"I'm not floating."

[Morainey]

Yup. Unfortunately, sometimes in the facility we have need of nurses on other floors and hey, did you really want to be called off and lose more time? Trust me, the supervisor and I put thought into who gets floated - most importantly, if it's the person's turn to float, if they are a good fit for that particular specialty floor, do they have experience in that specialty, and so on.

I'm really tired of having my head bitten off when the next shift comes in and says "I'm not ******* floating" and then calls the supervisor to get the same explanation I give them, and they ALWAYS end up huffing off to their float floor with a monstrous attitude a half an hour after their shift started.

Is it like this everywhere? I feel like my unit's RNs have a bad reputation for floating because they make such a stink about it and it's so obvious they don't want to float. In the interest of full disclosure, I used to get really upset about floating as a new grad, but I made an attitude adjustment once I realized it sets a tone for your whole shift when you show up to your float floor with a miserable attitude.

[Mulan]

Some floors were so horrible to work on at one hospital, that they were staffed mainly by floating staff from a "good" floor

that was deliberately overstaffed for that reason.

Maybe improving conditions and staffing would be in order.

The kicker is when you agree to come in extra thinking you will be working on your own floor and then get floated.

Yes, the floater always gets dumped on.

I don't blame people for not wanting to float.

I guess if they wanted to float, they would have joined the float pool.

[nrsang97, BSN, RN]

I don't mind floating since I like the variety. I do think it's important to understand why Nurses don't like to float. Usually it's because it makes it much harder to provide the level of care Nurses expect to be able to provide, which is a totally legitimate concern. I sympathize with Nurses who don't like to provide substandard care when I have to float them. If you listen to what they mean when they say "I'm not floating", which is "I don't like subjecting patients to inferior care", then it's hard to criticize.

Usually it is the staff member being difficult. Some staff just will whine about anything. Especially floating. I understand being in an unfamiliar environment is tough, but we all have to float.

[Do-over, ASN, RN]

We take turns, and most handle it gracefully.

There are definitely areas I much prefer to float, and sometimes will volunteer if I know its a place I like... That way, I move back to the bottom of the list without having to work in a crud-hole...

[MunoRN, RN]

I am also annoyed by difficult staff members, although I don't think the concern is any less valid based on the amount of grace with which it is expressed.

[anotherone, BSN, RN]

I don't like it but when I see it is my turn I go without a complaint. I can't stand when people get angry and obnoxious about this. On my unit charge doesn't have control over who goes. We also use a list and go by dates. But lpn /rn ratio, staff experience plays a role in it . suck it up and go . no one will respect you for complaining

[anotherone, BSN, RN]

When I get pulled on some floors you do get dumped on and no one helps with anything. Getting combinations for med room, equipmmt room etc is a huge ordeal on some floors.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

I don't mind floating, as long as it is fair and it rotates. I feel like some nurses are the ones who always get floated while others never do. We also kept a book and we would write in the date we floated to another floor...and sort of used that as a guide to determine who would float. Usually the supervisors are the ones who determine but then we go by the book and just call the supervisor and tell them, "hey, so&so is going to CCU instead." They're okay with it.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

"We All Float Down Here...." -- Pennywise the Clown.

Sorry, couldn't help myself!!

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

OP, you ask if it's like that anywhere else, but I can tell you that if I didn't know better, I'd swear you were the new charge where I used to work! Yep, it's like that all over.

You can keep a book, but you'll have shifts where the one "up" shouldn't go for some good reason--like they aren't cleared to work ER, ICU, Maternity (isn't that still done, a nurse has to be competent in those areas before floating there?).

Nurses who are the most capable, therefore, are the ones who find themselves most frequently floating, which hardly seems fair...but life isn't fair, now is it? There were shifts where I (as charge) would refuse to float the only other nurse on the floor with more than fifteen minutes of experience; I didn't give a crud WHAT the supervisor had to do. And for times like that, sometimes what'd happen is a double float: an inexperienced nurse from one floor would be floated to a less-intense area, and a more seasoned nurse would leave that area to cover the more-intense float need.

But let's not forget the Wendy Whiners, who just stomp around that they have to float AGAIN...horrors....it's their turn and it's appropriate. Deal with it, baby.

[nightbreak]

Our unit also keeps a record of when and where staff members have floated. Whoever has the least amount of floats for that particular shift will be assigned the float. By contract this assignment will be made after travelers have floated and volunteers have been asked for. I think sometimes people are not happy to float because they do not have the competencies for whichever particular unit they have been assigned to.

In California the BON has a policy statement that includes the following direction for floating (and protecting your license!):

Nursing Practice Act requirements. Registered nurses and patient care personnel who may be temporarily re-directed (floated) are required to undergo the process of competency validation for their assigned patient care unit.

The regulations require:

(A) Assigning only those duties and responsibilities for which competency has been validated;

(B) the RN who has demonstrated competency for the patient care unit is responsible for planning and implementing the patient care, providing clinical supervision and coordinating the care given by LVNs and unlicensed nursing personnel, and for assigning a RN resource nurse for RNs and LVNs who have not completed the competency validation for the unit;

© RNs who have not completed the competency validation for the unit cannot be assigned total responsibility for patient care including duties and responsibilities for planning and implementing patient care, and providing clinical supervision and coordination of care given by LVNs and unlicensed nursing personnel, until all the standards for competency for that unit have been met.

[NotMyProblem MSN, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN]

I was floated to the ER last week and I was ******* MAD AS ****!!!!!!!!!! In my 27 years of nursing, I have NEVER worked ER! It was a horrible experience. The manager kept saying it was like med/surg. BS!!!!!!!!! I had patients to leave AMA because they had been waiting for 24 hours or longer for a bed; there was no privacy there......every patient heard all that was going on with other patients, the charting was different down there, telemetry monitors there with no one to interpret the readings. If anyone should have been floated, it should have been a unit nurse since they have similar skill sets. MAD AS *****, I tell you! To make matters worse, while I was there, I found out that management closed this particular section of the ER in an effort to control costs but ended up paying copious amounts of overtime to to have staff to spill over into this area as the patients kept coming. Imagine that!!! So, they reopened the unit but those nurses who once worked the area, found jobs elsewhere and would not come back. Did not management foresee this type of outcome? I mean, it IS a teaching hospital, for God's sake!!!! There are ALWAYS more patients than there is staff to cover. Did I not have the right to an orientation before being THROWN into an area that I've never, ever worked before????? The only other nurse there had seniority over me in that area by only ONE shift.....she was a float nurse, too! And they wonder why I don't answer the damn phone and only sign up for two shifts per week.

[avaloncar, BSN, RN]

I actually hated my first and now previous job because of the floating issue. I do not mind floating. But as a new grad sending me to areas I have never set foot on and expecting me to take a full load is ridiculous. You train me on the unit I was hired for and tell me during the interview that we are only floated once in a while. Then after orientation you send us every which way. And this was after I asked to be placed on those units during orientation so I would feel comfortable on those other units when I have to be floated. But they said no. I just felt as though it wasn't safe for me or the patients. Especially being I was a NEW nurse.