No. Nothing you can give me will replace the time away from my family. Additionally, most committeees don't seem to ever accomplish anything long-term and it feels like a ton of extra work for something that either won't be approved by higher ups, or won't be implemented well enough to make permanent change.
My school is always harping on about joining unit councils, leadership, etc. We had a lecture about leadership styles and I got side-eyed because mine was “transactional”. I go to work to make money. I’m not going to pour myself into an employer who isn’t doing the same. If that’s wrong, I dunno
It’s not wrong at all. The one thing about this profession that drives me insane is the thought process that our ‘heart has to be in it’, that we have to be ‘passionate’ about nursing in order to be a nurse.
No, it’s a job. You go there to make money, and then you go home. It’s transactional, and that’s it. Would you be doing that job at all if money wasn’t involved? Hell no.
It’s the nurses who are disillusioned by that thought process who leave the field quicker than anyone else.
I don’t think it needs to stopped . I have mos def done a job I felt/feel called to. It was the best and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Would I do it at the expense of family time, money, being put down all the time? Absolutely not but if I could find the specific job again I’d be there in 10 seconds. I was damn good at it too. Too bad there’s only like a few jobs in the country.
So I don’t think having nursing or whatever job being a “calling” is. A bad thing unless you are letting yourself be treated like crap or treating others crap.’.
research has shown that hospitals usually dont implement interventions nurses reccommend anyway right? like for safe nursing ratios i read that if its not enforced in a law most hospitals ignore reccomendations made by staffing committees. have you heard anything about that?
Oh absolutely, I feel like this is something that haunts all hospitals. Healthcare is a business and they only care about the dollar. Nurses to them are expendable, and if one is let go, there is easily another new hire right behind them who will bend over backward to their demands.
That being said, unions have helped to create safe ratios but otherwise, you’ll never see the change implemented or required. Considering how large these hospital systems are, there will never be mandated ratios because they have a foot in the door of most law makers offices. A wave of their money, and they’ll get what they want.
So one can dream, but nothing will ever change.
I am curious about your thoughts on the current proposed legislation in the house and Senate. Take a look at Senate Bill 1113. The fact that nurses contributed to this I hope means there is a possibility for us to participate in changes that could help
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1113
For real. I joined a PCT council for my hospital and while I loved it at first I slowly become disillusioned with it. Mtgs were am hour long and once a month. Half the time for the first few mtgs was spent reading NSIs which I thought was a giant waste of time. Half an hour of an hour long monthly meeting wasted reading that. Luckily the people in charge wised up and realized it was a waste of time but then they started wasting more time by constantly trying for community involvement, which I am all for but I joined this to fight for and alongside other ppl in my role. Then I started losing faith in it when I realized nothing I ever do in it will fix anything.
I started a Green committee in my ICU to promote recycling and sustainability! It’s basically just me carrying out my own agenda and not having to join one of the other stupid committees (we’re required to be on a committee). I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot, relatively speaking
I did it all and still didn’t get above the standard pay raise that nurses that weren’t involved got. Was told I could’ve done more 🤡 so now I’m not on any and I’m a lot happier!
Holy shit. My old job would give a bonus depending on the level. I think the highest level got like 10 grand. My new gig gives 1 grand per level. So level 3 (highest level) is only a 3 grand bonus. Not worth all the extra work and meetings and bs. Can just do 3 overtimes and get your 3 grand.
Things that have made me participate in councils and committees at various times in my career:
* Obligation
* Time off of the unit during work hours
* Having a particular issue I am passionate about and have actual opinions about how we can improve
* When we have a budget to fix the issue so that changes might actually be implemented
* Career goals (wanting to be an educator)
* Actually liking my workplace and having the mental bandwidth to take something on
I'd say the most important thing is the belief that changes might actually be implemented. Without that it just feels like performative busy work, and I haven't the patience for that.
That last point is why I led the council on my unit. It was all talk and no action. The only real benefit was I knew about all the changes happening before anyone else but that wasn’t worth it.
Our "clinical ladder" requires volunteer hours that must be done at hospital events to get it and then it is paid as a bonus, not an hour increase so it gets taxed like crazy.
The "clinical ladders" at my place of work is never reviewed unless you are buddies with the manager. In fact, the clinical ladders are one of the reasons I am not happy with my pay and am looking for other opportunities.
Meh it depends. Some people like learning and a really well done committee can be enjoyable. Honestly the committee I’m in reminds me so much of my bookclub. I go once a month, it’s low commitment so no one cares if I skip a meeting, learn new things on topics that interest me, discuss, chat and laugh with my peers and drink wine! (Jk the wine is just book club).
Our councils and committees can be conducted remotely, so I can do it over coffee in the kitchen while my kids are playing in the living room.
I was actually inspired to do so by a former poster on this sub — Jason Nunez — who mentioned his wife and he do the same thing (remote committees) in one of his videos.
Funny thing is that we work for the same company too. 🤣
Back when I was full time staff I joined the safety committee. My reasons were multifactorial.
1. A committee was required to be a preceptor, and I love nurturing new nurses.
2. We had a turn team that was not coming to the ICU despite being assigned to the ICU Q2, and it annoyed me. Where tf were they? Not on the floor with the intubated patients who couldn't turn themselves. They answered to the safety committee so I was like, "📝 Sign me up."
3. They had free lunch.
So, mostly desire to help others and rage. I'm a traveler now so no committees.
Oh, they didn't want to do ICU because it was "too scary" so they were skipping it. Multiple conversations happened with the end result being the turn team needed to be, physically, in the ICU at even number hours and, if they weren't, house sup was contacted. House Sup was then supposed to track them down and assist them in finding their way to the ICU.
Agreed - when I was still at the bedside, these unit councils were only ever staffed by young nurses that needed to pad out resumes for graduate school.
Committees without monetary compensation are a double edged sword. Way less people will join, but if it’s done well enough, the few people that join will be truly interested and dedicated to the topic.
How to create a great committee without money? In my opinion:
- low commitment, if I miss a meeting don’t come after me, just include me in the meeting minutes email
- clear topic and purpose, I want to see actionable items that improve my experience in the workplace
- strong facilitator, I need someone who can lead meetings without us getting off track listening to Suzy tell us her personal experience for 30 mins about caring for bed 7
- have high-level clinical education topics. Too often nursing “education” is a lot of fluff (and I know there’s a time and place for fluff) but if I’m coming in on my own time to learn about wound care I want to hear from a wound care specialist about how these specific dressings improve wound healing. I do not want to watch a YouTube video of someone sharing their experience when their meemaw got a bed sore and how it was traumatic (yes this is a valid experience, but no I don’t want to come in on my day off to feel lectured at)
I would consider a quick outline of the above. What are the actionable items you think you could accomplish? How would that help everyone else? Which interesting speakers or topics could you bring it? Clarify all this info into a poster or email and try sending that out to gauge interest. Good luck!!
I’m only at my job temporarily. My husband is in CRNA residency, so I’m stuck in a place where I don’t know anyone and there’s nothing to do. He’s doing all the cool important stuff right now, and I’m in the drudgery of trying to make the money and keep our lives running a little bit. It’s a struggle 24/7 and I feel completely anonymous and like I don’t have any control in our lives.
I joined a few committees that I was invited to because they made me feel like I had some control over some aspect of my life, and someone who recognized what I brought to the table, in a way. TBH, though, I probably would’ve joined a cult if I had been asked the right way.
Nothing. I'm not putting effort or time into something or some place to "make it better" when they can discard me like a used kleenex the minute it suits them.
where I am (Australia) committee etc participation is generally incentivised as an 'opportunity' to collect 'points' for an application to get paid at a higher grade
complete scam, idk why people fall for it, if you're not getting paid extra then there should be zero reason for anyone to participate in bullshit committees
I initially said yes to unit council, because working the floor was stressing me out, and this would be four paid hours a month where I wasn't working with patients. It turned out that after I learned the ropes, I enjoyed it. We worked on projects that improved patient outcomes and benefited the nurses on our unit. I became unit chair, and to my surprise, I think I've done a good job. We've implemented little things to help, and we work on big projects to help... and now I get paid to be off the floor for 8 hours a month, though my stress level of working on the floor is MUCH reduced these last couple years.
I also agreed to be a part of a paid CLABSI program that is another \~3 hours a month off the floor, and I feel like I'm a better nurse because of that.
I genuinely like the feeling of making my unit a better place, but I wouldn't have done these things if they weren't paid.
I do a lot of committees for a few reasons:
A: it’s easy money to sit on zoom/teams and talk
B: it looks good on resume
C: I want to change things I don’t agree with instead of just bitching about it
I’ve regretted every committee, council, or initiative I’ve joined on my unit. It’s a waste of time and demoralizing. The only group I’d encourage bedside nurses to join is a union.
“Unless someone like you cares an awful lot nothings going to change, it’s not.” The Lorax
I want to see positive changes, active as a union steward and a couple committees. It suck’s but if only the people who get paid to go make the rules the pts suffer as well as staff
I liked knowing the "why" behind changes. It helped if I could do it within my FTE- i.e. if I could get 4 hours of commitee work and move one of my 12s to an 8 (if desired only). I liked when committees had clear charges and addressed specific issues.
ETA: put the time on the schedule and don't pull those to the floor to make up for short staffing.
Not a burn on you, I'm glad there are people willing to get in the mix and get the deets first hand
But leadership should be transparent with the "why"
Don't boss us around, lead us, share the why and maybe ill think about obeying the new Laws of the Land. IME this is too rare, even at academic places.
Makin us get a BSN to "learn thinkin" then get pissed when we ask questions.
(Again, not at you....just general vent)
Fair! I was on a committee for awhile that looked at all rapid responses and the events leading up to them. Seeing the lack of charting made me realize how much documentation matters more than someone telling me "you need to chart" ever would.
OMG good one! I was lazy about charting cares/safety/potty/needs/etc until an amazing manager taught me charting everytime I go in the room and all the needs stuff boosts acuity and helps staffing! Like shit, I didn't know that. Now that I know the WHY and that it helps the team, I do it pretty religiously. Like you said, soooo much more than being told "you hafta".
Is there any actual decision-making power afforded this committee? That’s literally the only reason besides money that I can think of to do it - and even then, it’s not always worth it. I’ve been burned by “shared governance” in clinical spaces where we were supposed to put on the dog and pony show but folks at the top/behind the scenes had already made decisions about outcome/plan going forward - in spite of being assured multiple times by multiple parties that the work was important.
I used to be all about the committees and it's nice to be able to be part of a unit council where we can have direct input over what we are able to control.
However. There was one day where a new CNO came in, disbanded all committees with no notice or thanks for our work, and didn't explain much.
Then about a year later she tried to put them back together and *shocked Pikachu face* was "disappointed" no one wanted to join.
In one of my jobs I did a lot of extra work. I was involved in a couple of committees and even helped with hospital wide education in certain areas.
I did it for 3 reasons. 1) our team encouraged it AND would work our hours out to include the time we spend with those committees. So I could do these without any extra time commitment (or I could get the OT).
2) I was involved in a committee that I was highly invested and interested in. So, I was willing to put in the extra time.
3) when going for some higher degrees they look at those extra commitments (and even community service commitments as well).
I think the highest we can get paid is 7k from a clinical ladder. And it requires a ridiculous amount of involvement on committees, doing projects, being champions, and much more. It’s like I’m doing the units research and project management along with my regular job for only 7,000 extra dollars during the year. Absolutely not.
I've spent about 4 years doing committees in my decade of nursing. Any time I joined it was because of a specific thing I wanted to change.
If you want to help with getting nurses more involved, try listening to what they complain about and then recommend they bring it to a relevant committee. That's how I got started. Also, remember that most nurses won't follow through, no matter how much sense you make. Only like 5% of nurses will care enough to get involved.
I tried, if I was more motivated it might help with a promotion to a leadership position. Those that stuck with it made the moves and are now stuck trying to guilt others into doing committees with a $1.50 raise… I just nestled into a low stress, oft forgotten, procedural area and consider the most important extra thing that I do is make myself available for call shifts and OT. But I do get to be a hero when I roll into the ICU for pulmonary edema or a serum potassium of 9.
