Entitled Generation

[javajaydon]

I am a DON in along-term care facility, and I am having a difficult time finding both nurses and CNA's who are willing to work the evening night shift/weekends/holidays etc. The new graduates who apply all want a day job with no weekends or holidays. They think that I am crazy to expect them to work these other shifts. I had one girl even ask the day nurse--(who had worked 10 years on nights, and 6 years on the evening shift before finally getting the day position) why she thought she should have the day job, and not her. She had just passed her boards. When I started in nursing 20+ years ago, it was known that we would be working the night shift, weekends, and holidays, etc. It seems that this is the general rule for the younger generation now entering the health care field, or am I the only one who is experiencing this?

[anotherneonurse]

It may have something to do with the area of nursing you're working in more than the generation per say. For a new nurse, if you want something popular like L&D or NICU you are aware you have to take whatever you can get and just be happy to find anyone that will hire you at all. So to get people to work in less desirable areas like geriatrics and telemetry people think, there must be an incentive. Sometimes these areas pay more but the big pull is scheduling. To get anybody, experienced or not, to work undesirable shifts in an undesirable area of nursing you have to pay out the nose. If you can't do that, you have to offer something nice. Light assignments, few weekends or holidays, great support and work environment, just anything to make people want to work there because most new grads aren't thinking, gee I really want to work with old folks in diapers.