Office of Staffing
A great big puzzle
Amidst all the challenges of the pandemic, staffing was near the top.
At the center of it all was the staffing office. This team of 15 people handles staffing for 25 different units throughout St. Cloud Hospital, fielding calls, connecting with charge nurses, and on the hardest days, pleading for help through “red alert” messages to fill a growing number of open shifts.
“About half of our team has experience working on the units, including myself,” said Brenda Greeley, staffing office supervisor. “So we’ve been there and we don’t want any unit to be understaffed.” Their work became a great big puzzle with many missing pieces as they tried to put it all together.
Short staffed
“None of us had lived through staffing that way before,” Greeley added. “Prior to 2019, we rarely mandated someone to stay for another shift – we maybe did that 10 times the whole year. But during the last surge, we were mandating 10-20 people to stay, per shift, and we were still short staffed.”
“About three hours before the start of each shift, the charge nurses would let us know what they needed for staffing, and then we gathered those 25 units, looked at what each needed and the number of staff they had,” said Greeley. “Then it would go up on the big white board.”
On top of assigning who-goes-where, the staffing office also fielded ill calls for the inpatient units, too. “One person calling in sick would have an impact on as many as five or six units,” said Darcy Popp, staffing assistant. “It all had such a domino effect.”
To attempt to fill these shifts, the team sent “red alert” messages via text, calls or emails. “This alerted frontline staff of the needs for the day and for the shift,” explained Greeley. “When we were 20 nurses short for one shift, we were desperate for help.”
Just across the hall were the nursing supervisors who played an important role in it all. “They had the global view of what the whole hospital looked like, including what’s in the ER, the regional sites, and any patients we might be able to admit,” said Greeley. “Ultimately, the nursing supervisors would review and bless the white board.”
“It was tough knowing the next shift wasn’t going to be any better,” said Greeley. “It was hard on everyone, especially the charge nurses who were requesting the staff and the nursing supervisors who weren’t able to admit patients because of staffing. The charge nurses had the really difficult conversations with staff, asking them to extend their shifts after they were already exhausted.”
When the day was done, the team would go home and recharge so they could come back and do it all over again the next day. “After being on the phone all day long, I would go home and just enjoy the quietness,” said Darcy Popp.
For Greeley, it was time spent with her three kids. “They probably took the hardest hit with me not being there as much,” she said, noting that she and her team also helped through the labor pool, which meant extra hours away from her family.
Yet reflecting on it all, Greeley feels prideful. “We’re a small team and everyone stepped up,” she said. “People worked shifts they didn’t regularly work and they were always willing to fill a gap whenever help was needed. It wasn’t easy and we had some turnover too, but we’ve all gotten much closer from this experience.”
Incredible! A privilege to work at a place with so many heroes.
So appreciative of what this team does every single shift! They are amazing!
Great job to everyone on this team!
Great job to an amazing team! Your work behind the scenes was instrumental in ensuring there was staff to continue to care for patients!
Brenda and her team are amazing. They pulled together and worked some miracles during those bleak days. A wonderful team that stepped up huge when we needed them. Thank you!
Wow, I am amazed! You all deserve high praise and everyone’s gratitude for your dedication & fortitude. And not just during the pandemic, but every day. I used to work in Staffing — that was my first job at St. Cloud Hospital back twenty years ago — and it was difficult work. :^) You gotta keep your mind in the game constantly. You get really close to your staffing coworkers and the nursing sups, almost like fellow warriors on a battlefield. Every shift can be a challenge… it feels satisfying to get the white board “puzzle” figured out as fairly as possible, calling your heart out to staff at home in order to fill gaps, and then getting the board results “blessed” by the nursing supervisor. I just want to give you all hugs for your awesome work each day and for your strategic expertise in covering shifts for our patients. You work quietly behind the scenes and pull off miracles on a regular basis. CentraCare owes much of its success to YOU!
Thanks for all you do. Always great to collaborate with each of you!
I feel like that is one of the hardest jobs in the hospital! And yet through everything you guys are so nice whether I was calling in sick or calling to pick up. You guys are awesome and so under appreciated!!
I’m so glad you are all such experts at working on puzzles! Thanks for all the extra hours and great work to try to get the staff needed to care for our patients!
Giving of yourselves, striving to be the best in any situation, that’s what it’s all about. Thank you to all of those who did and are still doing this!
Nothing short of Amazing!