It's a med-surg unit, I've been there 2.5 years and so far had been doing OK, until yesterday. The performance evaluation said based on my score, I'm a mediocre nurse.
My record there is decent, with high marks for safety, and I had gotten lots of patient satisfaction awards (little certificates they hand out) and I've never been in serious disciplinary trouble. The worst I ever got was a verbal warning and customer service (this is the lowest level of "punishment") and I also got a warning about not attending enough staff meetings. I did take care of the staff meetings problem, because I got a new note that said I improved regarding staff attendance.
PPs have provided excellent advice but I wanted to offer some illuminating information based on my awareness of what is happening in many health care organizations.
If performance evaluations are directly tied to salary increases, many organizations are requiring managers to 'manage the curve'. In other words, they are told that no more than X% of their staff can be rated at the highest level ... OR .... told that they have to sort everyone into certain categories based upon some external metric so that resulting pay increases will be within budgeted levels. The Jack Welch (former CEO of GE) philosophy (claims that organizations should actively try to weed out the 'bottom 25%' of workers each year) is sometimes used as an excuse .. as part of some sort of "excellence" movement. I call Humbug.
Strange but true. Ah - the wonderland that is management.
HouTX, this happened where I work. A unit of top performers all became average (a.k.a mediocre) when they revamped ratings. People in trouble know before their eval and have been counseled. No one gets a perfect rating. The rest of us fall somewhere in the middle and the 'pot of money' they have for any raises gets figured by a secret formula no one understands.
Specializes in Medical-Surgical, Telemetry/ICU Stepdown.
I think I'm out of that company/unit. Sent 1 application, get one interview, sent 4 more last nite. Whatever reputation you have, that's what you have, and I'm not spending the next 10 years hoping to improve it, if I can start somewhere with a clean slate, all sins forgiven, but valuable lessons learned and applied to the new setting. There are thousands of jobs out there, I had an interview as soon as I applied at the first company I picked.
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enuf_already
789 Posts
HouTX, this happened where I work. A unit of top performers all became average (a.k.a mediocre) when they revamped ratings. People in trouble know before their eval and have been counseled. No one gets a perfect rating. The rest of us fall somewhere in the middle and the 'pot of money' they have for any raises gets figured by a secret formula no one understands.