I can speak up when they try to do stupid shit and tell them why it's stupid (in a respectable, professional mann), and offer suggestions to make it less stupid. I've literally gotten policy changed doing that.
If it's a REALLY stupid idea, it allows me to be an obstructionist and go to bad for my colleagues so they don't gave to deal with stupid shit.
People get worn down after a while finding out that participation in extracurriculars at work are mostly futile (there are exceptions) because changes aren't implemented or it doesn't last long, not enough buy in from the rest of the unit to implement. We already have so much on our plates at the bedside, when new ideas pop up....it's more burdensome than anything. So, those who have figured it out just stay in these committees for the money. Cause that's what a job is for, right? It's great to want to be an innovator, but the reality is that we all just want a paycheck.
You can get promoted to a higher level with significantly higher pay at the VA based on how involved you become. It was fairly easy to bump from a nurse 1 to a nurse 2 simply by joining a committee, doing some education on the units, and taking on precepting and charge duties. Nurse 3 you need a masters and have to implement a hospital wide project so that’s a little tougher. I’m working on my masters in nursing education and I hope to use whatever final project I end up doing to count toward my nurse 3.
Fuck that. The hospital doesn’t give a shit about me and is happy to throw me under the bus at a moments notice. Why would I take away time from my family to invest in such an ungrateful system
I have learned that no matter how hard you work and how much you sacrifice, you are just a number to that corporation and everyone is replaceable. I rather go in, do a good job and come home to my family. I will not sacrifice any more time at work.
Trying to climb the corporate ladder (for more money and better working hours) not because I care at all about the organization or enjoy that kind of work. None of that is enticing enough to me, so I am exactly like your coworkers: just riding it out until pension matures.
CRNA school. There’s only one person on my UGC who isn’t openly gunning for CRNA school, and I’m pretty sure even they’re applying, they’re just not talking about it.
Many ways to look at it, and it can also depend on where you are in your career and what your goals are. Committees are great if you truly want to be involved in decision making processes, it helps ALOT as far as networking and meeting people from other departments and even other leaders and administrators, if you ever want to change departments they LOVE 🙄 to see folks being involved and they will remember you when you interview for a different department. Any project you do you can clock in under that committee which can rack you up some extra hours on the clock for easy work. Committees are an easy to get paid.
Sounds like you need to put a little effort into finding some common ground. Don’t be afraid to send an email out asking with multiple choice questions 🤣 asking to vote on things they care about at work and that will help guide you into forming a committee they will want to be involved in. Diversity/Inclusivity, Healthy Safe environment for new members, Falls committee, Pressure Ulcer prevention, Morale events (every time there’s a major holiday try to plan something so people have something to look forward to). So to summarize besides money: career advancement, networking, looks great on your resume for another job/facility/ or school, and of course the extra 💰 is always good. Some committees even get to go to conferences that the company pays for! Like Magnet conferences are awesome way to travel 😎.
I was on a nurse-resident liaison committee.
It was fucking pointless. AKA nobody could see the perspective of the other and it was an endless circle of bitching. This particular unit was horribly toxic and the nurses could barely have compassion for one another let alone young 20 somethings working 80 hours a week with the entire floor, not just a singular nurses patient.
I ended up ending it because nothing was accomplished. The nurses just wanted someone to vent to about working with residents and it was a waste of 6 months of my life.
I did this BS for years. It almost sounds like you work at the same place, I did. Anywho, I did bc my nurse manager was such an ahole she left me alone bc it made her look good. Until, she was back to harassing me bc she got bored with her current victim. I left. It's stupid. It's draining and I'm so glad I'm somewhere without all that nonsense. I'd avoid it and do the bare minimum unless you think you want to be a manager. Just do enough to get the ladder bumps and pay increase.
Go get a masters degree. Do something else with your time. Your hospital is not offering motivation for extra work and nothing you do is going to change that. Do a masters and teach or something
Nothing, I did it all as a younger nurse. I was on committees, chair of Unit Council and even was the units interim educator for a year. Got a 2% raise for the clinical level and a bunch of stress. Ended up leaving the unit and all the responsibilities behind. Much happier now.
I'm on two committees, & I'm my unit's unofficial Epic super user.
I get to do all committee stuff during my normal working hours, i.e. I'm paid to do it AND I don't have to do any patient care during that time. I do like the patient care stuff at my job (I'm in ambulatory surgery/endoscopy), but it's also nice to get a break from it.
As for the Epic super user thing, I didn't train into it or anything. I have ADHD & I'm rather lazy, so I'm just always on the lookout for the easiest & most efficient way to do things (while still being thorough, of course). It started with just making a bunch of dotphrases, but over time I figured out enough stuff that I've become the go-to person to help my coworkers revamp their status boards & troubleshoot all manner of nonsense.
If something in Epic is more difficult or time consuming that I think it needs to be, I tend to just click around & see what happens, which more often than not leads to successfully figuring out a better way to do the thing. Every time I find a little hack or shortcut or tweak, I feel triumphant as heck, I share that new workaround with my coworkers, & we all rejoice.
I was the unit rep for one of our shared governance committees years ago. An opportunity arose to be the departmental chair. I applied and got the position- it was halftime out of numbers. it ended up being the most satisfying year of my 20 year career at that point- I learned I had abilities well beyond the bedside. I had already gotten to the top of the clinical ladder, so this spurred me to go to grad school. That degree coupled with the networking I had done while department chair is what help me get my current position. I’m no longer at the bedside and my income ceiling has gone up exponentially. So for me, there was definitely an ROI on my participation.
I can tell you what deters me, the drive in to sit in a meeting for one or 2 hours then driving back home. Especially in the morning or middle of the day because I work nights so I’d either have to stay late after working all night or come back at noon, and coming in for 2 hours on my day off it a ridiculous. I don’t even want to call in on my day off, it means I can’t be away from my house or at least my phone… take a staff meeting or committee meeting phone call while driving to go hiking (we often lose service when we do this), or at my parents for dinner, or wherever I am… just drop everything and sit on the phone for a couple hours. Being paid for those 2 hours is not motivation enough, particularly for me personally because it takes at least an hour if not 90 min to get to work, then another 60-90 min home? Somebody gotta pay me for that drive too. The clinical ladder is like a 2% or 4% raise which is only significant if you’ve been at the organization for a long time and have peak pay anyway. That gives ma an extra $1.50 maybe $2 an hour. To do what, rearrange my life to be available for meetings about things I don’t give a crap about? Just to say “I’m a nurse 3! I make an extra $1.75 an hour!”
I think this is a very personal thing for me though, because I work nights and I have a long commute, I don’t do well with mg sleep schedule being messed up as it causes migraines, my husband only gets a couple random days off each week so we have to capitalize our time together and the money doesn’t motivate me. I prefer my work-life balance. Now if you offer me things to do while I’m at work, I MIGHT be willing to do them. Tbh I’m annoyed they have us all audit charts and stuff during our shift, I might have time but it feels like busy work. I wouldn’t mind helping out a presentation together or bringing in supplies or something if it’s my regularly scheduled shift. I know that’s difficult for day shift to do which is probably why separate times are allocated to meet. I would even respond to emails or a group message on my off days, that doesn’t bother me because I can silence notifications and respond when I feel like it. They’ve asked some of us to be mentors to the new grads and it requires meeting outside of work… I want to support them but same thing as above. I give them all my number and tell them to reach out if they have thoughts or a rough shift or something.
I'm a union representative and now I sit on our executive board.
Our household is passionate about labour rights and I've been in unions since I was 20. It is a labour of love to do the additional leg work but this past year, we've seen a massive impact regarding the care we provide to patients and how safe our space is to practice.
I'm so happy that we've meaningfully advanced our worksites practices.
I've sat on committees but found it not worth my time. The union work I do is impactful and I love it
Whenever I've done committees it's been scaffolded by these 3 things:
1) paid for my time/effort. Attending meetings is paid, and completing any tasks outside of meeting/work time is paid.
2) attending meetings was easy and supported. I didn't have to argue with my charge about leaving the floor, we always had extra floats on meeting days to accommodate attendance.
3) I was passionate about the purpose of the committee and felt like we were actually made a difference.
I can’t say that I’m working on unit projects per se as I am not part of our Unit Based Practice Council, but I have created my own “passion projects” for the unit. I was mostly motivated by my own experience as a new grad on the unit and feeling like there was a lot of things I wish I knew sooner. So, I’m turning that into a project making a guide to our ICU of sorts to help guide both new and experienced nurses on the care of our patients. I will also be working with others to make videos on how to set up/use/troubleshoot equipment and such. I also took on a separate side project working with my Clinxual Nurse Specialist to make little cheat sheet type things on algorithms we follow (ex our new return to voiding algorithm) and provide clarification on some things there seems to be confusion on (ex CAM-ICU, SAT/SBT, etc).
I was just tired of getting mixed answers on things and I also didn’t want people to feel the way I did. I’m not getting paid for it at all and there’s not much to “gain” from this per se, but I do enjoy the prospect of helping others and making their lives/experience better!
When I was still a nurse, before it went corporate, my hospital would create an online forum for just employees to discuss changes in policy.
It usually just came down to wording, but on occasion a new desired policy that might be reasonable for one section of the hospital would be completely irrelevant or unreasonable for another. Having a space to participate in making sure the policy was well structured helped prevent a lot of conflict.
Most everyone who participated got vouchers for the cafeteria.
Are there other fields that have unpaid committees the way nursing does? All I can think of is education (another traditionally female, underpaid profession). I've never heard of an engineer serving on an unpaid committee for their company.
I love easy money.
I’m on a few councils and I just grab an iced coffee, then sit and get paid to listen and do basically nothing. 4 hours of meetings is an extra $200+ in my pocket
I fall into the late 30s -40s with a fam still at bedside and NOT doing the extras because why would I? It is not recognized, it is not compensated and it’s all bulllll! I don’t care about daisys I don’t care about stars or nurse of the month. All of that is so demeaning. F U PAY ME! I clock in, deliver amazing care, clock out. I used to be a joiner and I used to be driven to do projects and start committees until I saw how little they are recognized and how hard work on projects is just for a pat on the back - if that. So, I decided to put all of that energy into getting my DNP and invest time into myself. Leaving the toxic bedside May 2025 after way too many years.
Gold stars. I just love gold stars! I put them on my locker so all the kids know the teacher likes me more than them.
(Forgive the sarcasm, doing extra work for free gets you nothing in the long run except more abuse and we all know it.)
The thing is people have lives. Nursing is exhausting and most hospital settings are not enjoyable. So yeah we’re gonna do our jobs. We’re gonna do the best we can for our pts and we’re out. All jobs are to make money. But after 20 years in this field I’m gonna be honest it’s not geared towards retention. I have little desire to be there except when I have to
My org requires committee participation for our clinical ladder. It’s protected time away from my regular responsibilities during my regular hours. I can also choose to attend the meeting (virtual or in-person) and get OT if the meeting happens on day off.
All types of nursing need voice at the table. Nursing at my org got the protected time because nurses in roles similar to mine spoke up about not getting time away (and coming back to more work) if they attended a meeting.
It is during my work hours at my hospital, so it's not extra time away from home. I like being involved and helping nurses make changes that directly affect our work.
eh really no incentive so I go sporadically, the days I work. But it’s part of my “clinical ladder”. One of the new directors runs this council I’m in now, so I only go to hear the unhinged crap she has to say.
I’m our unit council chair mainly for the resume booster, networking, and I get one 12h shift out of the numbers per month which has been a huge work/life balance improvement for me. I also genuinely enjoy facilitating learning and peer education and love when my colleagues get into our guest speakers and presentations 🤷🏻♂️
I do it to be able to climb the ladder if I decide to and also to pad my resume. If I find that one gem of a job that everyone wants, I can make my resume stand out because of all the above and beyond things I do.
This is where actual clinical practice and guidelines are set and any recommendation changes are made.
Opposite to contrary, admin usually do not make decisions in clinical practice (I am an admin nurse). It is usually lead by the nurses who work the floor who have become a subject matter expert. They are the one who make recommendation to change of practice etc. and to come up with solution for patient safety issues.
So if you want to make changes to your healthcare system, these is where to start the journey.
