low medium and high performers

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Ok I am just curious what you guys know about what is classified by your hospital as high medium and low performers? My hospital is involved in the press ganey stuff and part of the transition is classifying your current employees. How to move lows to mediums or get them out and mediums to highs and retaining the highs......What is expected for someone to be a high. I myself was classified as a medium and I really have issues with that. I charge most of the time a 28 bed med surg unit. I have taken pts and charged when there was not a replacement so my nurses wouldn't have to take up the slack. I work extra when I am needed. I am always out on the floor helping and answering call lites. Here recently I got a final warning for someone using my password to access a deceased employees records. I know the password thing is serious but look at the situation.....We get 7-8 admits from 3-7 pm and usually do not have a unit rep. So in addition to being responsible for getting stuff done and being expected to do everything when none of the other staff have access to the computers or have failed to learn how to do it. I did give my access to assist with the work. I cannot do everything. ok so I learned my lesson and it won't happen again. I came very very close to losing my job and have been there for 10 years. The teamwork on my block sucks. THe lvns are task oriented, and pretty much keep themselves busy with busy work and the higher ups are tired of it. It is affecting me now as some of the new nurses are missing orders and I have even missed hanging some blood (the pt was not critical and the order said one unit today and tomorrow and the tomorrow dose got missed. apparently plasma got missed also) I am on a final warning so my job is pretty much in jeapordy if i mess up again. How do I encourage the staff to help out and move from lows to mediums or even highs on my block. Should I start looking for something else as I can't transfer because of the warning....This is my career I am talking about...thanks.

Specializes in Corrections, Cardiac, Hospice.

I have gotten to the point where I think my job reviews are a joke. Our reviews are based on studer and our manager gave EVERYONE the same scores on all the same question. (Yes, we compared) All the responses were 3 on a scale of 1-5. One of the aides asked him exactly WHY her attendance was a 3 on the scale and he replied, Well we can all improve in that area. She replied, I haven't called off a single day in a year and a half, come 25 minutes early and pick up extra when you need me to, how would you like to see me improve. Have I mentioned my boss is clueless?:banghead:

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Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.

quint also posted:

[color=#557480]ten ways to nurture your nurses and create a high performance organization

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Specializes in Peds, GI, Home Health, Risk Mgmt.
. . . I myself was classified as a medium and I really have issues with that. I charge most of the time a 28 bed med surg unit. I have taken pts and charged when there was not a replacement so my nurses wouldn't have to take up the slack. I work extra when I am needed. I am always out on the floor helping and answering call lites.

Here recently I got a final warning for someone using my password to access a deceased employees records. I know the password thing is serious but look at the situation.....We get 7-8 admits from 3-7 pm and usually do not have a unit rep. So in addition to being responsible for getting stuff done and being expected to do everything when none of the other staff have access to the computers or have failed to learn how to do it. I did give my access to assist with the work. I cannot do everything. ok so I learned my lesson and it won't happen again. I came very very close to losing my job and have been there for 10 years.

The teamwork on my block sucks. THe lvns are task oriented, and pretty much keep themselves busy with busy work and the higher ups are tired of it. It is affecting me now as some of the new nurses are missing orders and I have even missed hanging some blood (the pt was not critical and the order said one unit today and tomorrow and the tomorrow dose got missed. apparently plasma got missed also)

I am on a final warning so my job is pretty much in jeapordy if i mess up again. How do I encourage the staff to help out and move from lows to mediums or even highs on my block. Should I start looking for something else as I can't transfer because of the warning....This is my career I am talking about...thanks.

Dear LitBit,

Having worked in hospital and nursing admin, here's what I can tell you about your situation.

1) Start looking for another job with a different employer NOW. You are being set up to be fired, and when that happens, you will have more difficulty finding another position.

2) You cannot change the problems on your unit, and it's way too late to change your manager's opinion of you. She just wants you out of there. "Final warning" is admin speak for "we don't value you and want you gone ASAP."

3) Performance reviews done by most employers are subjective. That means they're based on opinion. The best performance reviews are actual metrics, i.e., they're based on facutal info that can be MEASURED. But beware of ones that are based on poorly-defined metrics.

4) Employers look at how much they have in their annual budget for pay raises and tell the managers what the usual and max percentage is for that year. And to get the max percentage, you pretty much have to be the co-manager, going WAY beyond the required expectations.

