HElp peer evals due and my group sucks

Eirene, ASN, RN · May 14, 2008

If I'm understanding this post correctly; this was done in lab and not on the actual floor? I find it hard to believe that people would fail based on the sole opinion of one student and not faculty.

We had to do peer evaluations on the floors. One student was charge. I stuck to "Objective" evaluations and things to improve on (reassessment). Along with this, my peers evaluated my performance as a CN.

Never burn a bridge that you might have to cross again someday. I've learned that the hard way in my short 32 years of life.

misssarahRN · May 14, 2008

well our instructor said that charge nurse feed back was 80% of our grade. With two CN evals turned for each student. So individual input is worth 20% our grade and we need 85% to pass. The lab is now over and I am the last CN to turn in nurse evaluations.

pinkiepie_RN · May 14, 2008

I hate to say it but it almost sounds like you've got it in for these fellow students of yours. Is there more of a side to their situation? Were they just not taking the whole thing seriously? If they were walking all over you then I feel they probably deserve at least a good talking to but I agree with danibanani in that you shouldn't burn bridges unless you have to and stick to objective evaluations. What good will come of you "failing" them?

locolorenzo22, BSN, RN · May 14, 2008

even if you were to "fail" these nurses on your eval...your instructor should talk to the group as a whole to determine if you are being too harsh, or if they deserve what you are giving them. What exactly do you mean by dropped the ball? I would need more specfics before advising you, except to say....

One of our fellow NS played the role of manager during our 3rd semester...no feedback, no grades...just to be the charge. She DROVE EVERYONE CRAZY! She was asking everyone every 5 minutes if she needed to do something for them...literally. She would come up in the middle of us charting assessments, and ask if we were done charting yet...(ok, i'm in the middle here!) she would ask us about glucose checks...when we were almost off the floor for lunch, insulin had been given and everything had been charted.....

She got so bad that when someone was annoying you in clinicals....you did a "her name".

I tried to tactfully talk to her about the subject, but she thought it was good "assertive" management.

Just my .02....you don't want to be that person.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · May 14, 2008

being a manager is tough and that's why i don't like doing it. it's one of the loneliest and friendless jobs there is. it's hard to be fair when there are pre-existing emotional issues with the people you are managing. but you do have to be fair. if the "staff" dropped the ball, then they dropped the ball. the hard part is writing it objectively on the evaluation form. there is no way in the world i would let a poor performance slide on the fear of being excluded from future projects and communications or retribution.

if they don't like the evaluation they get, don't they have the option of challenging it? we do in the real world. in the real world we managers also give suggestions for improvement on the evaluations. just make sure that, like charting, you use very objective language and give examples of their performance behavior to support the decisions you make. try to put some positive feedback on the evaluation wherever you can. you might want to consult with one of the instructors as well to help you with this.

based on that statement you made (fear of being excluded from future projects and communications or retribution) you lose whether you give them passing marks or failing marks. give them the honest and fair marks they deserve because i'll tell you right now--if you don't, some manager (like me) in the future won't hesitate to call their shoddy work for what it is. they might be angry at me, but its misplaced anger. favorite expression you'll hear time and time again is we are all responsible for our own actions and we are all adults. it's not my job as a charge nurse to hold your hand and lead you through everything you're supposed to be doing--you're responsible for knowing what your job duties are. if you saw you were not getting your job completed on time you needed to communicate that to me in a timely manner so i could get you help. (i'm giving you some ammunition here to use on the evaluation.) you might want to look at delegation from the delegatees side to see exactly where they failed. don't worry about where you as the delegator may have failed--let them bring that up if they challenge the evaluation and the instructors want to entertain that. but, these other students may not be smart enough to figure that out.

as for excluding you, if it is stuff that affects your grades i'd be in the instructor's offices reporting them by name so fast and making no banes about telling them to their face that if they are doing it out of spite they better watch their backs because they picked the wrong person to mess with. you really should let the instructors know that they are bullying you.

naide88 · May 14, 2008

You need to be honest and fair. I think there might be a reason they are trying to blame you. If it is personal, that is completely irresponsible because I don't believe in nursing you can take anything personally. Maybe they are dissatisfied with your performance as Charge Nurse. I don't know, I don't think people purposely slack off so for that day there was probably disharmony and miscommunication in your group.

