Lazy Supervisor

[bennysblonde]

I have a very lazy nursing supervisor. Several times it has put a patient in danger. I have brought it up to the DON twice with no success. What is my next step?

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

What an awful situation for you. I'm sorry that you have to cope with this.

It's going to be her word against yours. You need facts. Although all of us understand what you mean, it may not be clear to others. You will need very clear evidence of infractions (date, time, details) such as:

* violation of standards of care, policies & procedures

* disrespect for staff, patients or families

* disregard for professional conduct standards

Since you have not gotten anywhere with your chain of command, you may need to file a grievance with your Human Resources department. Make an appointment with the employee relations rep or whoever is assigned to this function.

In the meantime, be the model employee. Do NOT badmouth this supervisor publicly. it's best not to confide peers & co-workers because they may take advantage of the situation & you could be branded as 'disgruntled' before you can whistle dixie.

[mcknis]

Go back to your DON with actual facts, not just complaints. Not to sound cruel, but in order to make something happen, written info must be presented. Just like what is taught...if it is not documented, it never happened. Have you written her up? That also must be done, especially if lives have been placed at risk! Good luck.

[Indy, LPN, LVN]

Is the supervisor the person you turn in your incident reports to? If not, get one, copy it a bunch, put those on your clipboard. If you page for the supervisor to do something that only that person can do, and it's not done in a timely manner, write it up. Turn them in.

Well, and this is all good advice but your mileage may vary. Since I lack any idea of what you mean by "lazy," I don't know if I would follow my own advice. We have a supervisor who does take her time to do things. We bug her, sometimes I call her on it and plain out chew her one. I haven't written her up because the stuff gets done and she doesn't mind my attitude too much. Basically I've decided that I can live with her being a little lazy as long as people aren't put in danger.

So really, without specifics as to what's going on, and I know we aren't entitled to the whole story, I dunno if the board can be much help.