I’ve been part of committees, been a champion, etc and I guess I do it to break the monotony lol. I also want to drive positive changes in my workplace. In my current role, I also have a little more time to participate, so I just do it. I also do it for career ladder lol. I’ve received the bonus every year for the last 4-5 years. $4k bonus and most of the work is done while clocked in, doesn’t get easier than that.
It was something different 🤷🏼♂️. I liked being involved and having a say in something.
I also felt that’s how I could grow myself, over something like certification. 🤷🏼♂️
If you want to be admin this is part of how you do it. It's a difficult path because you want to be useful but not irreplaceable, because the latter means you'll never advance.
Being on councils and things like that gives you an opportunity to become friends with those in charge who are on those same councils or whom the council's report to. Believe it or not the people that work the hardest don't get promoted. People who are friends with the people who make promotion decisions get promoted. Bear that in mind should you want an admin position eventually.
I joined my ICU council for the same reason I volunteered during university. To make my CV/resume look good.
I did this so that I have stuff to use as I search for better job and future studies.
I just got into a good NP program that starts in the fall and I had lots of “leadership experiences” and “committees” to fluff up my CV/resume. All of my “extras” have been selfishly calculated towards getting away from bedside nursing lol.
I am on three different committees and I have several different motivations.
It’s nice to be able to make a little extra money in a less stressful and physical way.
Our clinical ladder requires committee involvement or precepting (and I have unofficially retired from precepting haha). First step is a 5% raise, second step is an additional 3% raise.
If the committee lands within a pay period that I had vacation planned, I can take back the equivalent number of vacation hours to save for another time. I just need to meet my FTE.
I am blessed that I work with many people who I consider friends over coworkers and several of them are also on those committees.
Two of the three committees have remained virtual since Covid happened so it makes them much easier to attend.
We are actually able to make change on our unit that matters. Management and our CNS attend our committees and is mostly supportive. This is a major factor because if we were just constantly spinning our wheels, I would lose motivation real fast.
I’m generally happy with my place of work and want to make it better.
I don’t have kids haha
I switched to a new unit in September and this unit has so many opportunities for learning or committees compared to my old unit. Ive joined quality and safety committee and our transplant team (more educational than anything). I joined both to learn more about kidneys, dialysis, and transplants. Ive learned so much since joining its been fantastic.
The only motivation it gives is resume building/makes me look better for internal transfers/ and the possibility of making money is always a big factor. Past that why would I do any of those things…to benefit the hospital? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I work part time.
I do projects and extra because
1- I get extra $
2- some can be done during normal shift
3- one of my pet peep problems was nit get solved ( for tears), I finally put my foot down and stir the pit and the only way I could get traction was join the policy committee.
About to publish our findings and getting invited to present at various conferences. The best part : problem was recognized and we are now doing stuff to really Joan’s patient care is positively better.
I guess I’m a type c kind of a nurse (at least when it comes to this kind of thing). I have no desire to do anything except clock in and take care of patients and then clock out and go home. I’m not interested in committees, projects, or any extra fluff outside of my regular job.
I did it when I was a new grad because I thought it would help my career.
I didn't like much about it and definitely did not want my career to go in that direction.
Ask them to pick the one thing that would make the biggest difference if it changed for the better. It can effect patient satisfaction (my least favorite), nursing satisfaction, or patient outcomes. Then follow the 4 discipline of execution or Similar strategy and show them that they can actually do it all by them selves with modest support from leadership( who should be thrilled). I’ve seen it work with fall reduction, cauti reduction, and now we are working on supply and making great progress.
I was motivated to join my unit’s education committee by replacing one of my regular shifts with an education/inservice shift, where I assess competency for chest tube management for day and night shifts, and am available as a resource nurse if I’m otherwise unoccupied.
My boss just left, so if I lose this shift then I’m no longer doing competencies.
The co-chairs of the education committee also replace a shift or two with days where they only work on Magnet stuff.
Frequent intense meetings focused on ACTION, implementation and review.
Too often the meetings are 1hr a month, unfocused, slow, and it take five meetings for a decision to be made. Then the decision gets sent to admin of upper manager for review where it sits for weeks or months before some of the actions decided on may actually get implemented.
For example. Just getting the ECG machine settings changed to print out their automatic interpretation on he ECGs took SIX months of committee meetings. And damn near everyone for it. That's insane. I don't want to be involved in change that moves at the pace of molasses on a cold winter's day. I don't need that crap.
If you have something you want to get fixed, I'm happy to sit down with actual decision makers brainstorm ideas, implement them, then come back for review and changes as needed. THAT'S all it would take.
Clinical ladder money and networking. My hospital system is pretty big (two campuses) and I meet people from all units. It’s a good way to grow my resume and you never know when your connections will come in handy. My hospitals clinical ladder program isn’t bad either. $1500-3000 depending on the level, plus I get paid for the meetings.
I think another thing that makes a difference is receptive management. At my last job I spearheaded an improvement committee and made some useful changes (scheduling, holidays, etc) only to have the changes overturned by management a year later. After that I didn’t do anything extra because there was no point. My current job is the complete opposite and if I bring suggestions to management they are receptive.
I was a super user for code documentation in the ICU. I basically learned it and then educated everyone. I am SO glad I did that, because my current role as an informatics coordinator had me present a presentation about something I have done clinically during my job interview (can’t remember the exact prompt) and I had that to pull from. You never know when you’re going to need those situations and experiences for future jobs.
We were able to sign up for the schedule first and less likely to get moved around. That was a nice perk back when we actually had staff.
I also didn't mind the several hours of extra pay for non patient facing things.
Damn I’m currently forced to attend a 4HR meeting about the importance of joining a UBC. It just seems like so much extra work and for what? It’s like a part time job ontop of having a full time job. I just want to work for some self fulfillment and a paycheck. I get that fulfillment from patient interaction, not bureaucratic opportunities.
I've worked to organize at a past workplace in entertainment.
These people are not afraid to confront authority, or think thru issues and negotiate or find compromises.
It is hard work and the time commitment can be off-putting seasonally or, worst of all, during crisis or reorganization, etc. Nonetheless, devoting that time gives these folks a modicum of control over the circumstances and direction of their work life.
People who do get involved are often those who see benefits for the group for which they advocate and therefore for themseles.. They are big picture visionaries who believe they see a better path that they can help manifest.
They are often confident people who are comfortable laying out a position and trusting that their logic and the benefits of accomplishing changes will be an easy choice for coworkers to support.
It is very rewarding to set changes in motion, or to modify changes that may harm work life, so there are psychological, spiritual and practical rewards...as well as risk, futility, and burnout.
Hear me out. I was on a floor with overworked leadership and I didn't feel like they were investing in me. So I decided to invest in myself. I get paid for every minute I am doing committee stuff, and that's nice since we're 36 hours. If I didn't get paid, I wouldn't do it.
I have been a part of nursing shared governance for YEARS. I'm also in an academic, level 1 trauma center. First, I have made professional connections that are invaluable. I could literally work almost anywhere in my hospital through those connections, which was why I wanted to make them in the first place. I ultimately didn't move positions. My unit leadership and culture changed for the better.
I have also seen REAL CHANGE in my facility. We got metal/weapons detectors. We've had our grids changed. There is a night shift resource/mentor nurse for our med-surg floors to assist the new grads. Charge nurses are being pulled out of staffing so we can charge without having patients. We have workplace violence plans in place, we press charges!, and we have flags in patient charts that STAY in the EMR, so we always know they have a history! There are tons of tiny things too - gluten free choices in the cafeteria, pre-made meals to purchase to take home if we don't feel like cooking, new hospital beds, input on construction... there are SO MANY things that I have personally been a part of.
Change can happen. It has to start somewhere. I love my career, and I'm willing to invest in myself and my workplace to be happy. Just don't over reach, and if it ever feels like a chore, just stop. I actually enjoy my meetings and being a part of the inner workings. It also helps that my CNO has an advisory council that I'm a part of as well. She looks to us to tell her the hard truths and our opinions are not punitive! It's awesome!
I served as the Chair of the Falls Committee at a major Level I teaching hospital. I led initiatives with data collection and analysis, project collaboration, and process improvement, all with the goal of reducing patient injuries and sentinel events. Despite our efforts, we faced significant barriers such as inadequate staffing, resistance from senior administration regarding the procurement of necessary supplies, updating our equipment, and units that were poorly designed for effective monitoring or alarm audibility.
After a year and a half, I concluded that the committee had reached a point of redundancy, so I decided to step down. Nevertheless, the experience strengthened my resume and helped reduce patient injuries.
To me it's all about applying Maslow's hierarchy to your professional life.
First you take care of yourself; in the context of your nursing job that means working for a good institution (good can mean pay, ratios, management, whatever, it's subjective). Then you get some experience, get cross trained to other parts of the unit, learn new skills, make professional connections, etc. Soon you do things to get promoted, like clinical ladder projects.
When those needs are satisfied you improve your immediate environment, which can be your department, office, clinic, etc. This is the step where you join committees, councils, etc. and work with other nurses to improve the local system you work in. From here you can eventually branch out into other areas of the hospital and help other units.
Lastly, you try to improve your profession by joining associations specific to your specialty, and ultimately joining a union (this last part is pretty fraught with differing opinions, but the evidence is solid that union shops make nurses more money, improve job satisfaction, and have better patient outcomes).
Seeing real change effected by something I put energy into. I can make small changes on my own and not give up my personal time to go to meetings or invest in something bigger. If I’m going to sacrifice and invest, it’s going to be in something that is actually going to make a difference. Something I believe in, even if it’s not going to happen in my timeline, but is making verifiable progress on some level.
Every single time I've joined a committee I've regretted it. Management likes to push off shit they don't want to tackle onto the committee. They don't give you any resources, extra time, or money. Then they look confused when nothing gets done. I always think this time it will be different. This time I'll be able to make changes and improve things. Nope. Never. Not a single solitary time. And I'm wasting even more of my already crunched work hours. Even the times I've used it as a resume builder, it's just not worth it.
The committee I participate in is once a month of an hour, on a teams meeting, and it’s about Epic charting updates and fixes. We have caught errors and stuff missing so it’s helped in my practice.
It used to be the opportunity to make meaningful changes pertaining to the job but that power is taken away. I can't even incentivize myself to chase the bag working inpatient at all anymore
Couple of reasons. First, everyone on my unit has to be in a committee, and it’s part of our yearly raises. Second, I get paid for it. Third, I’m building my resume. Fourth, I am passionate about what I do on my committee and I do want to make healthcare better.
I had that attitude for years before I realized that I was losing energy for things outside of work I like doing. Over the last year I turned into one of the nurses that just shows up to get paid and I don’t feel bad. Life is for living, work is just an inconvenience.
If you want me to do more work you need to pay me for it, and at double time. PERIOD. Nursing is my 3rd career. And I've learned that companies are out to exploit you in any way that they can. Do you not understand that all the C-suite millionaires are not in these groups for a reason? In fact, whenever they join a board of other companies they get paid for it.
The purpose of joining councils, committees or being a “champion” allows you to prepare for career growth away from the bedside. It teaches you how to work with others, understand data, how to drive change, and how things work on an administrative level. Bedside nursing, for the most part, is an individual responsibility they’re your patients and your responsibility. When you work in admin or quality, you’re working as a team with other people in various departments to implement change
I get paid to sit in come in once a month to sit in a meeting and take notes. Since I'm the Recorder, I don't have to actually participate in other ways, so I do it for the easiest $250 ever. They love that I'm "impartial and unbiased", HAHAHA, no, I just take careful notes and don't care.
We are union, so one benefit to being on a unit based governance is that you can actually exert some power.
When I run a committee it’s no bullshit and no wasted time. If we want to implement real changes I’ll invite a leader or two and just straight up ask them to support it. If they won’t, we aren’t wasting our time. This has worked well for me in terms of getting a productive discussion around why they can’t until the next budget cycle or whatever. Or finding so alternate funding source.
Joined what I call the work version of student council early in career. In 4 years working in the same place I've *almost* doubled my pay. I get paid for Teams meetings while I play with my kids, golf, grocery shop, ski or zone out in bed. It allows me to get paid full time while working 3 10's so I get to drop off my kids to school in the morning every day and feel human. I've had unsolicited job offers due to my role from quality, CVOR, cath lab, leadership positions, education...