If they didn't do their roles, then yes you should mark them down for that but you need to be honest and fair about it. Don't give everyone zero's because the Care Plan was incomplete. Give them some credit for the work they did do.

llg, PhD, RN · May 14, 2008

I am a faculty member whose students are graded (in part) on written group projects and provide input to the grade similar to what you describe. Here is what I would recommend as an instructor:

Talk to your instructor privately. Tell her of your dilemma. Take some responsibility for the group's poor functioning and voluntarily suggest some ways you could have improved your performance as a leader. In the real world (and in school) leaders are held accountable for the performance of the group they are supposed to be leading. Leaders who simply blame their staff for everything make themselves look bad. Do yourself a favor by demonstrating to your instructor that you are learning something from this experience and will take away lessons from it that will improve your leadership performance in the future. Such an approach will probably influence your instructor to think positively of you and she will be more likely to evaluate you positively as a result.

But don't place all the blame on your shoulders. Be honest and fair about the poor performance of your classmates -- without being overly harsh. Again, frame your discussion in terms of "what can be learned from the experience" and "how we could work better as a team" in the future.

If your instructor is a reasonable person, she will help you sort it out and help you come to a resolution that is probably a compromise between the extreme positions of being too harsh and being to favorable in your evaluation of your colleagues. She may even help smooth over any hard feelings that exist.

When a similar incident happened in one of my groups in class last fall, I listened to all sides and came up with a compromise that everyone could live with. Give your instructor a chance to help you find a similar resolution to your particular situation.

misssarahRN · May 15, 2008

I just turned the evaluations in this afternoon and grading them wasn't as bad as I thought. Of the three members in the group, two actually completed all of their work on the care plan. The care plan was still incomplete but I gave the two contributers full points for two reasons:

*The sections they did consited of lab values, patho, meds and the SOAP note so I know my instructor wil have no problem ripping their work apart.

*The other is reason is because they really needed the points. They still only got 38/100 possible.

Last week, Tuesday and Thursday, the remaining member agreed to email me the completed care plan in its entirety by 10am yesterday. She emails me at 11AM yesterday asking for an extenision(after one member already turned in their part because they didn't know what the others were doing). I give her until 3pm. Around 4:30 I get am email asking me if she can drop it off at my house, because it is hand written and she didn't have time to type in the template. I call her and tell her she can drop it off as long as it is before 8pm. She doesn't call and doesn't show nor does she come to class today. I had to put off the evaluations until this morning before class, so it was ready to turn in. I got her section from one of the other group members after I turned in the assignment, so they couldn't bully me into being dishonest on the evaluations. I'm sure they'll find another way to be unpleasant, but my conscience is clear.

I absolutely took responsibilty for not laying out clearer expectations and all around bad communication. In fact I openly apologized for not doing so last week. The response I got was the equivilent of, "you're not the boss of us! We have priorities other than this project and we'll get it done when it's done."

Daytonite, BSN, RN · May 15, 2008

the response i got was the equivilent of, "you're not the boss of us! we have priorities other than this project and we'll get it done when it's done."

welcome to the wonderful world of management! i never in a million years would talk to a boss like this and was flabbergasted when there were a couple of people that treated me, their new manager, like this. it finally dawned on me that this is why these people will never be in leadership positions--they can't follow or respect the rules themselves. look for these same people to cut corners and bend the rules with nursing care too.

anne_in_maryland · May 15, 2008

It's a small world. You have to be willing to accept that they may find out by process of elimination that you gave them a bad review and you may end up working with them some time in the future.

We just did a project and one member of our group was not pulling their weight. I didn't say anything because:

A) How is it going to benefit me. The project was still great and I'm sure we will get a good grade on it. It does me absolutely no good to give her a bad peer review.

B) It will cause drama. I don't need drama.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · May 18, 2008

it's a small world. you have to be willing to accept that they may find out by process of elimination that you gave them a bad review and you may end up working with them some time in the future.

but when one is a manager who lets things slide this is how the animals end up running the zoo. new employees that come on board end up getting picked on and end up leaving never having a chance to fit in. this cycle gets vicious and pretty soon out of control so that no one wants to work with these people. meanwhile the manager is like a ostrich with her head buried in the sand not wanting to see or deal with the problems and hoping the problems will take care of themselves. the sad situation is that she let it happen. it's no different than allowing children to go undisciplined. being a leader is sometimes not pleasant, but lines must be drawn and actions accounted for. one of the things nursing school teaches rn students over the two or three years of actual nursing classes is problem solving aka (also known as) the nursing process. an rn's value to an employer is their skill as a problem solver, not as a pill passer, dressing changer and pillow fluffer. smart managers look for and hire rns who are proficient problem solvers, thinkers and "can do'' people, not prima donnas that are going to be too concerned with how they appear to the clique they belong to. clique membership is childish and immature and has no room in the busy world of the professional working rn.