Communication process at your work?

[Emergent, RN]

How does your manager communicate new policies, open shifts, problems Etc?

I have two jobs and at my main job, where I'm going back full time shortly, we get all important memos via personal email. They have a company email but most people there don't use it unless they are in management. It was hard to get on it from home, I remember when they first issued them out, so I don't bother with that anymore because I get it all to my phone and can check it on my days off if I see fit. We have a shiftplanning type program where we can check for open shifts, sometimes they'll send out a general email if someone wants something covered, or the manager or other staff will text us if there is a more urgent need.

At my other job I consider that communication is inadequate. They have a company email that you can only check from work. I've asked to receive important updates and information via my personal email, which would be easy to add on to a group list. I don't work there weekly and so get out of touch with what's going on. I'll go back to work and there will be 50 emails, many of them irrelevant such as the cafeteria menu or why the flag is half staff. They got a staffing program that in some ways is nice, but it sends out a lot of unnecessary emails. The thing I really like about that staffing program is that I can check to see who I would be working with when I sign up for shifts. That way I can work with the people I love working with. I never get personal texts about open shifts, which is my favorite way of getting information. Most people nowadays carry a phone with them, it makes it easy to check emails and texts. Sometimes I will get phone calls, and they don't coordinate it there so I might get multiple calls from different people about an upcoming openshift.

Communication is so easy at my main job, which is why I decided to just go back there full time and only work the second job occasionally. I've given feedback and nothing has happened. They state that the reason we can't have access to the company email from home is that we are not salaried employees and they would have to pay us. I told them that I feel very disengaged, as a per diem employee, by not being kept up to date, sometimes to the point where I go to work and read an email from 3 weeks ago that I was supposed to get up-to-date on some education, and then I read a subsequent one telling me that I am out of compliance with the previous email, which is rather annoying.

So how are things done where you work? Are you happy with how things are done?

[Everline]

Our manager communicates through our work email, which we are supposed to be checking hourly while at work. I have no access to my work e-mail outside of work, though I've heard some people have figured out how to get it at home. But from how I see it, I have no need to check my email at home because I work full time, 5 days a week. There is nothing that can't wait until I get into work in the morning or until Monday after the weekend. In the event of an emergency, they call or text.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

You check your email hourly at work? Jeepers.

[NuGuyNurse2b]

We communicate through tried and true print outs. If something needs to be communicated, it's printed and posted on a physical board. If there was an email sent out, the email gets printed out and taped to the board. The nursing field is probably one of the most technophobic industries out there when it comes to the end users. My manager emails the team by typing out each individual email every single time. It's obvious she's never heard of creating a mailing list. You can tell because for the people who do check their emails, there are always a few people left off of important emails and wondering why they didn't receive the email. People have no idea how to search their archives for emails from days of yore, or they're honestly surprised when an email that they "saved" in their inbox goes missing because "retention policy" does not exist in their vocabulary.

[Davey Do]

Basically Emergent, communication at Wrongway Regional Medical Center is like this part of your post:

I consider that communication is inadequate. They have a company email that you can only check from work... I'll go back to work and there will be 50 emails, many of them irrelevant such as the cafeteria menu or why the flag is half staff.

I made a statement to the Director of the Psych Division and Head of HR last March when I was called on the carpet for failure to complete a superfluous form, "Communication at this facility is atrocious!"

Hearsay is an acceptable form of communication. For example, I have learned in shift report of staffing grid changes.

Policy and procedural changes happen at the drop of a hat and there's sometimes no documentation to back it up.

This is another example of the atrocious communication at Wrongway:

We have a Bubble-headed Bleached Blonde (BBB) House Supervisor who "forgets" to call Employees off when they've been put on low census. This has occurred twice recently that I'm aware of. The employees came into work, she informed them of their low census, they clocked back out, and received two hours pay.

Last week BBB House Sup sent an Employee to work on Gero Psych about the middle of the shift. I called her to find out what was the deal, as we were already adequately staffed. She had orchestrated a staffing change with informing only that one Employee.

This shift, the BBB House Sup told a Tech to tell the LPN working with me on Gero Psych that she needed to go to another unit. The LPN, who was in the process of passing meds, informed me of this staffing change. I instructed her to continue her duties, that the proper communication process needed to take place before any changes were made. The LPN was relieved to hear this and went on passing meds.

I never heard anything from BBB House Sup, but did hear through the grapevine that her staffing plan fell through due to something about an Employee being related to a Patient on the unit.

Yeah- communication at Wrongway, to put it politely, sucks.