Staffing and Schedules: Yes, Nurse Managers Get Burnt Out Too

There’s a lot sitting on a nurse managers plate: quality patient care, safety, and pairing that with the most qualified nursing staff. Scheduling can be an arduous daily task for even the most experienced nurse manager. Especially when you have to follow a strict hospital budget. Burn out is inevitable.

Let’s face it, nurse managers have a tough job scheduling and staffing their hospital units with appropriate nursing staff.

The Complex Role Of A Nurse Manager

Nurse managers have a complex role that they play in the everyday life of a hospital unit. Some of the responsibilities of a nurse manager include:

• Ensuring safe patient care with special focus on quality care
• Management of nursing staff
• Recruitment of nursing and other hospital staff
• Counseling and coaching nursing staff
• Staffing and scheduling of nurses and allied hospital staff
• Adhering to hospital budgets

Keeping Everyone Satisfied And Safe

Nurse managers are pulled into several different directions trying to keep both nursing staff, hospital administrators as well patients, happy and satisfied. There are multiple studies that show nurse managers spend a large amount of time on staffing and keeping nurses satisfied with their schedules. Old methods of staffing using ‘phone trees’ and calling multiple nurses to work on their days off can prove to be time consuming as well as inefficient.

Nurse Fatigue Causing Serious Problems for Nurse Managers

Studies show nurse fatigue is increasing in healthcare. Nurse managers mangers need to pay special attention to scheduling nurses on their days off due to inadequate time off, which can cause increased fatigue. Nurse fatigue is a serious problem and can cause issues with unsafe patient care, increase in medical errors, and poor moral in the workplace

Adding flexibility to schedules in the workplace will not only improve the overall working environment for nurses, but it will also promote positive emotional health. Positive peer coaching from nurse managers who exhibited high emotional intelligence also proved to retain nurses. Nurse managers need greater support and training in order to provide the adequate support and training to their nursing staff.

Nurse Managers and Job Satisfaction

Nurse managers need to feel heard and valued in order to avoid burnout by their administrative staff. In order for nurse managers to have increased satisfaction with their role, the following is necessary.

• Administrative support
• Positive nurse manager and staff relationships
• Organizational and leadership support
• Focused need on responsibilities assigned