Veteran night shift RN - Being forced to rotate shifts

[Nurse Beth]

Dear Nurse Beth,

I have been a nurse for 12 years and have worked the night shift for 9 of those years.

There have been a number of changes since our hospital has been bought by another healthcare system. The main concerns; Budget and patient satisfaction. That is all any supervisor, CEO, administrator can talk about. I work in a Pedi Hospital in the recovery unit. For the last 7 years my shift has been 6:15pm-6:45am.

We have a new manager in the PACU, and she is ALL about budget. She looked at the past year and decided that since census went down between 1am and 7 am we no longer needed 2 night RN's.

She wants us to rotate our schedules so that one week we work from 12:30p to 1A, and then the next week our normal night shift. 3 out of the 4 RN's covering this shift are unable to work the 12:30p-1A schedule since it conflicts with our children's schedules. I offered to take a cut in hours and work 4P-2A every other week, since my husband was able to get his job to agree to let him leave early every other week Mon, Tues, Wednesdays so that I can make it to work on time.

I emailed this to my supervisor, and to our department head. (Our department head is on vacation until this Monday) My supervisor did not even respond to my email. I spoke with another night nurse who requested almost the same thing, but she works Fridays. Our supervisor informed her that, that is not what she needed.

She needed an extra RN during the week at the hours stated to help with lunch relief. That RN was in disbelief and informed her she was unable to work that shift. Our manager then informed her that she needed to present this to our department head, but that she needed the coverage for lunch. I don't know what else to do. I myself can not get into work any earlier than 4pm. Can they try and force me to work this shift? I don't know what else to do.

Thank you for any advice you can give me.

---

Dear Shifting it Up,

An employer can change shifts based on volume, or any other criteria.

Having said that, asking nurses to give up a scheduled shift and work rotating shifts is a big deal. It would be nice if they at least acknowledged the associated health risks of rotating shift work or the upheaval it causes in your personal life.

Your new manager is clearly just trying to do what she is told by the new administration. When challenged, she pointed to the department head. Your manager is not the power player here; the department head is.

Offer Solutions

Emailing the department head to offer a solution is not sufficient in this situation- better to request a face to face meeting and present solutions as well as concerns. You were on the right track by being flexible and offering a solution.

Is there another nurse who would share the shift with you? i.e. She/he covers the first half (and lunch breaks) and you cover the second half. Or could the 4 nurses covering this shift get together and come up with a schedule as a group that meets the employer's needs?

Your Options

You can't be forced to work” this shift, or any shift. You have been presented options and have to choose whether or not to accept them.

If you work in a union environment, then preferred shifts can be awarded by seniority.

Best of luck, and sorry. It's really unwise on the employer's part when they don't make more of an effort to empower their staff and include them in decisions.

Nurse Beth

[LPNtoRNin2016OH, LPN]

I do not have much experience with swing shift type situations other than my husband (non medical job) who did it for awhile. He gained weight and years...your body isn't meant to constantly change your sleep cycle. I never understood hospitals doing the one week nights, one week days thing. No way I would do that, I would take a significant pay cut to avoid that. I do know what it's like to have your employer hop on the patient satisfaction at all costs train. I used to work at a small clinic associated with a large hospital system. Our patient scores were high: they were familiar with us because turnover was fairly low and we knew them all on a personal level to the point we could ask "How is your Aunt Edna in Michigan feeling since her surgery?". Our patients felt appreciated and they trusted us. Well then the whole "patients rule, our employees drool" crap started and our scores plummeted, turnover is high, and half of the staff that once worked there (including me) no longer do. We were pretty much told in a straight forward way that if a patient were to yell, cuss, or make derogatory comments at us, we were to take it, smile, and tell them to have a good day. But we could report it at the end of our shift if we wanted, the patient would not hear of it again though. They also made many changes to the clinic model that made no sense to our patient population...I have a friend who still works there, it's worse than ever. I really have no idea what management was thinking. It's like when some nurses become management or administration they loose all common sense.

[Baviary]

I also worked overnight and found that many nurses thought like you. This means that the responsibility of covering falls on US! We have to work as a team. Maybe if you took a shift once in a while this wouldn't have happened to you. Sorry but refusing to do ANY call is selfish.

[caliotter3]

When in the military, I spoke to my manager (worked in a 24/7 type facility) about a study I had read regarding rotating shifts. He laughed at me and refused to even consider any changes which would have been beneficial to all concerned. When working at a civilian job where management decided to completely overhaul the shift hours, people adversely affected, started looking for new jobs. You have the option to seek a better situation. Unfortunate that people will be forced to leave their positions because of this change.