Is your facility warning staff for overtime, for missing lunch breaks or other?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  1. Is your facility warning staff for overtime, for missing lunch breaks or other reason

    • 749
      Yes
    • 226
      No

975 members have participated

I've been hearing of nurses getting counseled or warnings about overtime, for missing lunch breaks, late admissions, and misc other reasons... and/or hospitals requiring you to clock out on time, then you have to submit your overtime separately with documentation why you had to have overtime.

Is your facility warning staff for overtime, for missing lunch breaks or other reasons?

We'd love to hear your experiences and feedback!

Please feel free to share your experience regarding and answering the poll questions.

Specializes in NICU.

Yup. We even have to fill out the justification for overtime sheets when the nursing supervisor calls us at home, on our day off, to ask us to come in because the floor is short. :rolleyes:

The other day the NM got an overtime slip for EVERY nurse on the floor (28-ish) because one of his stupid staff meetings went until 0745, meaning that not a single noc nurse got out the door until at least 0800.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

What is so wrong about this is that IF staffing were adequate nurses would not be doing so much overtime. That is why I am always ragging on LTC, the GREED of the owners causes us to try to do the job that two nurses used to do years ago. The audacity to actually discipline for trying to do your job properly. THAT is one of the many reasons LTC needs STRONG union presence ,no wimpy ineffectual union will do, we have had that in the past. This situation is only getting worse, but I wonder how much worse CAN it get?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Vent, subacute , ltc, insurance , wound,.

Your situation sounds like many other nursing homes, do 1 or 2 things either buddy up with another nurse ( a friend) that can help you with some of your extra work on the floor, or leave. It is not the only place to work

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Vent, subacute , ltc, insurance , wound,.
:uhoh3:
Your situation sounds like many other nursing homes, do 1 or 2 things either buddy up with another nurse ( a friend) that can help you with some of your extra work on the floor, or leave. It is not the only place to work
Up Vote Up Vote ×
In our unit it's common for breaks to be short, interrupted, or missed altogether. The only ones who get paid for missed breaks are the code team... two RNs and an RT. The rest of us may end up missing our breaks because of a code, but that doesn't count. We also put in a lot of extra time at the end of the shift because our reports are given face-to-face at the bedside on patients with multi-system problems, each of which must be given due attention. Although we usually have only one patient, when the oncoming nurse arrives at the bedside at 7:05 and report takes 20 or more minutes to complete to hospital standards, no accommodation is made for the fact that the clock stops at 7:15. When you have two patients, and are giving report to two different nurses, it could be 7:45 by the time you're done. And that doesn't even consider the late/early admission, the critically unstable patient who needs two nurses for a period of time and there's no extra staff coming on, the change-of-shift code (and they happen often enough!)... and on and on. When you fill out an OT slip, it might be weeks before it comes back to you "not approved" with a note attached... you didn't tell the manager/charge nurse in advance that you weren't going to get your break/your patient was going to destabilize/your relief was going to be late/you had two hours of charting from an event in the last hours of the shift... whatever. We are continually getting emails from management reminding us that breaks have to be completed by a defined time and that we're responsible for making sure we get them when we're supposed to. Nothing is ever said to the ones who are habitually late going for or coming back from theirs which makes me late for mine, or the fact that we can't be compelled to take our breaks in the first or last hours of the shift. I often find myself sitting in the break room when the next shift starts rolling in because it was the only way I was going to get a break at all. Makes me so mad!

Until recently OT was such a bad word that we'd work dangerously short for days at a time. Then the professional responsibiblity complaints started piling up and now we have approval to call in OT to fill the gaps to staff us to 16 nurses per shift. If we can get people to come in... That kind of OT is different.

Do you think that maybe you should take all those OT slips and emails

to the Labor Board. I bet you'd get paid all that back pay PDQ.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
The nurses are supposed to fill out a "time adjustment" sheet to explain why break wasn't taken if they want paid that thirty minutes.

The problem is that if you write 3 or more of the time adjustment sheets in a three-month period, you receive a write-up. Three write-ups and you are out the door. (The last DON/DNS claimed each of the time adjustment sheets costs 35$ to process).

So the nurse just don't fill out the time adjustment sheets. Effectively saving all kinds of $$ for the company Of course, we never hear about not filling out the time adjustment sheets. And as long as OT is somewhat under contril, the administration remains quiet.

The whole situation sounds illegal.

It fries my egg to think of all the money they save off of the nurses with their devilish ways! :angryfire

It quite possibly could be illegal; but as long as employees continue to work for free without complaint, they will continue to get away with it.
Up Vote Up Vote ×

Emmanuel Goldstein:

Believe you me!! I have been complaining about it for a while now, but the other nurses basically just accept the situation.

I have yelled, been nice, tried cajoling, and everything else. But the other nurses simply accept the situation.

What really gets me torqued is when we are in the break-room, some nurses just gripe up storm about staffing issues, the time adjustment sheets, and other perpetually on-going (is that redundant?) issues.

But when the DON or ED come in the break room or if we are in a nurses meeting, the other nurses act as if everything is peachy keen, hunky dory, not a care in the world and all is great. Won't say a thing.

GIVE ME FREAKING BREAK!

I am looking for a new job and plan to be gone by the end of January.

If they want to be used like this, that is their perogative. I refuse to be abused any further.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Nursing is a 24 hr a day job so the employers should know that we have interuptions in our shift to prevent us from completing our task . If you are to take a break take it we are paying for it anyway.Prolong your life stay stree free.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Medical-Oncology.

On my floor, the last few months have seen a policy adopted where we need to clock our no later than 5 minutes after the scheduled end of our shift (7:30 am). If we clock out later than 7:35, we need to document the reason for our late clock-out in our time card edit book and the charge nurse from that shift needs to sign off on our excuse. If not, both the staff nurse and the charge are subject to counseling.

Further, we just received an e-mail that we need to take our lunch break. The e-mail talks about using our resources and asking for help (like we don't do that already??). We have also been told that if we are behind, do our nursing tasks & patient care and pass of "low priority" tasks like paperwork and PIV rotations or dressing changes to the day shift.

These policies have led to increased animosity between the day & night shift as well as an increase in paperwork delays and tardy completion of PIV rotations & dressing changes.

I know the policy is designed to decrease overtime payouts & lower costs while increasing staff efficiency, but it's not working well right now.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in CNA, Surgical, Pediatrics, SDS, ER.

We cannot clock in early, it has to be at least 3min till the start of your shift. If you punch in earlier they will change it on your time card. I have come in on the weekends, 11a-11p, and when I get their the waiting room is full. I'm sorry but I'm not going to make my co-workers or my patients wait. I have to watch my check closely to make sure that they are not taking those extra few minutes away from me. They also do not like us to punch out "no lunch." Again if it's busy I'm not going to make my coworkers suffer so I can get some food. I'll grab some finger food and it's off to the races again.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

We have the 6 mn rule, before and after. There are few times when I punch in earlier than that but I already know that they wouldn't pay for the extra minutes but I'd rather clock in and have that done that stand around and wait until it's exactly time.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

The unit I work in has a time log that you put overtime, missed lunches, charge hours, etc. It is expected that you complete your work on time, and anything in the book has to be initialed by management to be approved. If we do have overtime, it is supposed to be "clearly obvious" why we had to stay over (late admission, crititcal pt.). A few nurses I know regularly don't take lunch and stay over to chart or whatever. Management hasn't said anything yet, but I think it's coming.

We can punch in 12 min prior to our shift, but we don't get paid for it. And if we punch out late and do not document in the log, we don't get paid. However, if you punch out even 10 sec. early, you get docked!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment