Tips on getting people to come to staff meetings

[asilmk]

Any tips on getting nurses to actually attend staff meetings? Our hospital requires that each nurse attend 6 meetings a year! It is about impossible to get them to attend! Any creative tips???? We have tried keeping minutes in the communication book, but they won't read them. We have several meetings at convenient times for all shifts, but they won't come. We include # of meetings attended in the yearly eval, but this does not help. Any suggestions are GREATLY appreciated!!!!! Thanks!

[Guest717236]

*Respect your staff

*Provide food/beverages

*Have a focused agenda,stay on task

*Continue to treat your staff respectfully

*Listen to your staffs input

*Give your staff credit when using their suggestions

*Conduct your meeting in a positive way

*Thank your staff for attending

Your staff will respect you..........

[Nurse_Wretched]

My employer holds far to many meetings. If there are online trainings, I always do those right away! I don't, however, have time to be at work on my days off! I am a full time student!

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

There is only one way I will attend a meeting.

Provide coverage for my patients.

Otherwise , it is not safe for me to leave them to listen to a spiel about customer service.

[Sun0408, ASN, RN]

1. Don't schedule a staff meeting at 2p and expect night shift to be there.

2. Keep them brief, if a meeting runs more than 30 minutes p shift, I am out and will not show up for another one.

3. I will not attend a staff meeting if I am off, I live an hour away and refuse to drive and sit in on it.

4. Emails are a great way to get information out to everyone without holding an actual staff meeting.

[nurse2033, MSN, RN]

Do it during their shift and hire perdiems to cover them while they attend. People are too busy to come in on a day off. Also if you have more than a ten minute drive it turns into a half day affair. Or find a better way, hold a video conference so they can attend from home or something.

[Sun0408, ASN, RN]

Oh wow, I just saw this post is really old.. Can we close old posts like this and put them in a separate place or something ?

[whichone'spink, BSN, RN]

The issue is not old. It's still relevant. My manager has meetings at 0730 for off going noc shift and at 1930 for off going day shift. There is usually some education involved, so if nurses want the CE credits, they have to go. I like this arrangement better, as it's far more convenient for most of the staff. I hated the old arrangement, where we would have staff meetings in the middle of day shift.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

We do ours at different times thru out the day....ours are usually no longer than 20 minutes. Our manager comes in at 630a to hit nights. It is on our eval and if we don't meet our eval goals, we could possibly not get our raise. If the meeting runs over, we punch out when we are done. I really don't think that you should be expecting people to come in on their day off.

How often are you doing these? We do monthly so there isn't a lot to cover at one time. Pay day wouldn't work for us...we are all direct deposit lol

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

One employer withheld paychecks. It was very effective, but not very popular.

Be very clear about who the meeting is for. At 2 places I worked, quite a few "Nursing staff meetings" turned out to be for the LNAs, caregivers, and/or med techs, not the RNs or LPNs. Why not just say that?

Provide ample warning. I've had mandatory meetings called with less than a week's notice.

Serve food.

Keep it to 30 minutes or less.

[Bortaz, MSN, RN]

Quit having so many meetings. No one cares about 99% of the crap that managers and administrators find so important.

If you expect people to stay for a meeting after working a long, hard 12 hour shift, GET THERE EARLY AND HAVE EVERYTHING PREPARED. Start on time, do not waste time, take control of your meeting...and most importantly, make sure it's important and not a waste of a tired nurse's time.

Just because you work that lovely M-F 8-5 doesn't mean your meeting time is convenient to everyone else. If the nursing shifts end at 7, don't start your meeting at 9:30. Again, no one cares about the subject matter to begin with, and they most assuredly don't care enough to have to hang around 4 hours waiting to hear it.

It would not kill a manager/administrator/educator to hold a facilitated meeting during night shift hours. You don't turn into a pumpkin at midnight. And it's not like you have to do it at night all the time.

In fact, I bet if you were told you had to have the meetings during night shift, you'd have a 90% reduction in the number of meetings you want to hold.

Not you specifically, of course. I don't even know you.

[Nurse_Wretched]

Holy ****, Bortaz...you just took the words right outta my mouth! I haven't shown up for a work meeting in 6 months +. I'd much rather read the memo!

Our staffing coordinator once held a meeting where everyone was called to cofirm their attendance yet the speaker wasn't cofirmed. LOL We showed up for a meeting in which everything was read off of a piece of paper. Haha. It took me 40 minutes to get there for a 45 minute meeting that was completely useless. I haven't shown up for any meetings since then... They really should start using the online venue alot more!

[wooh, BSN, RN]

We get told they have to have the staff meetings because people won't read their emails. Well then punish them for not reading their emails instead of punishing the rest of us by making us come to staff meetings!