Looking for RN's who have experienced a downsizing or a reorganization

[* Nurse Jenni *]

i am a nurse completing a master's degree in organizational communication through the university of wisconsin- stevens point. for my thesis work i am using a constructivist approach to understand nurses' experiences during organizational downsizing and/or reorganization. by exploring a new dimension of organizational work life this study hopes to add to extant knowledge on how organizational stressors affect nurse-nurse relationships . to reach the core understanding of what it is like to be a rn during a downsizing or reorganization, i am looking for rn's, of all experience levels and specialties, who are willing to be interviewed. interviews will take 30-45 minutes and will be done via webex phone conferencing. approval for this study was granted by the university of wisconsin- stevens point irb. if interested, you may reply to this posting or contact me by email ([email protected]).:)

[Asystole RN]

My facility just downsized and reorganized the entire building and staffing structure last month.

[FLoat RN]

What exactly do mean by downsizing and restructuring the staffing? I feel like my hospital is downsizing unintentionally. We have over 900 beds and our census has been in the range of 400 to 500 patients. I reside in the state of Florida. We rely heavily on seasonal tourism as the life source of our economy. The unemployment rate in the city I live in is about 13%. That's much higher than the national average. The busy season for the hospital was supposed to start about a month ago. We are still just as slow as we have been during our slowest season. The only thing I see the hospital doing is eliminating positions for cnas, transporters, and secretaries.

[* Nurse Jenni *]

Asystole RN, would you be interested in doing an interview?

[* Nurse Jenni *]

Float RN, we are experiencing a similar phenomenon up in Minnesota. Though our unemployment rate isn't as high, many organizations are not hiring due to dropping censuses. I am looking at the experiences of registered nurses who work/have worked in organizations that have reduced nursing staff or who have restructured nursing staff due to merging units, or due to the need to fill holes caused by not hiring into open positions or reducing full-time positions to part-time positions. For example, the last organization I worked for threatened job cuts but then opted to cut most full time positions. Since the hospital was union, changing positions meant everyone had to rebid for a spot and as a result many nurses ended up having to transfer to new units.

[FLoat RN]

In the state of Florida we do not have nurses unions; which I believe is our saving grace. The organization I work for is a not for profit hospital system. A lot of the nurses I know have part time jobs at other hospitals to make up for the fact that we no longer have any overtime available. I've always been under the impression that nursing has it's peaks and valley's just like other professions. I predict that as jobs become unavailable for gradate nurses nursing schools will go at off business. Then in ten years or so there will be a huge demand yet not enough new nurses to supply that demand. Then we'll see those huge sign on bonuses and overtime available.