So you want to move to Alberta for a job

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Oct 2, 2013

Jan, what is bothering my coworkers is the never ending revolving door of new hire casuals.
I understand going casual to get that first job. That's how I started back when it was Capital Health. But I stayed for a year, I worked shifts, I learned to work by myself with five orientation shifts.
Now the new grads are expecting months of orientations, only want M-F and have more "not available" more days than they are available. They are "stressed" by working more than two 8s in a row. I don't work on a critical care unit, I think there has been one death on my unit in the last decade.
It's getting to the point where we don't want to do any more orientations to the unit. We are handholding the new hires until it is painful. We'd rather they just increase the part time FTEs!

I'm intimately acquainted with that angle, Fiona, only our new hires aren't casual... they're in regular full time lines and are already looking for the days-only, no weekends or holidays, I-need-3-weeks-off-over-Christmas-for-my-wedding kind of thing. The minute reality sets in, they're out the door. When a unit replaces more than 1/2 the staff in one year, there's a problem somewhere. Nobody wants to invest the time to orient them because so often it's wasted. It's a vicious circle.

I'm currently working on a paper regarding the whole workplace transformation that's going on in AHS. In some of their areas of their documents they are saying that if they are able to increase the FTE average to around 0.8 then they will no longer be short staffed anywhere. Yet in other areas they are still going on about how they will need to train 2000 new nurses a year and will hire 70% of new grads.
I'm frustrated. I don't know what to think anymore and am worried about getting that first job after graduation in April.

AHS admits it does a poor job of change management, and the biggest factor in that failure is communication. There is no collaboration or consultation with most of the stakeholders when it comes to any change - it's always top-down, this-is-what-we're-going-to-do-and-you-don't-get-a-say. If they have a plan, they should be revealing it in its entirety so that those most greatly affected can begin to get their own ducks in a row. Instead, they only offer brief peeks under the curtain with the result being a lot of fear and misinformation. I think there's also an element bordering on dishonesty as to the ultimate goals and the underlying rationale. My gut tells me this workplace transformation exercise is all about money. The notion that increasing most FTEs to 0.8 to eliminate the "shortage" is baloney. My unit has fewer than 20% positions with an FTE less than 0.8 - actually, 66% of our positions are full time - and we're ALWAYS scraping for enough bodies on the floor to provide appropriate staffing levels. It's true that there is a tsunami of retirements coming in the next decade and there will need to be a defined and determined strategy to manage that. I'm not seeing one.

SurroDoula · Oct 2, 2013

It's true that there is a tsunami of retirements coming in the next decade and there will need to be a defined and determined strategy to manage that. I'm not seeing one.

I agree. From what I can see, their plan (if it even works) will provide a short term fix until the boomers start retiring in large numbers. In the mean time, nurses will have left the province in search of employment elsewhere. So many in my grad class are talking about moving away. I don't have that option, but I'm hoping that my willingness to work nights, evenings, and weekends will work to my favour (dayshift is the least appealing to me, I'm such a night owl).