Twenty Nickels
If you save twenty nickels, you’ve made a dollar
by
Raymond Matkowsky
www.datastats.com
email: rdm@datastats.com
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Issue 10-09 October 2009
You have to care!
by
Johnetta Matkowsky
You have to care. When you become “the boss” you get all kinds of advice; “they’re not your friends, they’re your employees,” “they’ll take advantage of your kindness,” “show them who’s running this place,”etc. Well guess what? If you adopt the latter approach you’ll see who truly is running the place when they all call out sick or they refuse to help you out when it’s crunch time! Your employees are your customers too and need to be treated as a valued part of your business.
As a nurse manager for over sixteen years and a director of nursing for the last four, I’ve worked with many different personalities and abilities. Just as one size does not fit all, one approach to your staff does not reap the greatest potential. You must identify what is important to them. One person may do an excellent job but considers praise as BS; another may need to be coached along but thrives when commended for a job well done.
In a small business or department, you have the ability to learn about your staff. In a larger business, you must rely upon your managers to be your eyes and ears. If an employee needs a certain day off isn’t it better to encourage them to find coverage or to come to you instead of calling out and leaving the department short handed or scrambling for help at the last minute?
A flexible manager models that kind of behavior for the employees. Eliminating overtime is a task that most employers seek, yet is sometimes difficult to accomplish. If your staff understands your goal and knows that you will work with them for their needs, they will be more likely to switch their days off to cover the shift without overtime.
As an example, to replace a registered nurse making $40 per hour on any given shift, you would pay $60 per hour for overtime for someone on your staff. This may make the nurse happy but will affect your overtime budget negatively. An agency nurse would cost at least $60 an hour also but you would get a nurse who doesn’t know your unit or your patients. Not the best solution either. If you maintain a good relationship with your staff and they are vested in the success of your unit, you can go to them and ask them to switch their day off to cover the shortage. If the staff shortage is on another shift and they would be working 16 hours instead of 8, you can offer them another day off. This is often a more attractive option than overtime. One overtime shift a week increases your costs by $480 or almost $25,000 a year! Changing days off costs you nothing.
You have to care. If the staff sees that you care for them, they will care for you and your business will flourish.
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A Call For Reader Input
We at Data Stats would like to see this newsletter become a reader supported forum for help questions, answers, or general comments on anything appearing in this newsletter or Data Stats’ website. If you have a question, answer, or comment to contribute send them to me at newsletter@datastats.com. I will try to publish it here.
If you have an urgent question to ask, you don't have to wait for our newsletter to come out. We will try to find you a reader or one of our experts that may be able to help you. So, if you have a question, comment, or think that you can be of help, send us an email at once to: newsletter@datastats.com.
Also, in your email, please let us know if we have permission to share your email address with experts that may be able to exchange ideas with you directly.
Raymond D. Matkowsky
Copyright © 2009 Raymond D. Matkowsky
Data Stats
P.O Box 672
Old Bridge, New Jersey 08857-0672
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