how do you improve morale in a unit?

[jennifers]

I want to start off by saying i'm only a nursing assistant in the department. But in the last year I have noticed the morale in our unit get very low. I'm not sure what the reason is really. I love the unit and my job. It is mostly against other nurses and the manager. I think they all hate each other. I'm tired of the cattiness and nastiness. It has really started to effect me. I'm trying not to let it effect me but its starting too. Is it like this in most nursing departments? I'm currently in school for nursing.

I am trying to reply to their negative comments in a positive light. Sometimes I provide empathy but I think that just eggs them on. So i've started defending the party they are complaining about.

I've done light joking about non work related things to make them laugh and lighten the mood. Other than that i'm not sure what to do. I know its not my place to fix the unit problems but there has to be something i can do to improve the situation.

[Benemado]

This kind of environment is often a result of the frustration that the workesrs experience when they are overworked, overstretched, understaffed and underpaid. You also see it when a unit manager promotes a culture of blame, and encourages back-stabbing. It may be a hard system for you to penetrate if the management style of the unit is the basis for such unfriendly atmosphere. I would suggest addressing the issue with the unit manager in writing first, then in person if he or she wants to meet with you. In both the letter and the meeting you would politely suggest a change in style from a culture of blame, warlike environment, to a culture of "positive reinforcement", reward oriented environment. You would support your position by showing how patient care would be inhenced when the whole unite operates in harmony, as a team.

Good Luck!

[correctlywrong]

Management that isn't above taking an assignment when needed. Even occasionally, when not needed, to keep skills fresh and to find out first hand what the problems on the unit really are.

Nurses that aren't above team work, with each other and with other staff. Don't walk past the kitchen to ask an aide to go there and get your patient a pitcher of water. I don't care what they told you in school about how you need to learn to delegate. Part of learning to delegate is learning when to do it yourself, to demonstrate to your staff that you aren't asking them to do anything you aren't willing to do, too. (Note the repeating theme.) Aides should know that when an RN asks them to do something, it is because they need to have it done, now, and correctly. We have RNs who will go out of their way to find an aide to do something that they could have done more quickly on their own, because they think that getting their license means they don't have to do certain things anymore.

Aides that hustle rather than hide. If you spend more time to walk up and down the unit complaining about how many complete baths you have to give, rather than getting busy doing the work, you need a new job. If you have to be asked more than twice to do something for one of my patients, there is a problem, and it is that management doesn't work enough shifts to know who the troublemakers really are and to get rid of them. There are nurses and aides on the list and everyone but the manager knows who really works and who hides out and makes more work for others.