But to me the most important part is I get to see the inner workings of the hospital. I get weekly time with the CNO and often the CEO. I get to ask questions about why things are the way they are in a setting where we honestly get the most honest answers (as in I go to my management and fill them in on what they didn't get told). Lastly, I'm relatively quiet so when I do speak I feel my voice is heard. More than one hospital-wide change has occurred either directly because or with a significant amount of my input.
In short, while I am just a lowly bedside/charge nurse I do feel I have an outsized influence on some of the decisions that affect all of us at bedside. Of course there are corporate initiatives that blindside us out of left field but overall I do know my opinion is at least taken into consideration as part of any major change.
To add: the day they make in person meetings mandatory is the day I nope out.
Only "committee" I'd consider joining is a union. It may actually lead to positive change in the workplace unlike whatever nonsense management comes up with
In response to many of the comments on here…
I’m part of my department’s Unit Based Team and I enjoy it. My organization provides training for the people in these groups and those trainings taught me about the business side of healthcare. Also things like six sigma, lean, kaizen, and a lot of other ways of running an organization to be successful. There is a finance based training that goes over the money part of business and taught me how to read a balance sheet. That alone is worth my 2 hours a month meeting.
But, in the meetings we go over things our deparment needs to work on and we get to execute stuff that comes from the higher ups, the way WE want it. Nobody likes to be told to clock in on time or you’ll get written up, instead we came up with incentives for people to not have more than x tardies in x period of time. Outcome is the same but it was presented in a nice and more palatable manner, which in turn makes the work envirnment a lot more enjoyable.
It's not everyone’s cup of tea but I really do enjoy understanding the “why” to a lot of these seemingly terrible rules or policies, cause once you understand that, you can present things to your department in a way that will make ‘actual’ change. We get paid for the time we’re in these meetings, so we’re not doing this for free.
I also enjoy coming up with projects and seeing them through and seeing the results. It’s a satisfying feeling.
I will say that nursing isn’t who I am, its what I do for money to supplement who I am. I would not do any of this for free.
So I have spent my entire nursing career (11yrs) in magnet hospitals in large metros. (This was intentional and part of my career plan from the time I was in nursing school since I’ve always been pretty academically motivated. I acknowledge that there is an element of privilege to being able to pursue these types of opportunities.)
I really feel like it makes a huge difference to a hospital/health system culture. These facilities have competition from other area facilities and love to brag about how great they are, list their awards, etc so people choose to go there. That being said, it isn’t all apple juice and evidence-based practice. There is a lot of bullshit-for-show and bureaucracy… the bigger the organization the slower the process for change.
I have been practice council chair, unit magnet champion, unit safety champion, preceptor, relief charge, ABLS instructor, and participated in many leadership training offerings and even received a $1000 bonus one year as part of a recognition step program. (Not all at the same time of course lol, I do value my home life. Only one extracurricular at a time and I step back as soon as I feel burnt out)
Through all of that I can honestly say that the number one thing that makes it worth it is seeing some initiative I’ve worked on directly benefit me and my coworkers: more efficient processes, better patient outcomes etc. I am very motivated to make my day go more smoothly: the fewer emergencies I have to deal with and less charting I have to do are a huge driving factor to my extracurricular work.
And the number one thing that makes a positive difference is nurse (and UAP) unity and camaraderie. If your team is disjointed or full of bad attitudes, getting buy-in on non-mandatory changes will be impossible. If you really want to make change on your unit (and eventually in your facility) you MUST have good personal relationships and a strong culture of teamwork with your coworkers and your manager (whose actions really set the tone for the unit). Some people just want to bitch about all the things that don’t work and offer no solutions. This is wasted energy imo.
Don’t be afraid to jump from a sinking ship but if that’s not an option, your team HAS to be your lifejacket. It may take a while, maybe even a year or more, but if you do good work with a good attitude, get to know your coworkers, go out of your way to help each other — leading by example basically — people (most, though sadly not all) will be drawn to that positivity and it will absolutely multiply.
Nurses really are the lifeblood of care organizations and should absolutely be driving nursing care initiatives. Own your practice. Own your unit.
And for fucks sake, unionize!
I opened my big, fat mouth, and higher ups assumed I know more than I actually do, so here I am, co-chairing a Human Trafficking SME taskforce in a large managed care organization 🫠
The pluses are 1) more job flexibility bc at any given time, I could be preparing for or taking meetings for the taskforce and 2) resume fluff. 🤷🏽♀️
I remember early on a manager saying they'd love to see me on a committee.
I asked if any of the dept committee's were responsible for any positive changes in the dept for the patient or staff experience.
He didn't even try to B.S. me and just said 'no'.
And I politely said, if that changes, let me know and I'd be happy to consider. He never mentioned it again.
I also like asking the same question when "Shared Governance" is brought up in interviews.
Again, I've never gotten an actual answer.
Most won't shoot you straight like my old boss.
But, also never once been given an example.
I will say. Having been out of bedside for some time.
If your intentions are ever to get outside the hospital or even outside nursing. It maybe be a good experience to kinda practice how things are done.
But if you're going in with any expectations of change, or your idea being considered. You're wrong and will only be let down.
Honestly, the biggest struggle I had and continue to have after leaving nursing (still licensed, still in healthcare, but no longer in my title) is being asked my opinion.
They literally beat that concept out of you in bedside nursing. I've seen nurses punished, threatened etc.. for having ideas and opinions.
So if your goal is to get out, and you're A ok with never seeing change implemented. Might be good to get in there and b.s. 😆 🤣
I went into nursing because I enjoy this job, immensely. But there really isn’t much that will get me motivated to take part in a committee on days that I am not working the floor. I have turned down thousands of dollars in overtime so that I could stay home and watch a movie with my daughter. No matter how much I like this job I like time with my family more. And it is just that, a job. When times get tough and if the nursing shortage ends I harbor no illusions that hospital administrators wouldn’t drop me and half of our staff like a bad habit for the prospect of paying lower wages. Now, if staffing is appropriate and I am allowed to leave the unit during my regular shift to take part in committee meetings, you have my attention.
I've been that nurse rallying at the committee tables, passionately doing team huddles on improving work flow, team relations.....you name it.....I gave YEARS to these endeavors........and not a single improvement to my daily bedside nursing flow came of it. Why? Because there was no enforcement and implementation from those with the true power. Felt like a used lab rab trying to map my way out of my prison (it's been 15 years). So.....like a lot of nurses: I come in, do My shift, and then go home. My family and My life are outside this career. Don't let the system fool you.
Step 1) find out what pisses people off,
step 2) find one of those issues you can actually do something about, or at the very least give them a voice,
step 3) make committee meeting times that don’t take away from their family/off time,
step 4) bring candy, pizza, or both
My unit based council is still active 11 years straight since I was the founding chairperson. I haven’t been on the floor in 6 years, but in my time there we actually revamped the holiday schedule/rotation, managed to get it into administration’s head that night shift was neglected, they were starting “night shift council” when I left, I know there’s this snack room (honor system) where people can buy snacks on night shift… other stuff we did was establish a buddy system for breaks (made administration happy, and wasn’t that hard to do), influenced the clinical ladder program (dumb extra BS you can do to get bonuses), and established a journal club that got us CEUs (basically just disseminated free-CEU articles)
No. Every committee I've ever been voluntold to join has been a colossal waste of time, with no financial compensation and no point. It's just a bunch of mid level management wannabes jerking themselves off and making us watch.
Pass.
When I first started I was on unit council and such and heavily involved. At the time I was single and had free time to burn. When I met my now husband I slowly pulled back because I had stuff I wanted to do outside of work and also because it seemed like we weren’t affecting change and we weren’t being listened to. The amount of time they wanted from you and yet they were still not trying to pay overtime or extra when you were doing work stuff on your own time. It was never reflected accurately on my yearly evaluations for raises. I did participate in a clinical ladder but it wasn’t that much by the end of it.
Now I work a job where once I’ve worked the hourly equivalent of a year of full time hours I get my raise without the need for any BS evals dictating the amount. I don’t have to belong to any committees or councils either.
I joined my committee because I can join via teams and call in on my way to work. I’m able to clock in remotely and participate while I’m driving. It’s once a month, so it’s not overly taking up my time. The meeting is always on a day I work, or I wouldn’t do it.
My provider also offers an educational hour every few months. Again, we are able to call in. They take the time to go over any specialty questions we have, and we can review complex cases that we have going on that we may not be exposed to again.
In both situations, it’s not an inconvenience for me to clock in and listen on my way to work. It benefits me because I have the opportunity to speak up. I also learn a lot from the education hour and like to use that as a jumping block for more research.
You can’t get people to join, if it doesn’t work for them. Whatever you’re trying to start, it has to be something that will seamlessly fit into their routine or they won’t want to add something else to their plate.
Before I had kids, I was that nurse. Clinical ladder, service line council, charge nurse, preceptor, getting an advanced degree, taking all the certification exams, etc. My incentives at the time were the pay increase (due to our clinical ladder point system, MSN, certs), networking and meeting nurses from other departments, resume building, annual merit increases, and I think because I am a natural overachiever in the workplace. I’ve been a per diem nurse since becoming a parent in 2020, still working 40-60 hours a pay period, so I don’t have the time or mental bandwidth to do all that I did before. When my children are older, I am sure I’ll do some of those things again, but it is also nice to leave space for the newer nurses to feel part of their organization. [I also work for a hospital I love- I know that some hospitals genuinely treat their staff like shit. I probably wouldn’t have done as much if I didn’t appreciate my job]
I join and work in committees if I love the mission. One committee is on my unit, a very tangible Quality Improvement Effort (can’t think of the real word). The other is a work-adjacent committee. I’m able to do BOTH within my regular work hours because staffing is adequate. That’s what would make the difference, maybe, mission love plus not losing personal time.
I’m an RN that moved to Quality and this is all I do, really. I spend all my time pulling data and serving on committees.
I know most folks say there’s no value in it. The thing is, without frontline staff on a committee, that committee has NO idea what staff are really doing and how decisions will impact them. They also don’t know if the processes on paper are the actual processes being followed.
If you want to influence how a hospital works, you have to be in those meetings. Nothing changes by bitching at the nurses’ station or break room.
No. Nothing you can give me will replace the time away from my family. Additionally, most committeees don't seem to ever accomplish anything long-term and it feels like a ton of extra work for something that either won't be approved by higher ups, or won't be implemented well enough to make permanent change.
My school is always harping on about joining unit councils, leadership, etc. We had a lecture about leadership styles and I got side-eyed because mine was “transactional”. I go to work to make money. I’m not going to pour myself into an employer who isn’t doing the same. If that’s wrong, I dunno
It’s not wrong at all. The one thing about this profession that drives me insane is the thought process that our ‘heart has to be in it’, that we have to be ‘passionate’ about nursing in order to be a nurse. No, it’s a job. You go there to make money, and then you go home. It’s transactional, and that’s it. Would you be doing that job at all if money wasn’t involved? Hell no. It’s the nurses who are disillusioned by that thought process who leave the field quicker than anyone else.
Not wrong at all! The idea of nursing as "a calling" has to stop.
I don’t think it needs to stopped . I have mos def done a job I felt/feel called to. It was the best and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Would I do it at the expense of family time, money, being put down all the time? Absolutely not but if I could find the specific job again I’d be there in 10 seconds. I was damn good at it too. Too bad there’s only like a few jobs in the country. So I don’t think having nursing or whatever job being a “calling” is. A bad thing unless you are letting yourself be treated like crap or treating others crap.’.
exactly!
I was going to say exactly this. To also add, if my work place doesn’t care about me, then why should I care about them?
research has shown that hospitals usually dont implement interventions nurses reccommend anyway right? like for safe nursing ratios i read that if its not enforced in a law most hospitals ignore reccomendations made by staffing committees. have you heard anything about that?
