Abstract
Staff management in the nursing world is understood to mean the organization and supervision of the nurses in their day to day routine in hospitals. The responsibility of managing the schedule of nurses lies squarely in the hands of a staff manager. However, the modern day trend is such that such management is delegated to the nurses in a self governance strategy. In this entrenched culture in the field of nursing the work of the nurse manager is reduced to scrutinizing the determining the accuracy of the schedule and making importance adjustments.
Critique of a Staff Schedule
In the case where a nurse requests for a vacation this can be handled in the spirit of delegation of the duty to another nurse who is willing to take up the time so long as the nurse that does that is does not get overwhelmed. This can be achieved through requesting the nurse/s that has a week off whether they could be able to be on duty. This choice would be more appropriate since it gives room for the nurse who is asking for the vacation during the week to also reciprocate the gesture of the colleagues in the event where the nurse is also asked to do the same for another. Where there is entrenched self governance though, the nurse who needs a vacation is left to negotiate with the colleagues so that the decision is reached amongst them on how to cover the time where when the nurse would not be present. This decision as a result of negotiation of the nurses makes it more acceptable to the colleagues as opposed to being ordered to cover the hours of a nurse in vacation which may not be received kindly. This in turn allows for quality working conditions.
References
http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_sullivan_effective_6/21/5492/1406066.cw/-/1406092/index.html
http://nursingworld.org/FunctionalMenuCategories/MediaResources/PressReleases/2001/ANAPressRelease.aspx
