NPC hot topic for our unit***

[obrngbpackers]

Hello, I am writing this for some in sight as to how other units handle the influx of babies that come and go, particularly in the summer in a Community Hospital. I work at a hospital that handles 70-90 births a month. Our staffing is all done together for Labor/Mother Baby/Special Care nursery. We sometimes get transfer backs and feeder growers from high acuity hospitals. Routinely we pick up call as needed, every six weeks to fill in for vacations and FMLA coverages. This brings us up to our "par" which is usually 5 on nights and weekends and 6-7 on days. It is nice that we all work together and can swing our staffing around a bit, but, as you all know at 3 pm on a Saturday in July...it is busy.

It seems as of late we can not get extra help for those times when we send out our "SOS calls". It has not been in issue to get extra help when we need it during the week. Some ideas that have been brought up are:

If someone calls off on a weekend, they pick up call the next weekend. Our unit really doesn't have a problem with call offs so this isn't really necessary.

Another option is putting out an additional call schedule and asking everyone to pick up 1 twelve hour weekend shift. Fri night, Sat night/day, Sun night/day in addition to our regular call. These would be bringing us above "our par". So, essentially we will have two call lists...one of the complaints was that someone could get stuck doing a lot of weekends depending when it was their turn to sign up, so it was suggested to keep the two lists seperate...we rotate our regular call time sign up and pick up in 4 hours slots which is nice because you don't have to give away your whole day if you don't want to.

Any Ideas how to solve this problem? Having a traveler is not an option. Our next NPC meeting is coming up soon

[JKL33]

More than ten years ago a manager told a group of us that money isn't what motivates nurses; nurses are motivated by things like on-site daycare, flexible scheduling, etc., implying that money couldn't motivate a nurse.

To all of that I say, "In WHAT WORLD?!"

Money serves at least two purposes in as far as I'm personally concerned: 1) Obviously, I have more cash in my bank to attend to my family's needs 2) Proves employer is willing to make a fair trade with me, rather than just demanding that I must help solve some major problem they are having out of the goodness of my heart since I'm a nurse and that's what we're supposed to do. Paying an incentive when there is a significant staffing deficit both helps the employer's problem AND appropriately (fairly) rewards the efforts of those willing to help fill a gap. Increasing mandatory extra shifts WILL have a negative effect on morale and WILL make the overall problem worse over time. This is how excellent nurses "burn out" (btw, I hate that term and the disparaging connotations it carries...).

Obviously my suggestion is that incentives must be offered on a short-term basis while they pull out all other stops to getting staffing consistently up to adequate levels for the long term. Someone will surely argue that if incentives are offered people will come to expect them and will "hold out" for incentives. That problem is avoided by mid- and upper-management undertaking serious efforts to uncover a long-term solution that doesn't alienate everyone.

[adventure_rn, MSN, NP]

Why would they when their existing staff is bowing down to their demands so nicely? It's one thing if people WANT overtime, it's another thing entirely for it to be part of the workplace culture that it's your responsibility to do it.

This.

If management continues to understaff and expect nurses to pick up the slack without generous compensation, people will eventually get fed up and leave. That will make staffing issues even worse, and is probably more expensive in the long-haul, since hiring/onboarding/orienting new people is so costly.

In the units where I've worked that have been understaffed and desperate for nurses, they gave out sizable bonuses for extra shifts. You could sign up a month ahead of time to work a contract (i.e. a certain number of extra shifts in a given period of time) and be paid a bonus. For instance, you might take a four week contract in which you work one extra shift per week, get an $800 for working the contract, and also make OT if you go above 40 hours/week. For last minute commitments (i.e. desperation texts the night of saying 'PLEASE HELP RIGHT NOW') bonuses would start at $150 and increase if there were no takers, like when an airline is overbooked and they're trying to get people to give up their seats. One night my unit was so desperate, I got $350, a $50 gas card, a couple of movie tickets, and a thank you note from my manager, lol.