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When an experienced nurse joins your team, how do you recognise what they bring while working out what support they need?

The way you use a competency document can shape that conversation from the start.

Tubi shares her experience of arriving at a new emergency department with years of nursing experience and a list of competencies to complete. It opens a frank conversation with Naomi about what assessment captures, what it can miss, and how it feels to be the person waiting to be signed off.

They explore where formal assessment has a place, and how specific feedback can help someone understand their strengths and what to work on next. The conversation moves from welcoming experienced nurses to supporting new graduates, developing team leaders and learning through simulation debriefing.

In this episode:

• Recognising experience when a nurse joins a new team
• The limits of treating a competency check as the whole picture
• Giving feedback about specific parts of practice
• Using assessment tools to support learning between colleagues
• Coaching nurses as they step into team leader roles
• Building a relationship that keeps the learning conversation going

A question to take into your next shift: How could your next assessment conversation help this person understand one thing they do well and one thing to work on?

Hosted by Naomi and Tubi on Better Every Shift for Nurses.

This episode discusses nursing education and workplace experiences. It is not clinical instruction or a substitute for current clinical guidelines, required competency assessment or local policies.

Access the Tea Room Notes here

Access the Better Every Shift Conditions of Excellence Scorecard here:
http//: www.bettereveryshift.com.au/consultation

"Is nursing turnover eroding your bottom line? Stop managing the crisis and start leading the culture. Book a Strategic Consultation at bettereveryshift.com.au/consultation to turn your clinical culture into a measurable business performance indicator."

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Sending a nurse to training is only the beginning. Without time to practise, useful feedback and permission to be a learner, the investment can disappear into the next busy shift.

In this Candid Inquiry conversation, Naomi and Tubi explore deliberate practice and the uncomfortable gap between knowing something and being able to do it well. They ask what organisations, managers and learners each owe the process—and why course attendance cannot carry the whole weight of development.

The conversation moves from post-workshop debriefs and protected practice to modelling, feedback and the tiny behaviour changes that build confidence over time. Along the way, Naomi and Tubi talk honestly about vulnerability, accountability and what it takes to practise leadership skills in real nursing work.

In this episode:

• why training without practice rarely becomes capability;
• how leaders can make practice part of the work;
• why feedback and modelling matter;
• where learners need to bring courage and curiosity; and
• one small experiment to try on your next shift.

Try this next shift: When someone brings you a problem, pause before giving advice. Ask one useful question first, then notice what changes.

Better Every Shift for Nurses is for nurses who want work to feel more human, more workable and more worth doing.

Access the Better Every Shift Conditions of Excellence Scorecard here:
http//: www.bettereveryshift.com.au/consultation

"Is nursing turnover eroding your bottom line? Stop managing the crisis and start leading the culture. Book a Strategic Consultation at bettereveryshift.com.au/consultation to turn your clinical culture into a measurable business performance indicator."

Text us here. We'd love to hear from you

When every concern becomes urgent, reactivity can spread through a team and create more noise than clarity. Naomi and Tubi explore engaged stillness: acknowledging a concern, making the next step visible and waiting until there is enough clarity to act proportionately.

They discuss quick-answer culture, reactive email habits, the questions that improve judgement and how to slow a response without leaving staff feeling ignored.

When a nurse raises a concern, what happens next teaches the team whether speaking up is worthwhile. A rushed response can take the problem away from the person, miss important context or amplify a sense of crisis. Silence without explanation can look like inaction.

In this episode, Naomi and Tubi unpack engaged stillness: the practice of acknowledging a concern promptly, holding space for discomfort and different views, and responding when there is enough clarity to act proportionately.

Through examples from email management, recurring organisational pressures and conversations between staff and leaders, they explore how reactivity becomes contagious and how leaders can slow a response without disappearing.

You’ll hear:

• why the pressure to provide a quick, certain answer can reduce judgement;
• how to distinguish immediate safety or wellbeing concerns from matters that benefit from a considered pause;
• questions that create clarity, including “What do you need?” and “What am I missing?”; and
• why explaining the next step and closing the feedback loop matter as much as the eventual decision.

Try this next shift: When a concern does not require immediate action, acknowledge it, say when you will return to it and ask, “What do you need from me?”

Immediate safety or wellbeing concerns still require prompt action and the appropriate local escalation pathway.

Hosted by Naomi and Tubi for Better Every Shift for Nurses.

"Is nursing turnover eroding your bottom line? Stop managing the crisis and start leading the culture. Book a Strategic Consultation at bettereveryshift.com.au/consultation to turn your clinical culture into a measurable business performance indicator."