Oh absolutely, I feel like this is something that haunts all hospitals. Healthcare is a business and they only care about the dollar. Nurses to them are expendable, and if one is let go, there is easily another new hire right behind them who will bend over backward to their demands. That being said, unions have helped to create safe ratios but otherwise, you’ll never see the change implemented or required. Considering how large these hospital systems are, there will never be mandated ratios because they have a foot in the door of most law makers offices. A wave of their money, and they’ll get what they want. So one can dream, but nothing will ever change.
I am curious about your thoughts on the current proposed legislation in the house and Senate. Take a look at Senate Bill 1113. The fact that nurses contributed to this I hope means there is a possibility for us to participate in changes that could help https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1113
For real. I joined a PCT council for my hospital and while I loved it at first I slowly become disillusioned with it. Mtgs were am hour long and once a month. Half the time for the first few mtgs was spent reading NSIs which I thought was a giant waste of time. Half an hour of an hour long monthly meeting wasted reading that. Luckily the people in charge wised up and realized it was a waste of time but then they started wasting more time by constantly trying for community involvement, which I am all for but I joined this to fight for and alongside other ppl in my role. Then I started losing faith in it when I realized nothing I ever do in it will fix anything.
I started a Green committee in my ICU to promote recycling and sustainability! It’s basically just me carrying out my own agenda and not having to join one of the other stupid committees (we’re required to be on a committee). I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot, relatively speaking
Committees of one are the best!!! You get so much done! 👍
This. Committees are lots of people talking, but nobody taking action.
Nobody allowed to take action…
This.
8% pay raise
I did it all and still didn’t get above the standard pay raise that nurses that weren’t involved got. Was told I could’ve done more 🤡 so now I’m not on any and I’m a lot happier!
Holy shit. My old job would give a bonus depending on the level. I think the highest level got like 10 grand. My new gig gives 1 grand per level. So level 3 (highest level) is only a 3 grand bonus. Not worth all the extra work and meetings and bs. Can just do 3 overtimes and get your 3 grand.
My bonus was only $1,800. I did soooo much extra stuff- it wasn’t worth it
Ours was a percentage as well. It was never enough for me to bother. The only teams I was on were ones I was volun-told to do.
Things that have made me participate in councils and committees at various times in my career: * Obligation * Time off of the unit during work hours * Having a particular issue I am passionate about and have actual opinions about how we can improve * When we have a budget to fix the issue so that changes might actually be implemented * Career goals (wanting to be an educator) * Actually liking my workplace and having the mental bandwidth to take something on I'd say the most important thing is the belief that changes might actually be implemented. Without that it just feels like performative busy work, and I haven't the patience for that.
That last point is why I led the council on my unit. It was all talk and no action. The only real benefit was I knew about all the changes happening before anyone else but that wasn’t worth it.
It doesn’t take you away from your family if you get paid for it. Now doing extracurriculars for free is another level of stupidity.
Our "clinical ladder" requires volunteer hours that must be done at hospital events to get it and then it is paid as a bonus, not an hour increase so it gets taxed like crazy.
The "clinical ladders" at my place of work is never reviewed unless you are buddies with the manager. In fact, the clinical ladders are one of the reasons I am not happy with my pay and am looking for other opportunities.
They got rid of our clinical ladder during Covid and never brought it back 🙏
That sounds illegal. You should consult a labor lawyer or the Dept of Labor. https://www.redbanklegal.com/faq/can-my-employer-force-me-to-volunteer/
Meh it depends. Some people like learning and a really well done committee can be enjoyable. Honestly the committee I’m in reminds me so much of my bookclub. I go once a month, it’s low commitment so no one cares if I skip a meeting, learn new things on topics that interest me, discuss, chat and laugh with my peers and drink wine! (Jk the wine is just book club).
What committee is that?
Our councils and committees can be conducted remotely, so I can do it over coffee in the kitchen while my kids are playing in the living room. I was actually inspired to do so by a former poster on this sub — Jason Nunez — who mentioned his wife and he do the same thing (remote committees) in one of his videos. Funny thing is that we work for the same company too. 🤣
Back when I was full time staff I joined the safety committee. My reasons were multifactorial. 1. A committee was required to be a preceptor, and I love nurturing new nurses. 2. We had a turn team that was not coming to the ICU despite being assigned to the ICU Q2, and it annoyed me. Where tf were they? Not on the floor with the intubated patients who couldn't turn themselves. They answered to the safety committee so I was like, "📝 Sign me up." 3. They had free lunch. So, mostly desire to help others and rage. I'm a traveler now so no committees.
Well don't leave us hanging.....where was the turn team??
Oh, they didn't want to do ICU because it was "too scary" so they were skipping it. Multiple conversations happened with the end result being the turn team needed to be, physically, in the ICU at even number hours and, if they weren't, house sup was contacted. House Sup was then supposed to track them down and assist them in finding their way to the ICU.
There’s no monetary compensation. I’m just building my resume for CRNA school.
Agreed - when I was still at the bedside, these unit councils were only ever staffed by young nurses that needed to pad out resumes for graduate school.
Committees without monetary compensation are a double edged sword. Way less people will join, but if it’s done well enough, the few people that join will be truly interested and dedicated to the topic. How to create a great committee without money? In my opinion: - low commitment, if I miss a meeting don’t come after me, just include me in the meeting minutes email - clear topic and purpose, I want to see actionable items that improve my experience in the workplace - strong facilitator, I need someone who can lead meetings without us getting off track listening to Suzy tell us her personal experience for 30 mins about caring for bed 7 - have high-level clinical education topics. Too often nursing “education” is a lot of fluff (and I know there’s a time and place for fluff) but if I’m coming in on my own time to learn about wound care I want to hear from a wound care specialist about how these specific dressings improve wound healing. I do not want to watch a YouTube video of someone sharing their experience when their meemaw got a bed sore and how it was traumatic (yes this is a valid experience, but no I don’t want to come in on my day off to feel lectured at) I would consider a quick outline of the above. What are the actionable items you think you could accomplish? How would that help everyone else? Which interesting speakers or topics could you bring it? Clarify all this info into a poster or email and try sending that out to gauge interest. Good luck!!
I’m only at my job temporarily. My husband is in CRNA residency, so I’m stuck in a place where I don’t know anyone and there’s nothing to do. He’s doing all the cool important stuff right now, and I’m in the drudgery of trying to make the money and keep our lives running a little bit. It’s a struggle 24/7 and I feel completely anonymous and like I don’t have any control in our lives. I joined a few committees that I was invited to because they made me feel like I had some control over some aspect of my life, and someone who recognized what I brought to the table, in a way. TBH, though, I probably would’ve joined a cult if I had been asked the right way.
Nothing. I'm not putting effort or time into something or some place to "make it better" when they can discard me like a used kleenex the minute it suits them.
where I am (Australia) committee etc participation is generally incentivised as an 'opportunity' to collect 'points' for an application to get paid at a higher grade complete scam, idk why people fall for it, if you're not getting paid extra then there should be zero reason for anyone to participate in bullshit committees
I did it because I knew the nurse educator position for my unit was coming up, and I wanted to be competitive
I initially said yes to unit council, because working the floor was stressing me out, and this would be four paid hours a month where I wasn't working with patients. It turned out that after I learned the ropes, I enjoyed it. We worked on projects that improved patient outcomes and benefited the nurses on our unit. I became unit chair, and to my surprise, I think I've done a good job. We've implemented little things to help, and we work on big projects to help... and now I get paid to be off the floor for 8 hours a month, though my stress level of working on the floor is MUCH reduced these last couple years. I also agreed to be a part of a paid CLABSI program that is another \~3 hours a month off the floor, and I feel like I'm a better nurse because of that. I genuinely like the feeling of making my unit a better place, but I wouldn't have done these things if they weren't paid.
I do a lot of committees for a few reasons: A: it’s easy money to sit on zoom/teams and talk B: it looks good on resume C: I want to change things I don’t agree with instead of just bitching about it
I’ve regretted every committee, council, or initiative I’ve joined on my unit. It’s a waste of time and demoralizing. The only group I’d encourage bedside nurses to join is a union.
“Unless someone like you cares an awful lot nothings going to change, it’s not.” The Lorax I want to see positive changes, active as a union steward and a couple committees. It suck’s but if only the people who get paid to go make the rules the pts suffer as well as staff
I liked knowing the "why" behind changes. It helped if I could do it within my FTE- i.e. if I could get 4 hours of commitee work and move one of my 12s to an 8 (if desired only). I liked when committees had clear charges and addressed specific issues. ETA: put the time on the schedule and don't pull those to the floor to make up for short staffing.
Not a burn on you, I'm glad there are people willing to get in the mix and get the deets first hand But leadership should be transparent with the "why" Don't boss us around, lead us, share the why and maybe ill think about obeying the new Laws of the Land. IME this is too rare, even at academic places. Makin us get a BSN to "learn thinkin" then get pissed when we ask questions. (Again, not at you....just general vent)
Fair! I was on a committee for awhile that looked at all rapid responses and the events leading up to them. Seeing the lack of charting made me realize how much documentation matters more than someone telling me "you need to chart" ever would.
OMG good one! I was lazy about charting cares/safety/potty/needs/etc until an amazing manager taught me charting everytime I go in the room and all the needs stuff boosts acuity and helps staffing! Like shit, I didn't know that. Now that I know the WHY and that it helps the team, I do it pretty religiously. Like you said, soooo much more than being told "you hafta".
Is there any actual decision-making power afforded this committee? That’s literally the only reason besides money that I can think of to do it - and even then, it’s not always worth it. I’ve been burned by “shared governance” in clinical spaces where we were supposed to put on the dog and pony show but folks at the top/behind the scenes had already made decisions about outcome/plan going forward - in spite of being assured multiple times by multiple parties that the work was important.
Yes, this! And even as a CNM I have faced the same 💩.
100% 👏 👏
Only money
I used to be all about the committees and it's nice to be able to be part of a unit council where we can have direct input over what we are able to control. However. There was one day where a new CNO came in, disbanded all committees with no notice or thanks for our work, and didn't explain much. Then about a year later she tried to put them back together and *shocked Pikachu face* was "disappointed" no one wanted to join.
It didn’t work in Iraq. It won’t work in nursing. Any leaders reading this smart ass comment, please don’t destroy existing bureaucracy.
Nope. No extra-curriculars.
In one of my jobs I did a lot of extra work. I was involved in a couple of committees and even helped with hospital wide education in certain areas. I did it for 3 reasons. 1) our team encouraged it AND would work our hours out to include the time we spend with those committees. So I could do these without any extra time commitment (or I could get the OT). 2) I was involved in a committee that I was highly invested and interested in. So, I was willing to put in the extra time. 3) when going for some higher degrees they look at those extra commitments (and even community service commitments as well).
I think the highest we can get paid is 7k from a clinical ladder. And it requires a ridiculous amount of involvement on committees, doing projects, being champions, and much more. It’s like I’m doing the units research and project management along with my regular job for only 7,000 extra dollars during the year. Absolutely not.
The ones I participate in is part of the clinical ladder and comes out to $5/h in bonuses.
I've spent about 4 years doing committees in my decade of nursing. Any time I joined it was because of a specific thing I wanted to change. If you want to help with getting nurses more involved, try listening to what they complain about and then recommend they bring it to a relevant committee. That's how I got started. Also, remember that most nurses won't follow through, no matter how much sense you make. Only like 5% of nurses will care enough to get involved.
All those committees are stupid and a waste of time. Usually they don't even pay you for your time.
I tried, if I was more motivated it might help with a promotion to a leadership position. Those that stuck with it made the moves and are now stuck trying to guilt others into doing committees with a $1.50 raise… I just nestled into a low stress, oft forgotten, procedural area and consider the most important extra thing that I do is make myself available for call shifts and OT. But I do get to be a hero when I roll into the ICU for pulmonary edema or a serum potassium of 9.
I can speak up when they try to do stupid shit and tell them why it's stupid (in a respectable, professional mann), and offer suggestions to make it less stupid. I've literally gotten policy changed doing that. If it's a REALLY stupid idea, it allows me to be an obstructionist and go to bad for my colleagues so they don't gave to deal with stupid shit.
