Help with Proposal

P_RN, ADN, RN · Jun 27, 2001

Twelves are easier to schedule. You only have 14 shifts a week to cover instead of 21.

You get more time off, but if you are like me you are more tired!

We did 12s for the past 10 years or so.

First week: off Sun | work MT |off WTh| work F Sa Sun

2nd week: work S | off MT |work WTh| off F Sa Sun

That's 36 hours one week, 48 the next. We got overtime for over 40 hrs a week. I guess that wouldn't matter in the army would it?

It was less gasoline for the car, fewer uniforms to wash and less lunch money to be spent.

We had basically a day shift and a night shift. Once or twice a month we had to cover nights but not often at all.

Good luck campaigning if this is what you need.

P

denicke · Jun 27, 2001

I'm not sure what the "rules" are for the military governing OT. If you can work straight 12's, then work 3, off 2, work 2, off 3 is a good way to go. The 3 on are your weekend to work-3 off is your weekend off. If built in OT is an issue, how about a combination of 2 8's and 2 12's (40 hr/wk)? This still gives you 3 days off/week. We work a 3 day weekend and get a 3 day weekend off which works pretty well.

trish sadler · Jun 27, 2001

I am currently an busy ER nurse working 12 hour shifts. It is great to only work 36 hours a week, but can be very tiring. We work every third weekend and every third holiday. It is easy to schedule people 7AM-7PM and 7PM-7AM. We put people into blocks of four and those people work together, for example you know who you will work with and the schedule was put together to benefit weak and strong staff. Also we are on mandatory overtime so we are scheduled an extra 8 hour shift every two weeks this brings us to 40/week and any hours over 36 per week we get time and 1/2 any hours over 80 per two weeks we get doubletime. It pays good but Uncle Sam always has his hand out too. Good Luck, some days about 5PM my legs want to quit and my mind just is'nt as sharp, but it is great to have a couple extra days off.

MILRN · Jun 27, 2001

with the military staff we can be worked as many hours as required to fill in any staffing problems:mad:

but usually no more than 12 hours in a given day, 60-70 hour weeks are not uncomming during peak times, then you have to add in all that fun military training and PT that we do.

psnurse · Jun 28, 2001

When talking to administrators, it has to be about the money.

With the military I am not sure how much that is an issue, but I will try. I have presented this argument once myself in the past and was successful. I will try to adapt it to what I assume your needs might be.

This will rotate around the decreased use of civilian staff, because I don't know of anyone being laid off from the army.

12 hour shifts will mean that fewer civilian employees are required to cover needs. Fewer civilian employees will result in decreased cost of benefits, decreased paid time off, and decreased salary expense.

So now you figure out how many employees would be required. How many would be cut. Then you add up the savings in salary cost, paid time off cost, benefit cost.

Subtract from the current total for your savings and present your idea. You may not be the most popular person in the world for a while. But you might get what you want. For us it simply resulted in decreased use of per diem staff, no one that was full time was cut, but the savings was 1.5M per year. So they went for it.

Sound like what you are looking for?

NurseStudentFall01 · Jun 28, 2001

I see you're in Georgia. Would you happen to be at Ft. Benning?