Team,
Last month’s Nurses Week was so much fun! I loved getting to greet so many of you as you came into work and hearing all the inspirational stories during the Professional Nursing Awards and the Awards of Excellence. Listening to how you pitched in to help your colleagues, took extraordinary measures to help patients in need and followed safety protocols to ensure we deliver the best care possible really made me proud to be part of such an amazing team of nurses.
It was a week full of smiles, laughter and feeling good about where we are as nurses at UAMS, and I think we all needed that. I wish we could bottle up that week and return to it whenever we need a boost.
Unfortunately, the smiles and laughter of more recent weeks have been interspersed with the many real-world issues we continue face. For our nursing leadership team, dealing with absenteeism and the impact it has on our teams, patients and UAMS as a whole is a big concern.
In reviewing our nursing workforce data, I was shocked to see that, according to the U.S. labor statistics for health care, our lost work hours due to absenteeism are twice the national average. This means we lose 1,200 to 1,500 hours more per pay period than the average hospital. Given this, I guess it should come as no surprise that one out of three nursing team members has enough unapproved absences to be in the disciplinary process.
I’m looking at the numbers and how this affects our finances, patient engagement, quality and safety outcomes and the team overall. I want you to think about this personally – how it affects you and the care you provide when your department, clinic or unit is short-staffed because of “call-ins.”
I’ve been a front-line nurse with small children and other family obligations, so I understand that things happen unexpectedly, and you sometimes need to call-in. Our attendance policy factors in consideration for when “life” happens. I realize that the environment you are working in is not the same as when I was at the bedside. Workplace violence wasn’t something we had to deal with, and it seems like delivering patient care wasn’t quite so complicated. Being a nurse is harder now. That, coupled with the challenges of life, can definitely be overwhelming.
It’s important to take care of yourself both professionally and personally and try not to overextend. There are many things that factor into absenteeism, but I have a hunch that one of the primary drivers is too many of us are trying to do too much. We all have limits and will hit our “wall” eventually. The downstream of this can be tough — both personally and professionally.
Absenteeism is not a new problem, but it has risen to a level that we have to address – in a carefully balanced way. We are working to identify structural resources to help us better track absences and ensure appropriate and consistent accountability. Allowing staff to take advantage of an imperfect system is not fair to the many employees who faithfully come to work and take on the burden of those who don’t show up. Excessively punitive measures that negatively impact those who are following the rules are not the answer, but continuing the status quo is not the answer either.
Many of you have worked at other healthcare organizations and are familiar with their attendance policies. If you have experience with a system that you like and believe is fair to all employees, please share it by sending an email to UAMSStrong@uams.edu. Our goal is to update our policies and guidelines, so they are realistic and reasonable while protecting our patients, colleagues and the institution from misuse.
It’s inevitable that we’ll all have occasional issues that prevent us from coming to work. Our attendance policy allows for this. What it doesn’t allow for is excessive absences and a mindset of just skipping work when you’re “not feeling it”.
When you don’t come to work, there’s a downstream impact on your team, your patients, UAMS – and, most importantly, yourself. There will be times in the future when you actually need to call in. If you haven’t prepared for this, you may find yourself in the disciplinary process or even dismissed from UAMS.
This is a tough topic, and it can be polarizing, but the message I hope you take away from this is your well-being matters and so does that of our patients and colleagues. They are intertwined and interdependent, and this realization is important when we think about how to make our work environment a healthy one for all.
If you need to talk to someone, please know that our Employee Assistance Program resources are available.
Tammy Jones, PHD, RN, NE-BC
Chief Nursing Officer
Associate Vice Chancellor for Patient Care Services & Clinical Operations
Perioperative, Interventional & Imaging Services Division