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How to Communicate with Your Nursing Supervisor

Draw Power from the Positive

Resolving thorny workplace issues will also be much easier if you work in a positive organizational structure. Feel as if you aren’t being appreciated or that understaffing is making your colleagues especially cranky? “Think about the last time you gave another staff member a pat on the back,” Fabre says. “If we don’t support each other as nurses, who will?”

Fabre says the basic ways to create a positive organizational culture are to:

• Be a role model for others. Support effort as well as success.

• Give encouragement when someone tackles a difficult assignment.

• Increase your own self-respect.

• Adopt an attitude of abundance. “Sometimes a staff member will undermine another person to accomplish his or her own goals,” Fabre says. “This isn’t necessary. Instead, foster a win-win attitude in your department.”

• Ask your supervisor if you can devote a portion of each staff meeting to talking about what’s working in your unit and what isn’t. Give people a chance to express their concerns in a non-confrontational manner and brainstorm solutions as a group.

• Learn to negotiate. If you’re approaching your supervisor to discuss a more flexible work schedule, for example, come to the meeting prepared. Do some research on your own (such as by checking with your local nurses association or hospitals) to help you build a case for restructuring your job to fit a more flexible schedule.

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