I have a huge interest in reasons we get fired, laid off or walk out of jobs. I believe we are more vulnerable than we can conceptualize, many years ago nurses were considered valuable assets and being a nurse meant we had a job for life. This is no longer true, the older we become the more expensive and the more volatile our position is! So this is a series of Articles where I explore my top 10 reasons.
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Unless you are wrapped in cotton wool and live in a fantasy world, we have all experienced or know somebody who has experienced problems at work. Sometimes the situation is self-made and sometimes the situation is pure and simple harassment or bullying. No matter what part of the country you work, if they want to get rid of you they will. You cannot imagine how easy it is to find mistakes and reasons to fire somebody, or to place people in situations where they shoot themselves in the foot or they volunteer to step down or move on.
How do I know, it is simple really ... I was once in a position where it was expected of me to find a reason to fire somebody, if I was told to do it.
If companies want to save money quickly, there is no quicker way to save money than by laying off staff! It is instant and their bottom line sees an immediate result.
10) Constantly Berating Employees
As we all know management can wear people down by constantly berating employees, this can be accomplished in various ways. A very successful example of this is when your manager begins finding every fault that you have made, then calls you out on these mistakes until you start second guessing yourself, once you start second guessing yourself, this is when the huge mistakes happen and management have won!
There is no better way to 'get rid' of an employee, than to cause the worker to become self conscious and paranoid, they begin to start constantly questioning their working practices. Looking over their shoulders, and majority of the time will start looking for a new job, before they are fired.
This kind of harassment can work on all types of employees, we are nearly all vulnerable to our inner voice!
This takes the responsibility off the shoulders off the managers, they don't have to fire or lay off the employee because the employee removes themselves from the situation. Nice and tidy. Game, set and match.
How it can begin!
Many of us due to time restraints do not document or communicate as accurately as we would like to or we are just plain lazy, it doesn't really matter for this scenario, majority of the time we verbally hand over our patients to the next shift, we also will rely on good handover from the previous RN, which can lead to a trail similar to 'Chinese Whispers'.
'Chinese Whispers' is a childhood game where a group of people stand in line, the first person whispers a message to the person next to her, that person relays the message to the next and so on, when you get to the end of the line that person will tell you what the first person said, 9 times out of 10 there is no resemblance to the message which started out! I can honestly say I have played that game many times, it is hilarious, In all the times I have played this game I have never know the correct message to get to the end, and sometimes it is hard to believe that somebody along the way didn't deliberately change all the wording! Unfortunately it is not hilarious if you are at the end of the chain at work and it all lands at your feet, to pick up and scramble together.
What I am really getting at here is we are only as good as the original message and if it is not communicated to us correctly then potentially we could be in big trouble. If you work on a busy floor you do not always have time to review the previous days orders on a patient until later on, and sometimes even then it can be difficult due to emergencies which may occur on your shift.
I guarantee that if they are watching you that they will find the one thing you didn't do!
They won't listen to excuses, because they are just not interested
(Disclaimer this is meant to be series of articles, and should not be considered a stand alone one off, please read all of them over the next few weeks. I know some people have to be fired for poor performance and I will get there.)
