The hardest days were the best days

What I learnt from being a supplier of staff is that the hardest days were the best days.

We managed short-notice placements of nurses and care staff around the clock. Based in sub-tropical Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, one thing we could not control was the weather. Our key area of business was two hours’ drive north to south; and 40 minutes east to west. In storm season, or on one random stormy November school afternoon at, usually 3pm, thunder and lightning would rock our office building, then torrential rain would come down. The torrential rain was a sign that business was about to change for the rest of the day or into the following day.

All the staff we had booked into shifts were no longer guaranteed to attend the jobs we’d placed them in that evening. The ones who were finishing morning shifts at 3 pm; or had just begun their afternoon shifts at 2 pm were about to make personal safety a priority. We watched the internet for which roads were closing due to flooding and waited for the calls to come in.

Then they did.

Safety was paramount.

We knew that, as did our client sites for their own staff.

The risk of driving in weather where you couldn’t see beyond your windscreen, with ditches flooding due to blocked drains, trees toppling across roads, and creeks rising, would need to be accepted.

We would need to come up with Plan B, C and D.

Soon we knew where all our nurses stood.

They were heading home to be home with the kids before the roads flooded. They were going to not head out to the shifts for risk of not being able to return to their properties late at night due to flooding or their driveways becoming blocked.

We knew that. Our clients knew that.

We all became incredibly clear-minded and sensible, all together at the same time.

It was such a wonderful feeling to see humanity become calm and realistic about the safety of the people they work with.

It came down to simple conversations, knowing what could and couldn’t be done. We were all honest about that, prompting us to make judgment calls and get back with the status either way.

As we worked the phones those days, rather than feeling like we would fail our clients, I also learnt to see it from our client’s perspective.

I recall Sue Adams, the Nurse Manager at Caboolture Private Hospital, being open and it was a lesson for me. It was me on the phones, not one of our staff. She said:

‘Sue, the longer you take to try to fill a shift or shifts for me means the less time I have to take diversionary steps. I need to know soon so I can tell the ambulance services we cannot take any more patients tonight and let the theatre know they will need to make changes to theatre lists. If there are no staff, there are no staff. Just tell me.’

It was okay. Sometimes you have to see things as they are.

Weather taught us we couldn’t be in control of something outside of our control.

We had many storms over the years I owned that company.

I recall a day when none of my office staff could get out of their driveways or risk crossing flooded roads; and one of the main roads had collapsed into a hole. So it was me and maybe one or two others managing the business for the day. That day we had crystal clear focus on what we could and could not do. It was occasions like that day that we made the best decisions and came up with completely new ways of doing business for the day or days ahead.

So those hardest days were the best days in my opinion, for me as a leader and for our team to come together and do the best we could with what we had.

I learnt so much from serving in the nursing industry from good people who were realistic. Yes, of course, there were some ratbags and risk-takers, who swore at us for not supplying staff in those times. We chose not to take things personally. Instead, we focused on standing with the good people. Everyone either got home from the storm or stayed dry until it was safe to return to work.

We all will have had those crystal clear moments as leaders that came from the hardest days. Moments when we have seen things as they are, not better, not worse, just as they are. They are the moments I remember the most.