team buidling

I am the 3-11 charge nurse on a 34 bed med surg ortho floor and I take it upon myself to reward the people I work with. I give them gift cards when they do something special and I never forget to say thank you and to do what ever I can to be supportive of their needs. We do not have any gossiping and backstabbing in our unit. Everyone gets along well and this is actually the best unit I have ever worked on in that regard. One reason is our manager. She is uplifting, funny and helps us with our problems. She is always going to bat for us. She is funny even when you are in trouble for something. She never breaks your spirit, even when you are completely stupid. As long as you keep her informed, she will get you what you need. Because we have both 8 and 12 hour shifts on our floor I work with all staff from all shifts because they change at 7 pm. A positive, fun work environment is a reward within itself.

Our DON or Nurse Manager will hand out meal tickets to all of the staff working on an especially difficult shift.

Example: too many call offs for the shift, inability to get someone to work leaving the floor short handed. Meal tickets are given to show appreciation for the fact that they are unable to do anything about it being short staffed.

They have on occasion when desperate put a hold on any admissions for the shift as there are not enough staff for the patients already there.

You guys got any openings?

One thing we used to do back in the computer world when we had a deadline, working on a "death march" (you don't leave until the product's ready), etc., was have a big "family style" meal afterwards. We'd all put the name of our favorite rest. in a bag, pull the name, and we'd all go out for lunch together. not an option in nursing, but maybe you could do the "name pull" and have dinner/lunch brought in? But, make sure it's brought in for the same shift that was getting it's backside kicked! I'm a nightshifter, and it makes me NUTS when we'll get an "atta girl" from administration for something that happened on nightshift (like the night we had 4 deaths, 2 of which were full codes, and we only had 4 nurses, 1 CNA, no US and a full floor) -- the admin sent in food....to DAYSHIFT. We didn't even get crumbs....

I have worked in a hospital where the CEO got up in the middle of the night to bring the staff pizza because he knew we were so busy that we could not get a break. I tell you, that one small gesture made him a hero in our eyes. We always knew that he was there for us and understood how hard we were working.