Doing away with 12 hour shifts?

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I have been working in this same facility for years and just recently they decided to "Do away with the 12 hour shifts" and change everybody over to 8 hours. They said it's just not cost effective, yet they can't get anybody to work the 2-10 shift already. ( The facility is split on 8/12 shifts.) I think it is so wrong that they want to change everybodies lives like that. I work 3 days a week and with kids and babysitting, it just works and now they want to screw it up. So now the facility is in an uproar and I'm searching for another job. I love my work but I love my kids more and taking away 12 hour shifts means I will get bumped back to 2nd shift and I can't do that to my kids again. Has anybody else had this happen to them?

Specializes in Med-Surg, Wound Care.
Interesting thread. I stopped hospital nursing when the facilties in my area all went TO 12 hour shifts. I only had 8 in me. Working full time, I just couldn't recover enough in the down time to take on 12 more. I get why people like them...I'm just owning that I couldn't do it.

It may be relevant that at a huge national nursing convention I went to in November, the issue of older nurses and shift hours came up. The keynote speaker mentioned that a majority of older nurses surveyed said that they would stay but 12 hour shifts were driving them out of hands on care. As soon as she said it, a massive, spontaneous applause occurred. And this is the type of crowd that never makes a noise. The event turned into a brainstorming session on what will keep nurses. They overwhelming priority issue was creating 4 and 8 hour shifts that people could handle.

Who knows? Maybe this is being promoted as a staffing solution. I offer my sympathies to the OP...it really is awful to have your life turned upside down by work hour changes.

I'm one of those "older nurses"...and there is no way I would or could do a 12 hour shift. This old body just doesn't have it in me anymore!

As we see the nursing population aging, I can see where the 12's are going to be a problem. I worked perdiem, since that was the only place to be assured an 8 hour shift. I'm out of bedside nursing now, but if I ever had to go back, 12's would be out of the question..and I don't think that I'm alone.

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From an admin perspective 12's are inefficient. It takes 4.67 nurses to cover 12 hours shifts for a week vs. 4.2 nurses for 8 hour shifts. Plus they get 4 extra hours of work out of the nurse working 40 hours vs. 36 and paying the same benefit costs.

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Specializes in L & D; Postpartum.

When 8's were the norm, all of sudden, some had a great idea: let's make it 12's. Us "old broads" and I would include any males in that phrase honorarily, were thrown for a loop. Now that 12's are the "norm" those who entered the profession in the meantime think it's the cat's meow.

Luckily, where I work, we have 8's and 12's. Covering the 12's is far harder than the 8's. And if a 12 hour person needs/wants a day off, they have a bear trying to get another 12 to cover them, and the 8's are just saying no way, jose. Plus, our 12 hour nurses rarely get out before they've been there 14 hours; hmmm, now factor in commute time, they've got 9 hours at best for the rest of their day, including sleep time. Just tell me when they have time for family, never mind proper rest.

As someone else stated, I work per diem, and if I were not able to do that, I'd have to find something else to do, because working myself to death under the guise of patient care continuity just isn't happening.

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I agree with mifligirl, I work a 16 and 2-8 hour shifts, that was the only way i was able to handle my floor. All the nurses on my floor stated they couldn't handle even 4 days with 8 hours to work.

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Huge mistake in my opinion. Not only are 12s more convenient for many people, it also hugely allows for continuity of care in a way that 8 hour shifts just aren't able to.

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As a new grad I want 12 hour shifts. My dream job is 65 miles away. With 8's it would end up being prohibitively expensive from a time commitment to commute that many days per week.

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Specializes in L & D; Postpartum.
As a new grad I want 12 hour shifts. My dream job is 65 miles away. With 8's it would end up being prohibitively expensive from a time commitment to commute that many days per week.

So what will your total time to and from work be, including shower, dressing? Or are you planning to stay close to your hospital on your days to work. I would think your sleep time between shifts at this "dream job" would be no more than 4-6 hours.

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Specializes in Government.

Hey, new grad: I don't think you'll have ANY trouble finding 12 hour shifts. I just called 5 hospitals in my 2 neighboring cities and that's about all they offer.

For the most part, it's the 8 hour shift people who have been out of luck in recent years. In my region, if you love 8 hour shifts, you pretty much have nursing homes and VA hospitals and that's it.

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Specializes in ER, Infusion therapy, Oncology.

In our area 8 hour shifts are few and far between. I changed specialties because I could no longer do the 12 hour shifts in the ER. I now do IV therapy and work M-F, 8 hour shifts, and I love it. If you have to work every other weekend and work 5 days a week your time off is very limited. I would not do it if I had to work weekends.

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Specializes in critical care.

I am a 12 hour shift person, but I can see where 12's can be difficult for those that are older. My mom still works ER/ICU/Tele for an agency and she is going on 58, I know she is wiped out after work compared to 20 years ago. Jeez, after 11 years of this I certainly do not bounce back like a used to.

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funny it has been my experience that the older nurse prefered the idea of getting hours in and being off for a mini vacation

the young mothers were having problems with finding child care that would have accomadate their hours, this is a problem that hospitals and other facilities should address by providing on-site child care but that is for another thread

i worked w/e option for years and loved it but at one place they considered w/e people as a call-in pool and they wouldln't pay overtime if you came in because you had 'only' worked 32 hours so you would have to work 40 bvefore you paid ot

my dtr wks 12 hours shifts when her children were younger, she would work nights and her husband worked days, sometimes they gave report to each other. they had a retired neighbor helped in the short time that they were both gone

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Our facility had some 12 hour shifts, but they were more the job share type. The day 12 hr shift has a counterpart at night. From what I understand they had issues when one of the job shares called in sick or wanted to take vacation, so they did away with those shifts.

Now the day shift is either on a day/eve or day/night rotation. You usually have 2-3 shifts per schedule on your "off" shift. This helps cover vacations, etc. We then have straight eves and straight nights. These shifts are filled with die hard people that love those shifts and would never want to work days.

Personally I do wish they had the 12 hour option. Just like not every person is a day person, not every person is a 8 hour person. You would think they would do what they could to make nurses happy. Go figure.

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