Healthy Workforce
Ending the Conflict Between the Day and Night Shifts
Set them up for success
Here’s the third in our series of “culture of caring” initiatives that can help transform your workplace from one of unkindness and dysfunction to one of compassion, professionalism and mutual respect.
Bad Behavior: Sabotaging the Incoming Shift
Culture of Caring Solution: Smoothing the Way
Each shift seems to believe that they do more and work harder than the other, and that the opposite shift somehow has it easier. We sometimes forget that care happens 24 hours day. Although there are differences in the structures of the shifts, patients still get admitted; unexpected crises occur; and medication administration, assessments and documentation continue both day and night.
Fights between nursing shifts are seldom overt, but while they may be more subtle, they can still be savage. Nurses on one shift may “dump” problems on one another, withhold information, nitpick each other to death during shift reports and endlessly bad-mouth each other.
