Unchosen nursing mobility discussed from the perspective of the junior health care manager’s managerial activities

Introduction: At the beginning of 2020, a state of health emergency was declared in France following the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Context: Entrepreneurial management of health institutions requires internal nursing mobility to compensate for unexpected absenteeism.
Reference framework: Based on the clinic of activity, the aim of this study was to analyze the reality of early-career health managers’ work in order to understand how, in a constrained environment, they are able to manage this mobility when not chosen by the substitute caregiver.
Method: An indirect qualitative method—“instructions to the double”—combined two successive co-analysis sessions with four junior health managers: an individual session with the researcher and a collective session with the peers who participated in the study.
Results: Data triangulation revealed three axes: the issues at stake for these managers; their compromises made to transform compulsory nursing mobility into voluntary mobility; the development of their power to act.
Discussion: These results raise various issues related to the psychological and social resources of the occupational health of junior health managers as well as to the organization of work.