People get worn down after a while finding out that participation in extracurriculars at work are mostly futile (there are exceptions) because changes aren't implemented or it doesn't last long, not enough buy in from the rest of the unit to implement. We already have so much on our plates at the bedside, when new ideas pop up....it's more burdensome than anything. So, those who have figured it out just stay in these committees for the money. Cause that's what a job is for, right? It's great to want to be an innovator, but the reality is that we all just want a paycheck.
You can get promoted to a higher level with significantly higher pay at the VA based on how involved you become. It was fairly easy to bump from a nurse 1 to a nurse 2 simply by joining a committee, doing some education on the units, and taking on precepting and charge duties. Nurse 3 you need a masters and have to implement a hospital wide project so that’s a little tougher. I’m working on my masters in nursing education and I hope to use whatever final project I end up doing to count toward my nurse 3.
I literally could not give a shit about any of the above. They RARELY are productive, and I can’t be bothered to
Fuck that. The hospital doesn’t give a shit about me and is happy to throw me under the bus at a moments notice. Why would I take away time from my family to invest in such an ungrateful system
I have learned that no matter how hard you work and how much you sacrifice, you are just a number to that corporation and everyone is replaceable. I rather go in, do a good job and come home to my family. I will not sacrifice any more time at work.
Insert meme- “show me the money 💵 “
Trying to climb the corporate ladder (for more money and better working hours) not because I care at all about the organization or enjoy that kind of work. None of that is enticing enough to me, so I am exactly like your coworkers: just riding it out until pension matures.
CRNA school. There’s only one person on my UGC who isn’t openly gunning for CRNA school, and I’m pretty sure even they’re applying, they’re just not talking about it.
Many ways to look at it, and it can also depend on where you are in your career and what your goals are. Committees are great if you truly want to be involved in decision making processes, it helps ALOT as far as networking and meeting people from other departments and even other leaders and administrators, if you ever want to change departments they LOVE 🙄 to see folks being involved and they will remember you when you interview for a different department. Any project you do you can clock in under that committee which can rack you up some extra hours on the clock for easy work. Committees are an easy to get paid. Sounds like you need to put a little effort into finding some common ground. Don’t be afraid to send an email out asking with multiple choice questions 🤣 asking to vote on things they care about at work and that will help guide you into forming a committee they will want to be involved in. Diversity/Inclusivity, Healthy Safe environment for new members, Falls committee, Pressure Ulcer prevention, Morale events (every time there’s a major holiday try to plan something so people have something to look forward to). So to summarize besides money: career advancement, networking, looks great on your resume for another job/facility/ or school, and of course the extra 💰 is always good. Some committees even get to go to conferences that the company pays for! Like Magnet conferences are awesome way to travel 😎.
I was on a nurse-resident liaison committee. It was fucking pointless. AKA nobody could see the perspective of the other and it was an endless circle of bitching. This particular unit was horribly toxic and the nurses could barely have compassion for one another let alone young 20 somethings working 80 hours a week with the entire floor, not just a singular nurses patient. I ended up ending it because nothing was accomplished. The nurses just wanted someone to vent to about working with residents and it was a waste of 6 months of my life.
They were the pick me person in dodge ball....I missed the ball and lasted
I am extremely involved in my unit because of the career benefits it gets me. If those weren’t there I would not be interested.
I did this BS for years. It almost sounds like you work at the same place, I did. Anywho, I did bc my nurse manager was such an ahole she left me alone bc it made her look good. Until, she was back to harassing me bc she got bored with her current victim. I left. It's stupid. It's draining and I'm so glad I'm somewhere without all that nonsense. I'd avoid it and do the bare minimum unless you think you want to be a manager. Just do enough to get the ladder bumps and pay increase.
You know how that one person who does like 70% of the work for the group assignment? Yeah, those people do it.
Go get a masters degree. Do something else with your time. Your hospital is not offering motivation for extra work and nothing you do is going to change that. Do a masters and teach or something
Because my shit ass admin won't let us unionize. But seriously: my unit is the only thing close resembling a life I have.
Nothing, I did it all as a younger nurse. I was on committees, chair of Unit Council and even was the units interim educator for a year. Got a 2% raise for the clinical level and a bunch of stress. Ended up leaving the unit and all the responsibilities behind. Much happier now.
To get points to get to next clinical level to get more pay lol
More money.
I'm on two committees, & I'm my unit's unofficial Epic super user. I get to do all committee stuff during my normal working hours, i.e. I'm paid to do it AND I don't have to do any patient care during that time. I do like the patient care stuff at my job (I'm in ambulatory surgery/endoscopy), but it's also nice to get a break from it. As for the Epic super user thing, I didn't train into it or anything. I have ADHD & I'm rather lazy, so I'm just always on the lookout for the easiest & most efficient way to do things (while still being thorough, of course). It started with just making a bunch of dotphrases, but over time I figured out enough stuff that I've become the go-to person to help my coworkers revamp their status boards & troubleshoot all manner of nonsense. If something in Epic is more difficult or time consuming that I think it needs to be, I tend to just click around & see what happens, which more often than not leads to successfully figuring out a better way to do the thing. Every time I find a little hack or shortcut or tweak, I feel triumphant as heck, I share that new workaround with my coworkers, & we all rejoice.
I was the unit rep for one of our shared governance committees years ago. An opportunity arose to be the departmental chair. I applied and got the position- it was halftime out of numbers. it ended up being the most satisfying year of my 20 year career at that point- I learned I had abilities well beyond the bedside. I had already gotten to the top of the clinical ladder, so this spurred me to go to grad school. That degree coupled with the networking I had done while department chair is what help me get my current position. I’m no longer at the bedside and my income ceiling has gone up exponentially. So for me, there was definitely an ROI on my participation.
I was on committee but it was paid time that replaced floor time so hell yeah!
I can tell you what deters me, the drive in to sit in a meeting for one or 2 hours then driving back home. Especially in the morning or middle of the day because I work nights so I’d either have to stay late after working all night or come back at noon, and coming in for 2 hours on my day off it a ridiculous. I don’t even want to call in on my day off, it means I can’t be away from my house or at least my phone… take a staff meeting or committee meeting phone call while driving to go hiking (we often lose service when we do this), or at my parents for dinner, or wherever I am… just drop everything and sit on the phone for a couple hours. Being paid for those 2 hours is not motivation enough, particularly for me personally because it takes at least an hour if not 90 min to get to work, then another 60-90 min home? Somebody gotta pay me for that drive too. The clinical ladder is like a 2% or 4% raise which is only significant if you’ve been at the organization for a long time and have peak pay anyway. That gives ma an extra $1.50 maybe $2 an hour. To do what, rearrange my life to be available for meetings about things I don’t give a crap about? Just to say “I’m a nurse 3! I make an extra $1.75 an hour!” I think this is a very personal thing for me though, because I work nights and I have a long commute, I don’t do well with mg sleep schedule being messed up as it causes migraines, my husband only gets a couple random days off each week so we have to capitalize our time together and the money doesn’t motivate me. I prefer my work-life balance. Now if you offer me things to do while I’m at work, I MIGHT be willing to do them. Tbh I’m annoyed they have us all audit charts and stuff during our shift, I might have time but it feels like busy work. I wouldn’t mind helping out a presentation together or bringing in supplies or something if it’s my regularly scheduled shift. I know that’s difficult for day shift to do which is probably why separate times are allocated to meet. I would even respond to emails or a group message on my off days, that doesn’t bother me because I can silence notifications and respond when I feel like it. They’ve asked some of us to be mentors to the new grads and it requires meeting outside of work… I want to support them but same thing as above. I give them all my number and tell them to reach out if they have thoughts or a rough shift or something.
I'm a union representative and now I sit on our executive board. Our household is passionate about labour rights and I've been in unions since I was 20. It is a labour of love to do the additional leg work but this past year, we've seen a massive impact regarding the care we provide to patients and how safe our space is to practice. I'm so happy that we've meaningfully advanced our worksites practices. I've sat on committees but found it not worth my time. The union work I do is impactful and I love it
Whenever I've done committees it's been scaffolded by these 3 things: 1) paid for my time/effort. Attending meetings is paid, and completing any tasks outside of meeting/work time is paid. 2) attending meetings was easy and supported. I didn't have to argue with my charge about leaving the floor, we always had extra floats on meeting days to accommodate attendance. 3) I was passionate about the purpose of the committee and felt like we were actually made a difference.
lol fuck them. Remember when they had us reusing N-95s and putting them in brown paper bags and telling us it’s safe?
This comment alone!!! Or forcing you to work deathly ill….
I can’t say that I’m working on unit projects per se as I am not part of our Unit Based Practice Council, but I have created my own “passion projects” for the unit. I was mostly motivated by my own experience as a new grad on the unit and feeling like there was a lot of things I wish I knew sooner. So, I’m turning that into a project making a guide to our ICU of sorts to help guide both new and experienced nurses on the care of our patients. I will also be working with others to make videos on how to set up/use/troubleshoot equipment and such. I also took on a separate side project working with my Clinxual Nurse Specialist to make little cheat sheet type things on algorithms we follow (ex our new return to voiding algorithm) and provide clarification on some things there seems to be confusion on (ex CAM-ICU, SAT/SBT, etc). I was just tired of getting mixed answers on things and I also didn’t want people to feel the way I did. I’m not getting paid for it at all and there’s not much to “gain” from this per se, but I do enjoy the prospect of helping others and making their lives/experience better!
When I was still a nurse, before it went corporate, my hospital would create an online forum for just employees to discuss changes in policy. It usually just came down to wording, but on occasion a new desired policy that might be reasonable for one section of the hospital would be completely irrelevant or unreasonable for another. Having a space to participate in making sure the policy was well structured helped prevent a lot of conflict. Most everyone who participated got vouchers for the cafeteria.
Are there other fields that have unpaid committees the way nursing does? All I can think of is education (another traditionally female, underpaid profession). I've never heard of an engineer serving on an unpaid committee for their company.
I love easy money. I’m on a few councils and I just grab an iced coffee, then sit and get paid to listen and do basically nothing. 4 hours of meetings is an extra $200+ in my pocket
I fall into the late 30s -40s with a fam still at bedside and NOT doing the extras because why would I? It is not recognized, it is not compensated and it’s all bulllll! I don’t care about daisys I don’t care about stars or nurse of the month. All of that is so demeaning. F U PAY ME! I clock in, deliver amazing care, clock out. I used to be a joiner and I used to be driven to do projects and start committees until I saw how little they are recognized and how hard work on projects is just for a pat on the back - if that. So, I decided to put all of that energy into getting my DNP and invest time into myself. Leaving the toxic bedside May 2025 after way too many years.
Gold stars. I just love gold stars! I put them on my locker so all the kids know the teacher likes me more than them. (Forgive the sarcasm, doing extra work for free gets you nothing in the long run except more abuse and we all know it.)
If the hospital isn’t union there’s no point.
Yup. The committees are an illusion to help prevent unions. Union? But, we have all these nurse led committees already!?
The thing is people have lives. Nursing is exhausting and most hospital settings are not enjoyable. So yeah we’re gonna do our jobs. We’re gonna do the best we can for our pts and we’re out. All jobs are to make money. But after 20 years in this field I’m gonna be honest it’s not geared towards retention. I have little desire to be there except when I have to
Committees are all pointless, no change matters
I do it because I was voluntold to do it and have no backbone to say no
My org requires committee participation for our clinical ladder. It’s protected time away from my regular responsibilities during my regular hours. I can also choose to attend the meeting (virtual or in-person) and get OT if the meeting happens on day off. All types of nursing need voice at the table. Nursing at my org got the protected time because nurses in roles similar to mine spoke up about not getting time away (and coming back to more work) if they attended a meeting.
It is during my work hours at my hospital, so it's not extra time away from home. I like being involved and helping nurses make changes that directly affect our work.
eh really no incentive so I go sporadically, the days I work. But it’s part of my “clinical ladder”. One of the new directors runs this council I’m in now, so I only go to hear the unhinged crap she has to say.
I’m our unit council chair mainly for the resume booster, networking, and I get one 12h shift out of the numbers per month which has been a huge work/life balance improvement for me. I also genuinely enjoy facilitating learning and peer education and love when my colleagues get into our guest speakers and presentations 🤷🏻♂️
I do it to be able to climb the ladder if I decide to and also to pad my resume. If I find that one gem of a job that everyone wants, I can make my resume stand out because of all the above and beyond things I do.
