Need to motivate nurses? Try money and perks
Need to motivate nurses? Try money and perks
(Editor’s note: Outpatient surgery nurses are being asked to work longer hours, with smaller staffs, and under tighter cost constraints. It’s enough to give a bad attitude to the most dedicated employee.
In this first part of a two-part series, two same-day surgery programs come to the rescue with ideas that you can use to motivate your staffs. Next month’s issue will explain a pay-for-performance program that has resulted in better attitudes, more initiative and creativity, better attendance, and fewer staff complaints in a same-day surgery program.)
How would you like to motivate your staff and save $42,000 in the process? That’s just what Gulf Coast Hospital in Panama City, FL, did with an incentive plan that offered staff monetary rewards for implementing ideas that decreased supplies, standardized supplies, or changed processes. The project was offered to OR personnel, GI lab staff, central service supply, and the surgery center staff because managers agreed to oversee the program in those areas.
Under the incentive plan, employees could be awarded 15% of the estimated annual savings, with a cap of $1,500 for each project. The cost savings had to be demonstrated for six months before the employee received the reward. Even minor cost saving ideas were rewarded with pizza or movie coupons.
Staff members could suggest ideas as individuals or a team. If they proposed ideas as a team, the dollars were split among team members. The person or team that proposed the idea was responsible for implementing the idea, with support from management.
The staff incentive plan has been offered twice and rated a success by Angela M. Marchi, RN, MS, administrator of business development at Gulf Coast Hospital. Marchi suggests other same-day surgery programs follow her lead and offer staff incentive plans only periodically to maintain enthusiasm and minimize the administrative work required.
The top money-saving proposal from the staff incentive plan was daily leak-testing of scopes in the gastrointestinal lab. A leak tester is attached to the scope. The scope is submerged in water, and any bubbles indicate a leak. When leaks are found, the scopes are sent for repairs before major problems develop. This system of leak- testing takes about 10 minutes to set up and about five minutes to test each scope.
Previously, leak-testing was done on an as-needed basis when problems were found. This system often resulted in the need for major repairs that each could cost as much as $6,000.
Changing the system of leak-testing decreased the repair bill to about one-third of the previous year. The total annual cost savings was determined to be $10,340.
When implementing a staff incentive plan, be sure to get buy-in from the materials manager, Marchi advises. "A lot of the work in determining the cost savings is going to come through that person," she says.
Executive director scrubs in
At Arkansas Surgery Center of Fayetteville, the nurses receive some unusual motivation that reminds them they’re all part of the same team: The executive director, who also is an RN, scrubs in at least twice a week. He also stocks rooms and even mops floors.
Why?
"It breaks down barriers to get in there and do things the staff do," says Russ Green, RN, executive director of the center. "It shows you’re not so detached from the daily operation." It also shows the staff that you don’t consider yourself to be above doing hands-on work, Green says.
Motivating the nursing staff is a key issue for Green because most of his professional staff, including nurses, are PRN, and the center is open weekends. Here are some ideas that have helped:
• Breakfast and lunch are offered at no cost to the staff on busy days. One recent meal include food from an upscale Italian restaurant served with silverware instead of plastic forks and knives.
• Tickets are offered to college sports games. One physician donates season basketball tickets to the center every year and uses the donation as a tax write-off.
These tickets are used as incentives for nurses who work the day after holidays, work overtime, are mentioned by name in patient surveys, or offer money-saving ideas. One nurse recently made a suggestion that resulted in the center’s changing from $25 procedure packs to $9 procedure packs.
The tickets are presented in front of the staff.
• The center supplies a staff softball team with T-shirts and caps and picks up the tab for happy hour outings after games.
• Nurses are paid to attend inservices, and lunch is catered.
• Nurses can receive 5% of their gross annual salaries if they meet their goals and objectives, which they write and which are mutually agreed upon with their supervisor. These are linked with the facility’s goals and objectives.
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