Mandatory Overtime

Because of staffing shortages, and call-ins by scheduled staff, my facility has a Mandatory Overtime policy. With this policy, if a shortage exists due to call-ins or lack of staff for a particular shift, someone from the previous shift will be required to stay to cover.

There's nothing quite like finding out, in the last hour of your eight-hour-shift, that you have to stay and work another eight hours. It's not easy to work a shift whose schedule is not familiar to you, and when you are mandated, you don't always have the security of working on the unit you are familiar with either. The regular staff are pretty good about helping out, but they have their own work to complete, so can't be there with you every minute.

Mandatory Overtime is especially hard when the CNA being mandated has children to consider. A single parent often has to rely on other CNAs to pick up her children from school, and care for them until she is released from duty.

I'm not sure what other options are available, in lieu of mandatory overtime, however. The shift has to be covered, and the residents have to be cared for.

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