Seniority and preferential scheduling

I do feel that loyalty should be rewarded. If you stay with a certain company or unit for years and have been a good employee, then yes, you should be given more accommodations than those just starting out. Nursing needs experienced nurses on units. Part of retaining the experience is special privileges.

That being said, id never do rotating shifts in any way, shape, or form. It’s terrible on the body and mind. There should be dedicated night shifters, and dedicated dayshifters.

Yes, it is a common arrangement. And seniority does have it's perks. And I'm sure the people who have seniority now, had to go through the same thing when they started. You were told the schedule in your interview, and I'm assuming you agreed to it. It does sound like a lousy schedule, but it is up to you whether to take the position or not.

You agreed to terms for your relationship with the employer that were acceptable to you at the time, and it doesn't sound like they have changed.

44 minutes ago, 1MoreCoffee said:

I recently found out that certain nurses do not have to fulfill the night shift requirement, because they have seniority.

Which could also could mean nothing more than that the terms have changed since they signed their employment agreements, and the employer has chosen in this instance to continue those relationships on their original terms.

But even if it is a straight-up matter of seniority (put in your time and after X years of service you will be excused from the night shift obligation), that really isn't your concern either except to the extent that it applies to you and your obligations (or may eventually).

If the employer chooses to reward loyalty that is their business, just like it is their business if they want to offer a new grad a signing bonus for the same job that others are already performing without having received a signing bonus, or if they put a new grad through an expensive residency program that others performing the role may not have benefitted from.

5 minutes ago, JKL33 said:

You agreed to terms for your relationship with the employer that were acceptable to you at the time, and it doesn't sound like they have changed.

Which could also could mean nothing more than that the terms have changed since they signed their employment agreements, and the employer has chosen in this instance to continue those relationships on their original terms.

But even if it is a straight-up matter of seniority (put in your time and after X years of service you will be excused from the night shift obligation), that really isn't your concern either except to the extent that it applies to you and your obligations (or may eventually).

If the employer chooses to reward loyalty that is their business, just like it is their business if they want to offer a new grad a signing bonus for the same job that others are already performing without having received a signing bonus, or if they put a new grad through an expensive residency program that others performing the role may not have benefitted from.

I am not unhappy with my schedule, and I did not complain about it. I was just curious as to whether this was common or not. Management was not straightforward about the seniority policy, so I have no idea if and when it will benefit me. I disagree with your assessment that it isn't my concern, because when working nights (as I do), we have no unit director, no clinician, and the least experienced nurses on staff in addition to fewer hospital-wide resources. If the entire shift consists of nurses with little experience (which happens), it can be problematic. As I stated in my original post, I am new to the field. I value the expertise of the nurses who have more experience than me.

It's fair. It's common. If you're concerned that there are not enough experienced nurses working alongside the newer ones, that is a separate issue. As someone with top seniority on my prior unit, I preferred to work weekend nights.

1 hour ago, 1MoreCoffee said:

I disagree with your assessment that it isn't my concern, because when working nights (as I do), we have no unit director, no clinician, and the least experienced nurses on staff in addition to fewer hospital-wide resources. If the entire shift consists of nurses with little experience (which happens), it can be problematic.

That is a different matter than what you wrote about initially, but we can talk about it if you would like. ?

ETA: Have you talked to your management to express your concern about lack of experience/support on the night shift? If so what do they say?

The problem here is that your employer has put themselves in a bit of a pickle. The perks of seniority are a side issue loosely related to the pickle they're in, but not the cause of it.

I agree - my post was not about why it affects me. However, you said that it wasn’t my concern, and I wanted to clarify why it does as relates to my ability to learn and do my job effectively as a novice. The senior nurses don’t control the policy, and I have no issue with them.

To answer your question, I have not discussed this with management, but I will. I am in my night rotation at the moment, and as I said, management doesn’t work nights, so it will have to wait until I can discuss it in person.

Thanks for answering me. It is good to hear how things work at other facilities.