5) Every couple of years there's a new biz theory on how to maximize employee performance. You should always know what theory your manager or employer is following in advance of your performance eval.

You should look on this situation as an opportunity to self examine what your strengths and shortcomings are, and to determine what type of work you want to do next. You may find that something completely different is where you should be, such as hospice, homecare, or case management.

Good luck to you,

HollyVK RN, BSN, JD

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Oh great.....our organization is pushing this Studer Group stuff :banghead: Having worked in the manufacturing field prior to this career, I've seen quality theories come and go...usually costs the company big bucks, annoys the employees, and doesn't end up working, anyway. Wish they'd just leave us alone and spend the money on better equipment, salaries, gas reimbursement - that would sure go a long way toward making us feel valued!!

mc3:nurse:

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Specializes in Onco, palliative care, PCU, HH, hospice.

Nursing is such a hands on field that it really exasperates me how many managers become dettached and disconnected with their employees and the unit they manange. I know they have an incredibly difficult job but dear god so do we! I find more and more where I work that administration focuses on petty things yet ignore the big issues. What can we do?

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Specializes in ED/trauma.
I agree. At my last job they started some new evaluation called Pay for performance. At that time I had been on the unit for almost two years as an RN and 5 years total because I worked there as an aide. When I got my eval, I was "developing", which was the second to lowest rating. Needless to say I was upset because newer nurses were hired and evaluated as "fully effective" which was second from the highest. I don't understand how they came to that conclusion that I was developing. I had two call-ins the entire year, my work was finished before I left, I never had patient complaints, I was never wrote up, I was never late. I worked overtime when they needed help because I wanted to show that that I was part of the team. I cried when I got my eval then started looking for a new job.

Good for you! If you believe you're performing at a place and management disagrees (and they're not giving you viable feedback to fit the mold they're expecting of you), then it seems wise to move on. I hope you found a place that regarded you more highly and gave you the respect you deserve!

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Specializes in ED/trauma.

other than the low-med-high performer bs, it sounds like he has a lot of useful insight!

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.
Good for you! If you believe you're performing at a place and management disagrees (and they're not giving you viable feedback to fit the mold they're expecting of you), then it seems wise to move on. I hope you found a place that regarded you more highly and gave you the respect you deserve!

Yes, I work at a wonderful hospital even if it is in the ghetto. I love it though. I just got my 120 day evaluation and I did great. The manager says that she really enjoys having me on the unit. I was rated commendable, highly motivated to work and learn. I was so happy.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Hmmm - I think that the environment you describe has missed the underlying message that Quint Studer is trying to deliver. He believes that the first change toward excellence is to improve management and make them accountable for creating an evironment that gives rise to high performance.

Sounds like they may have skipped a step & are trying to blame staff for systemic problems. My advice? If you're so stressed that it is affecting your patient care - take your valuable skills to an employer who will appreciate them.

My take on the 'classification' of staff . . . in any given period of time, we probably all vacillate from "high" to "low" and somewhere in between - especially if the criteria are subjective. You may have just caught your manager on a abad day. You deserve a very specific criteria as to what constitutes each of these ratings.

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well let me clarify some stuff. Our current manager gave us what the old manager had classified us as. That is why I asked what do you have to do to be a high. I charge all the freaking time cause there is no one else, I have even taken a full load of pts when they have someone scheduled to leave at 3 and the other nurses are just as slammed as I am. Why is that no matter what you do there is always something else you could have done. THe old manager had her favorites. I love the manager we have now. She even calls to check on us when we call in and its genuine not just trying to see if your faking it. So how do you move from med to high if your already busting butt.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Wow - that is a problem. You need to ask your manager for explicit performance standards - what differentiates "high" from "medium". Otherwise, there would be no way to figure out how to change your performance and move up on the scale. Hopefully, it is based on patient care and not some "one size fits all" stuff that doesn't really apply to nurses.

Hang in there!

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Specializes in NICU.

Evals are a joke. For my 1 year (actually done at 15 months...) my PCD just re-dated the one done at the end of my orientation... that said I was "ready to transition from orientee to staff". Um, thanks? Since I've been off orientation for a year? We also do the 1-5 junk, and it's well known that no one has ever gotten a 5 on anything, ever. It's like a teacher I had in high school - nobody ever got a 100 on anything because "only God is perfect".

They just started posting our Press Ganey stuff in the breakroom. It's only a matter of time before they start the low med high crap, I guess.

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