Weekend Staffing

[teacher91, BSN, RN]

Our facility has a very difficult time having enough staff to work the weekends. We’ve thought about trying to implement weekend (Baylor) option or a 4 days on, 2 days off rotation. Does anyone know of other good strategies to staff the weekends?

[Archerlpvn, LPN, LVN]

Have y’all tried offering enticing/generous weekend differentials? I think a 4 on 2 day off would work for less people, and cause increased turnover.

[TheDudeWithTheBigDog, ADN, RN]

The "difficult time" is because while management is at facilities (Monday to Friday, 7-3 shift) they tend to schedule more staff to keep their job easier, and evening/night shift and weekends get less staffing to make up for it.

It's really simple, just schedule people on weekends.  Stop trying to do everything with a barebones staff.  Nurses and aides are a kind of required expense of nursing homes.  Just hire them and schedule them.

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

On 10/6/2020 at 12:34 PM, TheDudeWithTheBigDog said:

The "difficult time" is because while management is at facilities (Monday to Friday, 7-3 shift) they tend to schedule more staff to keep their job easier, and evening/night shift and weekends get less staffing to make up for it.

It's really simple, just schedule people on weekends.  Stop trying to do everything with a barebones staff.  Nurses and aides are a kind of required expense of nursing homes.  Just hire them and schedule them.

Yes, DudeWIthTheBigDog is pretty much on point with this. For some odd reason there's always more staff on weekdays when management is actually there to step in if needed, funny how that works?

Evenings/nights/weekends whoever the poor nurse that is designated "supervisor" is left to figure it out on their own while somehow doing their own job besides. I've been in that situation more times than I can count and it truly sucks. I no longer work LTC and that's just a small part of the reason why. 

Eventually I got to the point where I just starting calling the DON to deal with it if there was a staffing crunch I couldn't fix without minimal effort.  Sadly minimal effort usually meant just telling whoever was first on the list that they had to stay another shift. Made me real popular, not!!

They had stopped paying the designated supervisor more so I just stopped doing whatever was too time consuming to prevent me from doing my actual job. Fortunately my DON at the time was a good one that actually answered calls and dealt with the issues. I know that's not usually the case. 

[Purple_Clover]

On 9/8/2020 at 8:45 PM, teacher91 said:

Our facility has a very difficult time having enough staff to work the weekends. We’ve thought about trying to implement weekend (Baylor) option or a 4 days on, 2 days off rotation. Does anyone know of other good strategies to staff the weekends?

Money talks. Try offering a (or a better) weekend differential. A surefire way to get people to work more is to offer bonuses for picking up shifts. You'll have people fighting to pick up shifts.

[Dani_Mila, BSN, RN]

At my job, they have a system of making staff work every other weekends. I for one don't mind working on the weekends. That, and I get a weekend differential.

[VeSharne McPherson]

Does anyone know where  I can find documentation as whether weekend Case Management is required per CMS?

[downsouthlaff, LPN]

The best for our facility when we had this problem was 12 hour rotations. It worked well for our nursing home. 6a-6p and 6p-6a nurses rotate between working a M,T,F,S,Sone week and then only working Weds, thurs the next giving them every other Fri sat sun off. It has worked wonders for satisfaction of floor nurses at our facility and requires less staff 

[dennis8, ADN, BSN, CNA, RN]

At my first job I was an RN supervisor at a LTC doing nights. RN's were 12 hr shifts and LVN's/aides were 8 hrs. I always had a difficult time filling the night shift (someone always called off for the 11pm-7am, especially weekends). We had 3 wings and at a minimum we needed 3 LVN's to run the 3 medication carts. When I asked the staff what the previous supervisor would do to remedy this situation they said the RN supervisor would either take the run or the 2 other LVN's would divide the 3rd run (not me!). How am I or the other LVNs supposed to do our own work if we had to take on more work than we can handle? Luckily there was always this one LVN from PM shift who was willing to stay over till about 1AM to help pass meds. Administration had the gall to tell me that they didn't like how they were racking up so much overtime pay for this employee. I'm glad it wasn't too long before I found a hospital job and never looked back. Sorry for going off on a tangent, but DudeWIthTheBigDog is on point. Either they need to staff people adequately or the cycle will just continue.