not adequate enough to have simply the covering ADN sign for our comp time even if she sees us working late after our shift ends. I feel like this is bullying or a type of intimidation or a way to deter us from claiming comp time, as if we ask for it, he will make us explain the details, as if we are begging him for comp time. It's almost like humiliation and I feel that it is a way to question us and shame us and try to get us to believe "if only I worked faster or were superhuman then I could have done it all and been out by the end of my shift." What do you think?

Also, does anyone here work on a tele unit with high acuity patients (a lot of bedcare patients, who can't walk, and such)? What is your nurse:patient ratio?

I am feeling very frustrated and demeaned in this kind of hostile workplace environment. I feel not valued as an employee and if feels as if management sees us as work rats to use and abuse and that they just care about looking good as a director and keeping the budget good.

Thank you for your opinions!!

[NayRN]

Interesting pay situation-I suggest you go to your union, since you have that option. So many of us don't. They are also the ones who negotiated the pay. I worked med-surg/tele on a 40 bed unit for 4 years. Our patient ratio was 6 or 7:1, sometimes we got a separate charge nurse, sometimes not. On day shift we'd sometimes discharge all 7 and get a whole new team, for a daily load of 14 patients. I started as a new grad at $17.50/hr with a max raise of 2.5% per year. No union. I'm back in school now, hopefully on to bigger and better things.

[toomuchbaloney]

If you don't have enough time to complete all of the tasks during the course of your shift you will have to utilize your critical thinking to eliminate some of the tasks.

Are there tasks that you complete which could be delegated to another discipline?

Are there tasks that you complete that a family member could complete or assist with?

I know, I know, when you engage in that way it looks bad for the facility and your director won't like that. But your goals and objectives are patient centered, right?

Get in the habit of checking your watch. It is perfectly acceptable to document the amount of time each task or intervention required. Even though we do not bill for our time, so to speak, we are expected to account for it. Charting your time spent at various activities is one acceptable way to accomplish that. When your director needs to see evidence of your time he/she may simply review your documentation for the shift.

It is my guess that you don't have a union protecting you. You and your peers need to stick together like white on rice during this period.

Good luck.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

I'm confused, are you paid hourly or on salary? (I've never heard of a floor nurse being on salary). Initially it sounds like hourly b/c you're asking to be paid for the two hours or whatever that you've stayed over.

Yes, do what you can to manage your time. Even if it means not doing everything that in a perfect world you'd like to do for your pts. But if you are down to doing only the bare minimum, not socializing, working as fast as you can w/o being shoddy, and having to choose between taking lunch and staying late... and still being told that you're expected to do extra work for free, I've got three words. Department of labor.

Some hospitals do pay bedside nurses salary -- it saves them money because then they don't have to pay incidental overtime for those nurses staying and charting after their shift. They save on weekend, night and holiday differential as well. They figure you're going to work 50% of the paid holidays every year, 50% nights (or whatever ratio they're hiring you into) and every third holiday. Then they roll the to% of holiday differential, 50% night differential and 33% weekend differential into your base pay, divide it by 52 weeks and pay the same amount every pay period. You can work 90% nights and every weekend and still get the same differential as the guy who works no night shifts because he calls in sick every time he's scheduled for one and the bare minimum of holidays. And this is legal.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Some hospitals do pay bedside nurses salary -- it saves them money because then they don't have to pay incidental overtime for those nurses staying and charting after their shift. They save on weekend, night and holiday differential as well. They figure you're going to work 50% of the paid holidays every year, 50% nights (or whatever ratio they're hiring you into) and every third holiday. Then they roll the to% of holiday differential, 50% night differential and 33% weekend differential into your base pay, divide it by 52 weeks and pay the same amount every pay period. You can work 90% nights and every weekend and still get the same differential as the guy who works no night shifts because he calls in sick every time he's scheduled for one and the bare minimum of holidays. And this is legal.

But if they dock your pay just one time for being late....you are now an hourly employee they can't have it both ways.

'

I know of a hospital that tried this...they got reported to the labor board....they lost.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Some hospitals do pay bedside nurses salary -- it saves them money because then they don't have to pay incidental overtime for those nurses staying and charting after their shift. They save on weekend, night and holiday differential as well. They figure you're going to work 50% of the paid holidays every year, 50% nights (or whatever ratio they're hiring you into) and every third holiday. Then they roll the to% of holiday differential, 50% night differential and 33% weekend differential into your base pay, divide it by 52 weeks and pay the same amount every pay period. You can work 90% nights and every weekend and still get the same differential as the guy who works no night shifts because he calls in sick every time he's scheduled for one and the bare minimum of holidays. And this is legal.

Yup, this is how it worked when I worked in the hospital. I worked essentially permanent nights for my last several months there but was only paid the rotater differential (about $3/hr less than the night shift differential) because they only recalculated the diffs quarterly. Good way to stiff your staff of a lot of money.

[Selfie]

HOU TX: I think that Ruby was trying to make a point about the clear distinction between exempt and hourly worker classifications - as outlined in FLSA (Federal Law). Truly exempt staff don't get overtime. However, there is also a 'test' to determine whether a position is truly considered exempt or not... and it does not seem that the work described by the OP meets the exempt test. If not, an employment attorney could fix this situation. That's probably the OP's best option.

I agree. This does not sound like an exempt position. You could google Board of Labor in your state and ask them, and an employment attorney could fix the situation!

[amoLucia]

Looking past all else that was said in other posts, there is one line of OP's that says it all for me ... "I (manager) was told we are giving too much comp time".

Your manager is answering to his//her higher authority. Just NOT being willfully stingy or insensitive to you, but is being required to reign in departmental costs for his job performance. Your boss has to defend his job too or else he'll be on the streets looking.

I've been at places where DONs had to make some downright ugly decisions because the mandate from higher up was made and the DON was merely the 'messenger' or 'bearer of bad tidings'. I bet that DONs out in the audience here can validate this.

Sometimes it can be done not too painfully and other times it can seem ruthless. Your manager may have been a bit off-tact but that's why he 'gets paid the big bucks' to do the dirty work.

JMHO.

[Wrench Party]

Our tele floors are 1:4 with aides and central tele by the nurses' station. Mostly walkie-talkie, A&Ox4 and those nurses rarely get out before 7:30. I can't imagine what it's like with 5-7, almost total care! Sounds like your ratios need to be knocked down to 1:3.

Talk to your union rep, ASAP.