Mrs. Jones is a new LVN/LPN and has been working the 3 PM to 11 PM shift on the long-term care unit where you are the evening charge nurse. It is time for her 3-month performance appraisal. In your facility, each employee’s job description is used as the standard of measure for performance appraisal. Essentially, you believe that Mrs. Jones is performing her job well, but you are somewhat concerned because she still relies on the RNs even for minor patient care decisions. Although you are glad that she does not act completely on her own, you would like to see her become more independent. The patients have commented favorably to you on Mrs. Jones’s compassion and on her follow-through on all their requests and needs. Mrs. Jones gets along well with the other LVNs/LPNs, and you sometimes believe that they take advantage of her hard-working and pleasant nature. On a few occasions, you believe that they inappropriately delegated some of their work to her. When preparing for Mrs. Jones’s upcoming evaluation, what can you do to make the appraisal as objective as possible? You want Mrs. Jones’s first evaluation to be growth producing. ASSIGNMENT: Plan how you will proceed. What positive forces are already present in this scenario? What negative forces will you have to overcome?

 

You are the new night-shift charge nurse in a large ICU composed of an all-RN staff. When you were appointed to the position, your supervisor told you that there had been some complaints regarding the manner in which the previous charge nurse had handled evaluation sessions. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes, you draw up a list of things that you could do to make the evaluation interviews less traumatic. Because the evaluation tool appears adequate, you believe that the problems must lie with the interview itself. At the top of your list, you write that you will make sure each employee has advance notice of the evaluation. ASSIGNMENT: How much advance notice should you give? What additional criteria would you add to the list to help eliminate much of the trauma that frequently accompanies performance appraisal (even when the appraisal is very good)? Add six to nine items to the list. Explain why you think that each of these would assist in alleviating some of the anxiety associated with performance appraisals. Do not just repeat the guidelines listed in this chapter. You may make the guidelines more specifi c or use the Bibliography for assistance in developing your own list.