This research will examine issue fronts relevant to a changing nursing shifts from three eight-hour to two twelve-hour daily periods. The research will set forth the background and context in which such a change might be contemplated and discuss the benefits and strategies associated with instituting this change in a clinical health-care setting.
1. Over the course of the 1990s, as the American unemployment rate has steadily fallen and the level of general prosperity steadily risen, there has emerged a body of cross-industry discourse on the subject of how best to manage workers and retain valued workers. Flexible staffing and scheduling have been one such response.
In its most general sense, flextime, as it is called, changes starting and ending times of a worker's schedule but retains the same total hours of regular employment (Bank, 1998). advocated from workers' point of view as a method of balancing work and family life, and from employers' point of view as an strategy that can allow an organization to "realize its short-term service and production goals and to reap the low-cost benefits of a contingent work force" (Brown, 1998). Some version of formal or informal flextime is offered by an estimated 85% of all larger organizations. One health-care corporation, CIGNA, has nearly one-third of its 37,000 employees in flexible scheduling arrangements, on the theory that "letting employees work part-time or compressed work weeks with full benefits saves money in the long run by reducing turnover and lowering training and recruitment costs" (Brown, 1998). This line of thought has penetrated organizational and employee staffing structures in clinical settings. However, transformation of traditional work schedules in most clinical nursing settings does not appear to have taken place universally.
The standard nursing shift comprises eight consecutive hours, but beneficial change could occur were the shift to last twelve hours. Pro...