bosses working on the floor

sistasoul · Mar 17, 2012

It has always been my position as a manager that it is my job to know what is going on on the units. I watch, and see.
It has also always been my position that people who throw other staff members to the wolves really don't have enough to do. Don't come to me and tell me. I already know. I will handle it. In the mean time, if you got some business you can mind your business, if you got not business, then make it your business to leave other people's business alone.

I agree. If you have time to get up in other people's business you do not have enough to do. I am too busy with my own patients to know what anyone else is doing. I worked with a CNA once in a LTC facility and we were talking about people who commit crimes. His answer was that they had too much time on their hands and needed a job. Most people are too exhausted after working all week to go out and steal and rob. It is the same principle as the busy body's at work. They obviously have too much time on their hands. I know I have barely time to go to the bathrom most days.

MN-Nurse, ASN, RN · Mar 17, 2012

apparently he has an M.B.A which is great, but my question is how can he decide about what is best for these patients if he doesn't have any experience on a medical floor,

He can't.

SHGR, MSN, RN, CNS · Mar 17, 2012

Right. There are dual MSN/MBA programs for nurses who want to go into management. I mean, of course you have to have business sense and training for the management and financial side. But, you do have to have knowledge and experience in the field you are managing. How could you run a restaurant if you had never worked in one before? Eating there doesn't count.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Mar 17, 2012

this is analogous to the discussions i follow over on the student nurse threads. the students all have very strong opinions about staff nurses and charge nurses and what the different specialty areas are all about...and they really don't have much of a clue. at all.

fact is that if your manager has been a floor nurse it is entirely possible that s/he knows the trials and tribulations you are enduring, because s/he had to endure them too. however, s/he now has just as many, albeit different, trials and tribulations to endure, and part of the pain involved is having his/her staff complain bitterly behind his/her back about how out of touch s/he is and how bad a job s/he is doing.

trust me, s/he has superiors breathing down his/her neck and making life miserable, too. there are many nights when s/he goes home and says to no one in particular, "why the heck did i want to take this job? it sucks." s/he did it because s/he thought s/he could do a good job and make things better. it was good deal harder than s/he thought. just like...you.

and of course if s/he has never been a floor nurse, the above does not apply. i too believe in management by example, and it's hard to model good floor if you've never been part of one. and yet people keep taking those jobs. is this the triumph of insanity over experience?

::flash!!!:: is this why people don't want to advance their educations, so they won't have to be managers and take all the foofoo that they know managers get---because they dish it out? or: is this another parallel of students who plan to work a floor for a year, at most two, and then go into mgmt or np? is ignorance truly bliss? discuss.

Julie19, CNA · Mar 17, 2012

I work in assisted living and when we are short staffed, my DON and Admin. will work the floor. They're both LPN's and they're actually really good at working the floor. I always appreciate when they pick up some of the CNA's weight.

I totally agree that he should work on the floor for a while. He may not have a medical background but it also sounds like he actually cares about the pt's by setting up that program. Some Admin's could care less.

mazy · Mar 17, 2012

Nursing is a highly respected profession. Business Administration is a highly respected profession. I think it makes people look very unprofessional when they make statements like "I've thought about getting my MBA. I could develop reports and nifty graphs filled with data that supports how nursing staff is doing it wrong." Its like someone saying, "Oh, I should've been a nurse, so I could read magazines and gossip at the nurse's station." These are obviously very wrong, false, and ridiculous statements. There are good administrators and bad ones, just as there is good/bad nurses. The well-managed and successful facilities are ones that implement teamwork, staff input, and an overall good management. The animosity between the nursing staff and administration is not resolving anything.

I'm pretty sure that was a joke.

