Mandated overtime. What?

[dudette10]

I see often nurses posting that they were mandated to work overtime. I have worked in only two facilities, both hospitals, and I have never heard of such a thing. In both places, if another nurse is needed after her shift ends, the charge has asked for people to stay over, but it's never been required.

Is this a state-by-state thing? A facility-by-facility thing? Am I seeing it more when it comes to LTC than in other specialties?

Fill me in. What is this "mandated overtime" thing?

[LightMyFire]

Not really sure how this works but I'm interested. Our BON is vague on the issue, stating that failure to work beyond your scheduled shift is a staffing issue, not abandonment. However, failure to report off to another nurse is abandonment. I've only been in a bind once but I just had to wait for a late nurse. Luckily our director is awesome; I don't think she'd let that happen. My hospital offers $$ incentives beyond overtime pay so there's not usually a problem getting coverage if the float pool is already assigned.

Once we had to stay due to a major storm. When we were cleared to leave 2 ours after end of shift we were required to go to ER to help out as they were anticipating a rush. We were cleared to go around 2230.

[Carrie RN]

Many states have laws against it. The BON for my state says it is an issue between the nurse and management. So mandatory overtime is a hospital or facility practice.

[amoLucia]

And what if no one volunteered to stay, no one volunteered to come in, there were no registry/float pool nurses and no other floors had a nurse to spare? You might not have ever experienced this situation but my bet is your workplace would mandate just like the rest of ours would/have in this situation.

Also, what if a scheduled nurse was a no-show no-call? It's not like you could just leave and put the key under the front door mat until the next shift let themselves in!

LTC is particularly vulnerable and it is an understood 'given' by old-time, experienced LTC nurses that mandatory OT may be nec at some time or other. If your facility has a freq problem, and if you're not happy about it, you may have to start looking elsewhere. But it IS a necessary evil.

A few other professions have the same issues - police, fire, rescue, corrections, 911. State institutions also fit in. Where would the rest of society be if SOMEONE didn't stay???

[RNGriffin]

Mandatory overtime is experienced by every nurse at some point in his/her career. If you haven't noticed, even 2 hours beyond your shift in the event of ridiculous traffic coming to work, is considered mandatory overtime. In my experience, if the charge nurse( who's likely to stay) is not willing to stay to take on your patient load until the oncoming nurse is available to come in, you are mandated to stay by BON! That's in every states board of nursing practice act. It's considered abandonment once you've accepted that patient load. I would address the issue with my manager, but there is really nothing to be done for the day.

I know this is not your particular case, but a general question. But, if you have accepted the assignment you are responsible. Trust me, the BON will agree this is a facility staffing issue, but also a nurse abandonment issue!

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

Come to think of it, I have stayed a little later when a nurse who had a majority of my patient load was running late. In other cases with just one patient from my load assigned to another nurse, the oncoming charge has taken my report. It never occurred to me that the former situation was mandation; it was just making sure I didn't abandon anyone!

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

To answer some of the questions, I work acute care now, and I've worked in two different facilities. I've never been mandated, and I don't think anyone ever has where I've worked. As someone mentioned, if there is a call off, a nurse from another floor is floated if possible, otherwise, agency or registry is called in.

My question wasn't related to what's happening in my workplace, but rather from reading posts from people on this site about mandation, and I just wanted to know more about it. Thanks for your responses!

When I think about it, it was only in Wisconsin that I was ever REQUIRED to stay over because someone didn't show up. So there are probably state laws about that sort of thing. There was one hospital (a union hospital) where if someone didn't show up, people were CLAMORING to stay over. That's because we worked 12 hour shifts. Anything after 12 hours was time-and-a-half, and anything after 16 hours was double time. Then, if you had less than 11.5 hours off between shifts, your next shift was double time. There was never a shortage of volunteers to stay!