Night shift managers?

[mp15nurse]

I work in a pediatric hospital and have worked nights for 10 years. We had a reorganization and night shift managers were added, and I have been one of them for over a year. We are required to work five eight hour shifts per week, with most of the hours being on nights. We also have meetings that we need to attend during day hours, although people have tried to be accommodating and I don't have a lot of them. I really don't think that working five eight hour night shifts is reasonable or realistic, especially when I need to flex my hours occasionally for meetings. I am not getting much sleep lately so I went to my director and she wanted me to do some looking in to what other hospitals do. So that is my question: do you have night managers in your hospital, and what kind of hours do they work? I am hoping she will let me switch to 3-4 nights per week. If not, I am probably heading back to the bedside, that's how miserable my schedule is. Thanks for your feedback!

[ruralnurse84]

I'm not a manager but at my hospital, we have PCCs on each day and night shift, essentially the shift managers. They do 12s just like the rest of us but switch an hour earlier. Is there a reason you guys couldn't do 12s if it's mostly on nights? What is your job role exactly?

[mp15nurse]

We only have one day and one night shift manager on our unit. Between the two of us we manage all of the staff on our unit, do payroll, discipline, scheduling, evaluations, etc. We are sometimes pulled into staff when we are short. Every shift has a charge nurse. The only "manager" task we really don't do is the budget- we have input into it but have a director that does that for us and she also oversees two other units. The day manager works a traditional M-F schedule, so I think that is why they wanted the night manager to do something similar. I don't think there was much thought put into how having a night manager would actually work- because it was done by administration that works day hours :) I love being available to my staff at night, and it is something that I think they appreciate, it just isn't working!

[AJJKRN]

We do not have night managers or supervisors, only charge/resource nurses that may or may not take a Pt load depending on staffing and census. We do have a day shift House Officer and a night shift House Officer for throughput. We all work 12 hour shifts.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I'm a middle-manager who works three to four 12-hour night shifts per week in exchange for a set salary. I'd be looking for another job if I had to deal with the bleak experience of working five 8-hour night shifts every week.

[mp15nurse]

Anyone else? I'm trying to get responses to present to my director as to what other hospitals do. Thanks!

[BiotoBSNtoFNP]

My hospital does not have any unit/floor nurse managers on at night. We have charge nurses who take assignments and a house supervisor at night. They all work 3 12s.

The dayshift manager does 4 ten hour shifts per week from 10am to 8pm so the nightshift can atleast touch base w her as needed.

[iluvivt, BSN, RN]

Here are some ideas and if they want to keep you (sounds like they do) in this position they will seriously consider them and try to make you happy

Do 4-10's each week (10.5 with unpaid lunch). For meeting only do 3 tens in one of the weeks. You can also drop to 70 hrs per pay period and then o work 3 days one week and 4 the next and have them for meetings.

DO 3-12's each week and hire another noc manager so you have full coverage. This is a good idea because during those 4 hours you can better help for break relief,actually have time to follow a problem through from beginning to end which pts and families appreciate, can better assist at shift change,have time to peform assigned managment duties,plus much more. his will also give you 8 hours per pay period for meeting if you need.

An alternate is to do 3 12's and NOT hire another noc manger and then assign someone to charge on the nocs ou are not there. Make sure you stress that YOU will work on the nocs that historically are busy. (ie week one Monday, Wed, Friday and week 2 Monday, Friday. Saturday) That way in week 2 you can look forward to be off from Tues-Thursday and in week one you get the weekend off. That schedule sounds great to me.You need to include a weekend day to get to know the weekend people and the work load.

Those are my ideas and I hope they do work out something b/c doing that many 8's would drive me nuts too...bring in a long list of all the positives that will help the unit, if noc managers could work longer shifts.......sell it that way primarily!