Our new manager wanted to do away with the longevity percs when she came on. We had a vote among the staff, excluding the nurses that it affected and we voted to let them keep their "benefits". There were only 5 nurses that it affected-all had more than 20 years on the same unit. It is not going to apply to those coming up (like anyone will be there than long-including the manager LOL).

We felt that those few earned their stuff. They got choice of day/night shift, no floating, all have to work a weekend once a 2 week pay period, if needed.

Everyone, after a year, gets to choose a preferred shift (day vs night) but I am surprised that many like to alternate between days and nights.

I HATE nights and I negotiated during my first year an offer to work weekend days. I floated to our sister unit for 3 months to get my preferred shift/days. I am now weekend option nurse (Sat/Sun and one other day) and have been for almost 7 years.

4 hours ago, LovingLife123 said:

I do feel that loyalty should be rewarded. If you stay with a certain company or unit for years and have been a good employee, then yes, you should be given more accommodations than those just starting out. Nursing needs experienced nurses on units. Part of retaining the experience is special privileges.

I understand the loyalty aspect, but let's not confuse longevity with being a 'good employee', because they are definitely not the same thing.

43 minutes ago, 1MoreCoffee said:

I understand the loyalty aspect, but let's not confuse longevity with being a 'good employee', because they are definitely not the same thing.

Oh god isn’t that the truth??

It sounds like my opinion is unpopular, but I will share it. If I were a new grad and took this job, I'd probably be looking for something better within a year.

This may be "fair" but I really feel like your employer is setting up the nurses and the hospital for failure. I have been working night shift for 3 years, and Everytime I take vacation for over a week (ie start waking up at 7a and going to sleep at 10p) it takes my body at least 1 month to stop having jet lag, and readjust back to staying up all night. The process of reaclimating is intense for me.

It sounds poorly planned to intentionally have large groups of sleepy inexperienced nurses on nights all the time. Sounds like they are just asking for med errors, or other serious incidents. Also sounds like they are going to have a lot of turn around.

Why would a company do this? My best guess is that they are too cheap to offer a shift differential. Maybe with a differential they could establish a set night shift crew. I would be interested to hear other reasonings for this situation.

15 hours ago, 1MoreCoffee said:

To answer your question, I have not discussed this with management, but I will. I am in my night rotation at the moment, and as I said, management doesn’t work nights, so it will have to wait until I can discuss it in person.

You could discuss this with management, but I don't see how you'd possibly benefit. I doubt they'll change anything, and in worst case, you might be labeled an entitled new grad (I'm not saying that you actually are an entitled new grad, but you may not want to risk your boss having that perception...)

I don't think that management was withholding this information from you; they probably just didn't think to explicitly mention it because literally all units do this, and they probably assumed you knew. Some degree of seniority is ubiquitous in pretty much every area of nursing; no matter where you go (including outpatient), it's going to play a role in scheduling and vacations. Seniority is almost always the deciding factor in who gets to work day shift. The grass is never going to be greener anywhere else because pretty much all units have some type of seniority policies (although I will say, non-union hospitals tend to have more instances of valuing merit over seniority, whereas union hospitals tend to be very heavily seniority-driven).

That said, the 'seniority perks' policies on your unit should be clearly defined by management to prevent the perception of favoritism. There should be readily-accessible guidelines about who qualifies for seniority perks and when. People with seniority shouldn't be exempt from things like working weekends and holidays, but I think it's reasonable if they're more likely to get their first pick (because they already 'put in their time' as new hires).

I actually think seniority perks benefit the unit. Yes, you don't want to have a night shift that's staffed exclusively by new grads; however, if you take away the seniority perks and all of the experienced people quit, then the unit is staffed exclusively by new grads 100% of the time. My shifts always go better when I've got people with a decade of experience around, and if they need some seniority perks to stay at the inpatient bedside (vs. going outpatient for the better hours), then so be it. This is coming from someone who has never been at a job long enough to reap the benefits of seniority perks...

Honestly, I think that the better solution to the 'too many inexperienced people on nights' problem is to make new grads rotate (so you don't get a huge onslaught of night shift new grads), not to take away seniority perks.