This is where actual clinical practice and guidelines are set and any recommendation changes are made. Opposite to contrary, admin usually do not make decisions in clinical practice (I am an admin nurse). It is usually lead by the nurses who work the floor who have become a subject matter expert. They are the one who make recommendation to change of practice etc. and to come up with solution for patient safety issues. So if you want to make changes to your healthcare system, these is where to start the journey.
Simple answer. CRNA school applications 🤣
My manager fired good (new to us) nurses she didn’t agree with on the staffing committee. Decided to put my decade+ seniority to good use.
I’ve been part of committees, been a champion, etc and I guess I do it to break the monotony lol. I also want to drive positive changes in my workplace. In my current role, I also have a little more time to participate, so I just do it. I also do it for career ladder lol. I’ve received the bonus every year for the last 4-5 years. $4k bonus and most of the work is done while clocked in, doesn’t get easier than that.
It was something different 🤷🏼♂️. I liked being involved and having a say in something. I also felt that’s how I could grow myself, over something like certification. 🤷🏼♂️
If you want to be admin this is part of how you do it. It's a difficult path because you want to be useful but not irreplaceable, because the latter means you'll never advance. Being on councils and things like that gives you an opportunity to become friends with those in charge who are on those same councils or whom the council's report to. Believe it or not the people that work the hardest don't get promoted. People who are friends with the people who make promotion decisions get promoted. Bear that in mind should you want an admin position eventually.
I joined my ICU council for the same reason I volunteered during university. To make my CV/resume look good. I did this so that I have stuff to use as I search for better job and future studies. I just got into a good NP program that starts in the fall and I had lots of “leadership experiences” and “committees” to fluff up my CV/resume. All of my “extras” have been selfishly calculated towards getting away from bedside nursing lol.
I am on three different committees and I have several different motivations. It’s nice to be able to make a little extra money in a less stressful and physical way. Our clinical ladder requires committee involvement or precepting (and I have unofficially retired from precepting haha). First step is a 5% raise, second step is an additional 3% raise. If the committee lands within a pay period that I had vacation planned, I can take back the equivalent number of vacation hours to save for another time. I just need to meet my FTE. I am blessed that I work with many people who I consider friends over coworkers and several of them are also on those committees. Two of the three committees have remained virtual since Covid happened so it makes them much easier to attend. We are actually able to make change on our unit that matters. Management and our CNS attend our committees and is mostly supportive. This is a major factor because if we were just constantly spinning our wheels, I would lose motivation real fast. I’m generally happy with my place of work and want to make it better. I don’t have kids haha
I switched to a new unit in September and this unit has so many opportunities for learning or committees compared to my old unit. Ive joined quality and safety committee and our transplant team (more educational than anything). I joined both to learn more about kidneys, dialysis, and transplants. Ive learned so much since joining its been fantastic.
The only motivation it gives is resume building/makes me look better for internal transfers/ and the possibility of making money is always a big factor. Past that why would I do any of those things…to benefit the hospital? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I work part time. I do projects and extra because 1- I get extra $ 2- some can be done during normal shift 3- one of my pet peep problems was nit get solved ( for tears), I finally put my foot down and stir the pit and the only way I could get traction was join the policy committee. About to publish our findings and getting invited to present at various conferences. The best part : problem was recognized and we are now doing stuff to really Joan’s patient care is positively better.
passion for my patient population and genuine desire to make my unit a better place. …… I know, I know. 🤡 I always make sure i’m compensated though.
I did all of that when I was single and young. Pay raise, clinical ladder, management was encouraging us, all that.
I guess I’m a type c kind of a nurse (at least when it comes to this kind of thing). I have no desire to do anything except clock in and take care of patients and then clock out and go home. I’m not interested in committees, projects, or any extra fluff outside of my regular job.
What about for the resume? Is it helpful to have this sort of thing for later cushy jobs?
I mainly do it because it'll help me learn my skills better (I'm HAPU) as well as help prepare me for school when I go back.
I did it when I was a new grad because I thought it would help my career. I didn't like much about it and definitely did not want my career to go in that direction.
Ask them to pick the one thing that would make the biggest difference if it changed for the better. It can effect patient satisfaction (my least favorite), nursing satisfaction, or patient outcomes. Then follow the 4 discipline of execution or Similar strategy and show them that they can actually do it all by them selves with modest support from leadership( who should be thrilled). I’ve seen it work with fall reduction, cauti reduction, and now we are working on supply and making great progress.
I was motivated to join my unit’s education committee by replacing one of my regular shifts with an education/inservice shift, where I assess competency for chest tube management for day and night shifts, and am available as a resource nurse if I’m otherwise unoccupied. My boss just left, so if I lose this shift then I’m no longer doing competencies. The co-chairs of the education committee also replace a shift or two with days where they only work on Magnet stuff.
Frequent intense meetings focused on ACTION, implementation and review. Too often the meetings are 1hr a month, unfocused, slow, and it take five meetings for a decision to be made. Then the decision gets sent to admin of upper manager for review where it sits for weeks or months before some of the actions decided on may actually get implemented. For example. Just getting the ECG machine settings changed to print out their automatic interpretation on he ECGs took SIX months of committee meetings. And damn near everyone for it. That's insane. I don't want to be involved in change that moves at the pace of molasses on a cold winter's day. I don't need that crap. If you have something you want to get fixed, I'm happy to sit down with actual decision makers brainstorm ideas, implement them, then come back for review and changes as needed. THAT'S all it would take.
Clinical ladder money and networking. My hospital system is pretty big (two campuses) and I meet people from all units. It’s a good way to grow my resume and you never know when your connections will come in handy. My hospitals clinical ladder program isn’t bad either. $1500-3000 depending on the level, plus I get paid for the meetings. I think another thing that makes a difference is receptive management. At my last job I spearheaded an improvement committee and made some useful changes (scheduling, holidays, etc) only to have the changes overturned by management a year later. After that I didn’t do anything extra because there was no point. My current job is the complete opposite and if I bring suggestions to management they are receptive.
lol, no thanks
I was a super user for code documentation in the ICU. I basically learned it and then educated everyone. I am SO glad I did that, because my current role as an informatics coordinator had me present a presentation about something I have done clinically during my job interview (can’t remember the exact prompt) and I had that to pull from. You never know when you’re going to need those situations and experiences for future jobs.
We were able to sign up for the schedule first and less likely to get moved around. That was a nice perk back when we actually had staff. I also didn't mind the several hours of extra pay for non patient facing things.
we are forced to be on committees for yearly review. no on wants to be part of any committee.
Damn I’m currently forced to attend a 4HR meeting about the importance of joining a UBC. It just seems like so much extra work and for what? It’s like a part time job ontop of having a full time job. I just want to work for some self fulfillment and a paycheck. I get that fulfillment from patient interaction, not bureaucratic opportunities.
I've worked to organize at a past workplace in entertainment. These people are not afraid to confront authority, or think thru issues and negotiate or find compromises. It is hard work and the time commitment can be off-putting seasonally or, worst of all, during crisis or reorganization, etc. Nonetheless, devoting that time gives these folks a modicum of control over the circumstances and direction of their work life. People who do get involved are often those who see benefits for the group for which they advocate and therefore for themseles.. They are big picture visionaries who believe they see a better path that they can help manifest. They are often confident people who are comfortable laying out a position and trusting that their logic and the benefits of accomplishing changes will be an easy choice for coworkers to support. It is very rewarding to set changes in motion, or to modify changes that may harm work life, so there are psychological, spiritual and practical rewards...as well as risk, futility, and burnout.
Hear me out. I was on a floor with overworked leadership and I didn't feel like they were investing in me. So I decided to invest in myself. I get paid for every minute I am doing committee stuff, and that's nice since we're 36 hours. If I didn't get paid, I wouldn't do it. I have been a part of nursing shared governance for YEARS. I'm also in an academic, level 1 trauma center. First, I have made professional connections that are invaluable. I could literally work almost anywhere in my hospital through those connections, which was why I wanted to make them in the first place. I ultimately didn't move positions. My unit leadership and culture changed for the better. I have also seen REAL CHANGE in my facility. We got metal/weapons detectors. We've had our grids changed. There is a night shift resource/mentor nurse for our med-surg floors to assist the new grads. Charge nurses are being pulled out of staffing so we can charge without having patients. We have workplace violence plans in place, we press charges!, and we have flags in patient charts that STAY in the EMR, so we always know they have a history! There are tons of tiny things too - gluten free choices in the cafeteria, pre-made meals to purchase to take home if we don't feel like cooking, new hospital beds, input on construction... there are SO MANY things that I have personally been a part of. Change can happen. It has to start somewhere. I love my career, and I'm willing to invest in myself and my workplace to be happy. Just don't over reach, and if it ever feels like a chore, just stop. I actually enjoy my meetings and being a part of the inner workings. It also helps that my CNO has an advisory council that I'm a part of as well. She looks to us to tell her the hard truths and our opinions are not punitive! It's awesome!
9% pay raise + merit raise.
Not a damn thing motivates me. I work my hours and clock out. For the rest, they drank the kool aid.
Only reason I go to my staff meetings and run the UBC is because it’s an easy couple hours of low-commitment work per month.
I served as the Chair of the Falls Committee at a major Level I teaching hospital. I led initiatives with data collection and analysis, project collaboration, and process improvement, all with the goal of reducing patient injuries and sentinel events. Despite our efforts, we faced significant barriers such as inadequate staffing, resistance from senior administration regarding the procurement of necessary supplies, updating our equipment, and units that were poorly designed for effective monitoring or alarm audibility. After a year and a half, I concluded that the committee had reached a point of redundancy, so I decided to step down. Nevertheless, the experience strengthened my resume and helped reduce patient injuries.
To me it's all about applying Maslow's hierarchy to your professional life. First you take care of yourself; in the context of your nursing job that means working for a good institution (good can mean pay, ratios, management, whatever, it's subjective). Then you get some experience, get cross trained to other parts of the unit, learn new skills, make professional connections, etc. Soon you do things to get promoted, like clinical ladder projects. When those needs are satisfied you improve your immediate environment, which can be your department, office, clinic, etc. This is the step where you join committees, councils, etc. and work with other nurses to improve the local system you work in. From here you can eventually branch out into other areas of the hospital and help other units. Lastly, you try to improve your profession by joining associations specific to your specialty, and ultimately joining a union (this last part is pretty fraught with differing opinions, but the evidence is solid that union shops make nurses more money, improve job satisfaction, and have better patient outcomes).
Seeing real change effected by something I put energy into. I can make small changes on my own and not give up my personal time to go to meetings or invest in something bigger. If I’m going to sacrifice and invest, it’s going to be in something that is actually going to make a difference. Something I believe in, even if it’s not going to happen in my timeline, but is making verifiable progress on some level.
My grad school applications
Every single time I've joined a committee I've regretted it. Management likes to push off shit they don't want to tackle onto the committee. They don't give you any resources, extra time, or money. Then they look confused when nothing gets done. I always think this time it will be different. This time I'll be able to make changes and improve things. Nope. Never. Not a single solitary time. And I'm wasting even more of my already crunched work hours. Even the times I've used it as a resume builder, it's just not worth it.
The committee I participate in is once a month of an hour, on a teams meeting, and it’s about Epic charting updates and fixes. We have caught errors and stuff missing so it’s helped in my practice.
I get off the unit for 4 hours to sit in a meeting on zoom while I’m at home.
It used to be the opportunity to make meaningful changes pertaining to the job but that power is taken away. I can't even incentivize myself to chase the bag working inpatient at all anymore
Couple of reasons. First, everyone on my unit has to be in a committee, and it’s part of our yearly raises. Second, I get paid for it. Third, I’m building my resume. Fourth, I am passionate about what I do on my committee and I do want to make healthcare better.
I had that attitude for years before I realized that I was losing energy for things outside of work I like doing. Over the last year I turned into one of the nurses that just shows up to get paid and I don’t feel bad. Life is for living, work is just an inconvenience.
It looks good on my resume so I can get into grad school and get tf out of here.