Nascar nurse, ASN, RN · Mar 17, 2012

I am a nurse manager and I frequently work with patients, I am not afraid to do anything that is required on the floor to help staff and no job is beneath me.
However I am very busy with my own work too. I have so many objectives to meet, so many state requirements that I never finish.
A large part of my role is HR staff continuously come to me to complain about their co-workers and to throw their co-workers under the bus.
There isn't one member of staff who is not willing to 'dish the dirt' on their colleagues, and as a manager It takes hours of my time to work through these personal problems and try to bring peace to my staff.
Also I have many staff members who do not follow policy and procedures which can get us into deep trouble with the state. I have to work constantly to bring compliance to P & P. If you knew how many times a day I see staff not following P&P it would shock you.
Lastly but not least patients and relatives spend hours complaining about staff, either in person or calling me on the phone. They have to be reassured and pacified.
After all without patient satisfaction we would have no job.
There was a study which found you can please 9/10 customers, but upset 1 they will tell 10 people minimum about the poor care they recieved
I wonder if any non managers can actually understand how much work is involved with managing staff, budgeting or balancing the budget. If a manager does not manage the budget effectively that could cause somebody to lose their job, somewhere within your corporation.

Beautiful...

The aides complain that they work harder than the nurses - only because they have never had a nurses responsibility. The nurses think they work harder than the management because they have never had the managements responsibility...and on & on.

wooh, BSN, RN · Mar 17, 2012

on the other hand, an mba program prepares individuals with the knowledge and skills to comprehend the theories and practices of management,decision making, problem-solving, and managing strategically in any business.

ironically, those are all the things considered to be "fluff" and a waste of time in bsn programs. :)

wooh, BSN, RN · Mar 17, 2012

How could you run a restaurant if you had never worked in one before? Eating there doesn't count.

Tabatha Takes Over. She finds the biggest problems are the bosses that have never done what their employees are doing. Wonder what would happen if Tabatha took over a hospital for a week? :)

MomRN0913 · Mar 18, 2012

Always an intersting topic, and always one that will be debated.

I do believe a nurse manager should have been a staff nurse at one point, Yes.

When it comes to people complaining about nurse manager not working the floor as nurse managers, it kind of tics me off. I've been a staff nurse and a nurse manager, albeit a short stint as nurse manager.

Nurse manager and staff nurse are 2 different positions for a reason. Nurse manager comes with it's own unique set of responsibilties, and major, major stresses. like the one poster said, dealing with the upper management, state regs, accredidation regs, short staffing, staff conflicts, patient conflicts, worse of all doctor conflicts, compliace, education, QI and PI, budgeting and not to mention when you leave work you don't leave work, if you worked where I did I was getting calls 24/7 from staff nurses complaining about staffing, no-shows, upper management calling.....

Needless to say I hated it. I had no time to take patients at all in my 10 hour days. I didn't get a chance. I had my own set of responsibilites. There were no staff nurses trying to help out with mine when the census was low.....

That being said, i was hands on, helped out when I could, put out ALL the fires (and there are many in a for-profit place).

The money waS not worth it. I made significantly more than I did as a staff nurse, but if you went hourly, I made less.

I am going back to being a staff nurse. Quality of life is paramount for me. I give much credit to nurse managers. Sure,t here are not so good ones out there, like there are in every profession, but the good ones I have much respect for. And being good doesn't cessecarily mean taking patients on the floor.

RNsupermom99 · Mar 18, 2012

The last time my DON worked on the floor was years ago back when she was in school. I think she only got the job because of her MBA.

beckster_01, BSN, RN · Mar 18, 2012

Tabatha Takes Over. She finds the biggest problems are the bosses that have never done what their employees are doing. Wonder what would happen if Tabatha took over a hospital for a week? :)

Now THAT I would watch.

One reason I love my management system. We have 3-4 nurse leaders who help the manager with quality/infection control, education, scheduling, vacation, etc. The manager works mostly with the budget, and whatever else managers do. :rolleyes: The nurse leaders/manager will fill in when we are short, take charge, transport patients, etc. when necessary. If we are well staffed, they are in the office doing their job. There is ALWAYS a resource for me when I need it (on the day shift). It works extremely well. I don't know where this model comes from, but my hospital is the only one in the area that uses it and I honestly think it should be more widespread.