unprofessional behavior

[grammied50]

have 2 staff nurses who have poor behavior,shunning the charge nurse if things do not go their way. for a long time we had no admin. staff and this has been going on for 2 plus years. they do not go to the charge nurse with concerns but have mx. complaints behind her back. both have good clinical skills but see no other view points other than their own. i see very passive aggressive behavior. one issue has already been taken to human res. and she has been given a written warning. their culture is different and they are both very position and money oriented. one is a md's/officers wife. i am at a loss as to what to do? as the charge nurse/supervisor i could walk on water and it would not change their cruel behavior! any ideas would be most helpful.

[psnurse]

I am not a manager, but my manager has a good approach. She requires all complaints to be backed up with specific examples of the offending behavior. Investigating even small complaints has cut down on the back biting in our unit.

[JillR]

Do they work together? We had two nurses that were like that, but way worse when they worked together. They seemed to feed off of each others venom. When they were split up, no problems.

[KSEFLINK]

You could start a new ground rule for your unit="that all problems first have to be discussed between the 2 or 3 people involved, with documention of the ideas or conflict resolution decided upon. That will get you out of the middle and make them responsible for fixing things. If this does not work, then you need to keep documentation and counsel both of them with the help of your leaders and HR. If you work at the place I think you do, its reputation is important in the community and your leaders should back you up. Sometimes it is important to take negative personnel out of the unit. I know I had the same situation and finally one was fired and one quit and the whole unit changed for the better.