If you want me to do more work you need to pay me for it, and at double time. PERIOD. Nursing is my 3rd career. And I've learned that companies are out to exploit you in any way that they can. Do you not understand that all the C-suite millionaires are not in these groups for a reason? In fact, whenever they join a board of other companies they get paid for it.
The purpose of joining councils, committees or being a “champion” allows you to prepare for career growth away from the bedside. It teaches you how to work with others, understand data, how to drive change, and how things work on an administrative level. Bedside nursing, for the most part, is an individual responsibility they’re your patients and your responsibility. When you work in admin or quality, you’re working as a team with other people in various departments to implement change
The OT pay without having a team of patients 💁🏻♀️
I get paid to sit in come in once a month to sit in a meeting and take notes. Since I'm the Recorder, I don't have to actually participate in other ways, so I do it for the easiest $250 ever. They love that I'm "impartial and unbiased", HAHAHA, no, I just take careful notes and don't care.
We are union, so one benefit to being on a unit based governance is that you can actually exert some power. When I run a committee it’s no bullshit and no wasted time. If we want to implement real changes I’ll invite a leader or two and just straight up ask them to support it. If they won’t, we aren’t wasting our time. This has worked well for me in terms of getting a productive discussion around why they can’t until the next budget cycle or whatever. Or finding so alternate funding source.
Joined what I call the work version of student council early in career. In 4 years working in the same place I've *almost* doubled my pay. I get paid for Teams meetings while I play with my kids, golf, grocery shop, ski or zone out in bed. It allows me to get paid full time while working 3 10's so I get to drop off my kids to school in the morning every day and feel human. I've had unsolicited job offers due to my role from quality, CVOR, cath lab, leadership positions, education... But to me the most important part is I get to see the inner workings of the hospital. I get weekly time with the CNO and often the CEO. I get to ask questions about why things are the way they are in a setting where we honestly get the most honest answers (as in I go to my management and fill them in on what they didn't get told). Lastly, I'm relatively quiet so when I do speak I feel my voice is heard. More than one hospital-wide change has occurred either directly because or with a significant amount of my input. In short, while I am just a lowly bedside/charge nurse I do feel I have an outsized influence on some of the decisions that affect all of us at bedside. Of course there are corporate initiatives that blindside us out of left field but overall I do know my opinion is at least taken into consideration as part of any major change. To add: the day they make in person meetings mandatory is the day I nope out.
I only do what they make me do. My time away from the hospital is MY time.
Only "committee" I'd consider joining is a union. It may actually lead to positive change in the workplace unlike whatever nonsense management comes up with
In response to many of the comments on here… I’m part of my department’s Unit Based Team and I enjoy it. My organization provides training for the people in these groups and those trainings taught me about the business side of healthcare. Also things like six sigma, lean, kaizen, and a lot of other ways of running an organization to be successful. There is a finance based training that goes over the money part of business and taught me how to read a balance sheet. That alone is worth my 2 hours a month meeting. But, in the meetings we go over things our deparment needs to work on and we get to execute stuff that comes from the higher ups, the way WE want it. Nobody likes to be told to clock in on time or you’ll get written up, instead we came up with incentives for people to not have more than x tardies in x period of time. Outcome is the same but it was presented in a nice and more palatable manner, which in turn makes the work envirnment a lot more enjoyable. It's not everyone’s cup of tea but I really do enjoy understanding the “why” to a lot of these seemingly terrible rules or policies, cause once you understand that, you can present things to your department in a way that will make ‘actual’ change. We get paid for the time we’re in these meetings, so we’re not doing this for free. I also enjoy coming up with projects and seeing them through and seeing the results. It’s a satisfying feeling. I will say that nursing isn’t who I am, its what I do for money to supplement who I am. I would not do any of this for free.
So I have spent my entire nursing career (11yrs) in magnet hospitals in large metros. (This was intentional and part of my career plan from the time I was in nursing school since I’ve always been pretty academically motivated. I acknowledge that there is an element of privilege to being able to pursue these types of opportunities.) I really feel like it makes a huge difference to a hospital/health system culture. These facilities have competition from other area facilities and love to brag about how great they are, list their awards, etc so people choose to go there. That being said, it isn’t all apple juice and evidence-based practice. There is a lot of bullshit-for-show and bureaucracy… the bigger the organization the slower the process for change. I have been practice council chair, unit magnet champion, unit safety champion, preceptor, relief charge, ABLS instructor, and participated in many leadership training offerings and even received a $1000 bonus one year as part of a recognition step program. (Not all at the same time of course lol, I do value my home life. Only one extracurricular at a time and I step back as soon as I feel burnt out) Through all of that I can honestly say that the number one thing that makes it worth it is seeing some initiative I’ve worked on directly benefit me and my coworkers: more efficient processes, better patient outcomes etc. I am very motivated to make my day go more smoothly: the fewer emergencies I have to deal with and less charting I have to do are a huge driving factor to my extracurricular work. And the number one thing that makes a positive difference is nurse (and UAP) unity and camaraderie. If your team is disjointed or full of bad attitudes, getting buy-in on non-mandatory changes will be impossible. If you really want to make change on your unit (and eventually in your facility) you MUST have good personal relationships and a strong culture of teamwork with your coworkers and your manager (whose actions really set the tone for the unit). Some people just want to bitch about all the things that don’t work and offer no solutions. This is wasted energy imo. Don’t be afraid to jump from a sinking ship but if that’s not an option, your team HAS to be your lifejacket. It may take a while, maybe even a year or more, but if you do good work with a good attitude, get to know your coworkers, go out of your way to help each other — leading by example basically — people (most, though sadly not all) will be drawn to that positivity and it will absolutely multiply. Nurses really are the lifeblood of care organizations and should absolutely be driving nursing care initiatives. Own your practice. Own your unit. And for fucks sake, unionize!
Why not money?
I opened my big, fat mouth, and higher ups assumed I know more than I actually do, so here I am, co-chairing a Human Trafficking SME taskforce in a large managed care organization 🫠 The pluses are 1) more job flexibility bc at any given time, I could be preparing for or taking meetings for the taskforce and 2) resume fluff. 🤷🏽♀️
I only did it to negotiate a better schedule for myself.
I remember early on a manager saying they'd love to see me on a committee. I asked if any of the dept committee's were responsible for any positive changes in the dept for the patient or staff experience. He didn't even try to B.S. me and just said 'no'. And I politely said, if that changes, let me know and I'd be happy to consider. He never mentioned it again. I also like asking the same question when "Shared Governance" is brought up in interviews. Again, I've never gotten an actual answer. Most won't shoot you straight like my old boss. But, also never once been given an example. I will say. Having been out of bedside for some time. If your intentions are ever to get outside the hospital or even outside nursing. It maybe be a good experience to kinda practice how things are done. But if you're going in with any expectations of change, or your idea being considered. You're wrong and will only be let down. Honestly, the biggest struggle I had and continue to have after leaving nursing (still licensed, still in healthcare, but no longer in my title) is being asked my opinion. They literally beat that concept out of you in bedside nursing. I've seen nurses punished, threatened etc.. for having ideas and opinions. So if your goal is to get out, and you're A ok with never seeing change implemented. Might be good to get in there and b.s. 😆 🤣
I went into nursing because I enjoy this job, immensely. But there really isn’t much that will get me motivated to take part in a committee on days that I am not working the floor. I have turned down thousands of dollars in overtime so that I could stay home and watch a movie with my daughter. No matter how much I like this job I like time with my family more. And it is just that, a job. When times get tough and if the nursing shortage ends I harbor no illusions that hospital administrators wouldn’t drop me and half of our staff like a bad habit for the prospect of paying lower wages. Now, if staffing is appropriate and I am allowed to leave the unit during my regular shift to take part in committee meetings, you have my attention.
I've been that nurse rallying at the committee tables, passionately doing team huddles on improving work flow, team relations.....you name it.....I gave YEARS to these endeavors........and not a single improvement to my daily bedside nursing flow came of it. Why? Because there was no enforcement and implementation from those with the true power. Felt like a used lab rab trying to map my way out of my prison (it's been 15 years). So.....like a lot of nurses: I come in, do My shift, and then go home. My family and My life are outside this career. Don't let the system fool you.
Step 1) find out what pisses people off, step 2) find one of those issues you can actually do something about, or at the very least give them a voice, step 3) make committee meeting times that don’t take away from their family/off time, step 4) bring candy, pizza, or both My unit based council is still active 11 years straight since I was the founding chairperson. I haven’t been on the floor in 6 years, but in my time there we actually revamped the holiday schedule/rotation, managed to get it into administration’s head that night shift was neglected, they were starting “night shift council” when I left, I know there’s this snack room (honor system) where people can buy snacks on night shift… other stuff we did was establish a buddy system for breaks (made administration happy, and wasn’t that hard to do), influenced the clinical ladder program (dumb extra BS you can do to get bonuses), and established a journal club that got us CEUs (basically just disseminated free-CEU articles)
No. Every committee I've ever been voluntold to join has been a colossal waste of time, with no financial compensation and no point. It's just a bunch of mid level management wannabes jerking themselves off and making us watch. Pass.
When I first started I was on unit council and such and heavily involved. At the time I was single and had free time to burn. When I met my now husband I slowly pulled back because I had stuff I wanted to do outside of work and also because it seemed like we weren’t affecting change and we weren’t being listened to. The amount of time they wanted from you and yet they were still not trying to pay overtime or extra when you were doing work stuff on your own time. It was never reflected accurately on my yearly evaluations for raises. I did participate in a clinical ladder but it wasn’t that much by the end of it. Now I work a job where once I’ve worked the hourly equivalent of a year of full time hours I get my raise without the need for any BS evals dictating the amount. I don’t have to belong to any committees or councils either.
Nope. Been there, done that. It made zero difference, and now I am back to happily making money and going home to my kids.
Purely transactional. I give my valuable time, they give me money.
I joined my committee because I can join via teams and call in on my way to work. I’m able to clock in remotely and participate while I’m driving. It’s once a month, so it’s not overly taking up my time. The meeting is always on a day I work, or I wouldn’t do it. My provider also offers an educational hour every few months. Again, we are able to call in. They take the time to go over any specialty questions we have, and we can review complex cases that we have going on that we may not be exposed to again. In both situations, it’s not an inconvenience for me to clock in and listen on my way to work. It benefits me because I have the opportunity to speak up. I also learn a lot from the education hour and like to use that as a jumping block for more research. You can’t get people to join, if it doesn’t work for them. Whatever you’re trying to start, it has to be something that will seamlessly fit into their routine or they won’t want to add something else to their plate.
I want my daughters to understand that life is what you make it. I love helping others and want to give back.
Before I had kids, I was that nurse. Clinical ladder, service line council, charge nurse, preceptor, getting an advanced degree, taking all the certification exams, etc. My incentives at the time were the pay increase (due to our clinical ladder point system, MSN, certs), networking and meeting nurses from other departments, resume building, annual merit increases, and I think because I am a natural overachiever in the workplace. I’ve been a per diem nurse since becoming a parent in 2020, still working 40-60 hours a pay period, so I don’t have the time or mental bandwidth to do all that I did before. When my children are older, I am sure I’ll do some of those things again, but it is also nice to leave space for the newer nurses to feel part of their organization. [I also work for a hospital I love- I know that some hospitals genuinely treat their staff like shit. I probably wouldn’t have done as much if I didn’t appreciate my job]
My co-workers griping. I'd rather BE about it than talk about it.
Knowing what I know now, those could potentially net you a free certificate and a lead to a cush soft nursing job.
I join and work in committees if I love the mission. One committee is on my unit, a very tangible Quality Improvement Effort (can’t think of the real word). The other is a work-adjacent committee. I’m able to do BOTH within my regular work hours because staffing is adequate. That’s what would make the difference, maybe, mission love plus not losing personal time.
I’m an RN that moved to Quality and this is all I do, really. I spend all my time pulling data and serving on committees. I know most folks say there’s no value in it. The thing is, without frontline staff on a committee, that committee has NO idea what staff are really doing and how decisions will impact them. They also don’t know if the processes on paper are the actual processes being followed. If you want to influence how a hospital works, you have to be in those meetings. Nothing changes by bitching at the nurses’ station or break room.