Nursing Staff Meetings: The good, the bad, and what can make it better.

meownsmile, BSN, RN · Jan 18, 2006

I think part of the key to having a productive staff meeting is to make sure you dont always conduct them on one shift. When we were having them they would always have them on the same shift, the same people were the only ones available to attend (because they had them on the same day of the week every month) so therefore they heard the same issues every time.

Make your staff feel like their input is important by rotating when you have them,, try having one at 7pm (12 hour shift change) and letting some have a half hour OT to stay over and attend. Make sure all staff get to attend at least 1 every 6 months or so and if that means scheduling on a thrusday afternoon at 3 instead of monday mornings so be it. At least ALL the staff will feel like their input is important to you.

If you dont make that small effort, any interest in a staff meeting is going to go down the drain and it will be viewed as just another obsticle taking up time better spent on other tasks. just my 2cents

Antikigirl, ASN, RN · Jan 18, 2006

Oh boy, ours sure were nothing but a cat fight!!!!! But that changed a bit after some interventions...

One, we all got sick of the cat fighting...and found the root of the probelm was having non-nursing administration there. We asked if we could have some time at the begining of the session for just the nursing department..that was very helpful! I mean, we didn't need to hear "hey now ladies...the resident is always right" one more time from admin!!!!! UHGGG!

Two, my lovely DON got some great items at the dollar tree (there were only 8 nurses total at this facility) like pens, sticky note pads, relaxation candles, fun lotions..stuff like that. She gave us all numbers and we got a prize according to that number. It was fun, and a great way to start the meeting.

Three, decent food and beverages by our request! Just snack items mainly..but it was nice to have a choice!

Four, two weeks before we got a rough draft of the items we were discussing and were able to comment on them before the meeting. That shortened up the complaining time because we all had done it already and were ready to talk about solutions! Or a plan was already being brainstormed with solutions we had written down and now we could really figure out the details!

So basically in essence...keep it nursing, appreciate nurses, and listen to nurses! Three simple elements that were overlooked by administration time and time again. Our meetings went wonderfully after that and more productive than ever before!!!!

nurse_clown · Jan 18, 2006

it seems that our staff meetings of the last year have become a huge gripe session........
so how are your staff meetings? what are the good, the bad, and the ugly that goes on.
what can make it better? ive seen facilities provide food/drinks/snacks and that has been well recieved. ive seen where the floor is not open for comments/gripes...ive seen where its an educational experience, and where its a discussion of all the bad, but never the good.
so, whats your comments/experiences. if you had your chance, what wouuld you add/take away to make staff meetings a good experience.

i work at two places. i work the night shift so getting to staff meetings at either place can be hard. i know that in a perfect world, staff meetings are a good thing. management can give us new info and we can come together on a few issues. i also think that in a perfect world, we need to opportunity to gripe to our managers and voice our concerns. but it doesn't always work that way. i'm not very interesting in attending staff meetings because a lot of time is wasted "griping" and i don't have much time. it's the same time and time again. the same complaints. i have two very good managers who try and keep it short and to the point. i like to go in and say hello, get my new information and see how the other shifts are doing and get outta there. but it never fails someone is always complaining about the help (rpn's, psw's, orderlies etc. etc.) and that makes me so annoyed that the "help" isn't there to defend themselves. i don't go for that. so i defend them. i find a lot of the griping very petty and trivial and it mostly comes from my coworkers (rn's).

i'd show up a whole lot more if there was food/drinks/ and snacks and a pair of ear plugs so i don't have to listen to all the whiners and complainers. i started practising "tuning" ppl out.

also, i used to work at an organizational agency and our staff meetings used to last all morning :crying2: