I am a Nursing Director at a very small rural facility. Our professional staff is also limited, and we do not have a pool to draw from, so when we have sick call ins it really impacts on remaining staff. Do any of you out there have policies that require staff calling in sick on their weekend to work to make up that weekend time to releive the staff that covered for them?
We have never such a policy, but are seriously considering it, I am sure that there will be strong opposition and any policy relative to this topic that you would be willing to share I would be most grateful for. We are not union, but the staff does have a committee that reviews personnel issuses and petitions administration for wages etc.
i have experienced those that needed "mental health days" and they usually fall on a weekend...but hey! we are nurses and human beings and we do get ill just like our patients! i think an ideal staff would pull to gether and help eachother. i have done that, worked to help cover shifts and given up my weekends to help out. what i found out tho, the management that i worked for didnt give a hoot.
so i use that as an example now that i am a manager and remember how i felt . i am new at this but boy, kind words and thank yous go a long way. it is good to respect the people you manage and good to get respect back. that's the only way it works. occasionally you will have one that doesnt give respect but coworkers learn fast . evaluations are good for that subject.
don't wait til eval time. that's not fair. talk to the ingrate now in a way that could help open her eyes, so she can start being more cognizant regarding teamwork and being respectful.
spell out for her what the trouble is. maybe she really doesn't understand. i know i was very naive in my younger days and didn't understand much of anything.
also, when you hire, discuss this area and get a feel for the applicants' view of it all. you can't legally ask about kids or sitters but you could ask how they view their role in providing ongoing care in a weather or other disaster, or in the event that, for whatever reason (illness, accident, death) their relief doesn't arrive to relieve them.
but as a manager, you need to manage this area proactively. educate and lead, don't lie in wait to snipe out like a retaliatory viper at evaluation time.
a supervisor who i really liked did this to me one time. i was shocked to see that she had things against me, that, in her view, i was barely scraping by, as she had never talked to me about them. she had always been really nice to me but then hit me with a bad eval.
naturally, i had to challenge it and she did wind up changing it for the better, after i reminded her of all the good things i had done - things the other nurses were also required to do but had not, things i had instituted for safety and educational purposes, my good attendance, my volunteering for ot. and i reminded her that she had never said anything to me about the other areas, never had given me a chance to improve in those areas. so, don't do that to your employee. it's not good leadership.
and it really hurt and scared me to see how much she truly did dislike me. made me realize, once again, how 2 faced people are, how no one can ever fully be trusted. her behavior was seriously destructive.
i understand she didn't want to confront me or stir a hornet's nest but what does she think supervision or management is about? that's a big, big part of it. it isn't just staffing, obtaining missing supplies, or dealing with families. it involves a lot of coaching or correcting staff, too.
so if you are someone who didn't realize you'd be confronting staff, however constructively, please realize it now and start dealing more effectively with your staff every day, not lying in wait to trap them at eval time. this would be true leadership, true staff development.
I work as an LPN in a rural area,we have only 4 full timers,one part timer and one casual. Ihad a lumpectomy one day and 2 days later had to work because no one would cover me! Thats staff for you!But to call in sick-hey nurses have cruddy jobs it's no picnic being a nurse - has its rewards of course, but no picnic many times, if we're sick, we're sick! Give us a break. !maple
Maple, that's riduculous. You should have had your doctor write a Return To Work slip for you, stating that you could return to full duty on ______ date that would have given you the right number of days off.
And if your HR or staffing coordinator or manager told you you had to get your own coverage, you just tell them that you tried and could not and it is not your job to have to do that anyway and you will return on ____ the date your surgeon says you can return. I always wondered how I was supposed to call someone to work for me if I didn't have their phone number. HR and Nursing wouldn't give the numbers and I didn't buddy up too much with others, so how was I supposed to call them?
Better yet, don't tell anyone you're having surgery. Just have it, call off and say your doctor says you can return on ____ date. do not say you had surgery, do not say what's wrong, only that you're ill, and the doc says RTW on ____ date. Your job does not need to know what your med condition is, has no right to know.
Specializes in OR RN Circulator, Scrub; Management.
Our policy (new in the past year or so) doesn't focus on the sick call at the time but a yearly evaluation that we do consistently that manages call ins. For example, after the 4th occurrence the manager is responsible to talk to the colleague and bring it to their attention and then it moves thru the corrective action process.
It has been quite helpful for my unit and myself as a leader. I even had some staff who were surprised at their own call ins and those were mainly the mom's who took off first or only vs. the dads but now are sharing the duty.
Only in nursing would staff be treated this way.....can't believe it.....if there are people abusing sick time....deal with them.....don't punish the entire staff
Kooky Korky, BSN, RN
5,216 Posts
don't wait til eval time. that's not fair. talk to the ingrate now in a way that could help open her eyes, so she can start being more cognizant regarding teamwork and being respectful.
spell out for her what the trouble is. maybe she really doesn't understand. i know i was very naive in my younger days and didn't understand much of anything.
also, when you hire, discuss this area and get a feel for the applicants' view of it all. you can't legally ask about kids or sitters but you could ask how they view their role in providing ongoing care in a weather or other disaster, or in the event that, for whatever reason (illness, accident, death) their relief doesn't arrive to relieve them.
but as a manager, you need to manage this area proactively. educate and lead, don't lie in wait to snipe out like a retaliatory viper at evaluation time.
a supervisor who i really liked did this to me one time. i was shocked to see that she had things against me, that, in her view, i was barely scraping by, as she had never talked to me about them. she had always been really nice to me but then hit me with a bad eval.
naturally, i had to challenge it and she did wind up changing it for the better, after i reminded her of all the good things i had done - things the other nurses were also required to do but had not, things i had instituted for safety and educational purposes, my good attendance, my volunteering for ot. and i reminded her that she had never said anything to me about the other areas, never had given me a chance to improve in those areas. so, don't do that to your employee. it's not good leadership.
and it really hurt and scared me to see how much she truly did dislike me. made me realize, once again, how 2 faced people are, how no one can ever fully be trusted. her behavior was seriously destructive.
i understand she didn't want to confront me or stir a hornet's nest but what does she think supervision or management is about? that's a big, big part of it. it isn't just staffing, obtaining missing supplies, or dealing with families. it involves a lot of coaching or correcting staff, too.
so if you are someone who didn't realize you'd be confronting staff, however constructively, please realize it now and start dealing more effectively with your staff every day, not lying in wait to trap them at eval time. this would be true leadership, true staff development.