Free Charge Nurse Job Description Templates
Free charge nurse job description templates for nursing homes, dialysis, med-surg, ICU/ER, and small clinics. With FLSA, CMS, and licensing guidance.
Charge Nurse Job Description Templates
5 free templates by setting, with FLSA, CMS, and licensing guidance. Download as DOCX.
Hiring a charge nurse comes with two things most job description templates skip. First, charge nurse, nurse manager, and nurse supervisor are different roles that get used interchangeably, and naming the wrong one attracts the wrong candidates. Second, the role is licensed, regulated, and almost always hourly, which makes the classification and compliance matter from day one. Get those right and the rest is a fairly standard nursing job description.
At FirstHR, we build templates for the small healthcare businesses that make this hire, often a nursing home, dialysis clinic, or urgent-care site where the director of nursing or administrator is also the hiring manager, with no HR department. The five templates below cover the charge nurse by setting: nursing home, dialysis, med-surg, ICU/ER, and a small-facility version, each handling the licensing and FLSA honestly, and the guide to writing a job description covers the fundamentals.
What Is a Charge Nurse?
A charge nurse is an experienced nurse who leads a unit or floor for a single shift, blending direct patient care with shift-level supervision. They make assignments, coordinate admissions and discharges, support the team, and serve as the clinical resource, while often still caring for patients themselves.
For the employer writing the posting, two things matter up front. First, this is a shift-level role, not a 24/7 management job, which separates it from a nurse manager. Second, the setting shapes everything: a nursing-home charge nurse leads CNAs and resident care, a dialysis charge nurse runs the treatment floor, and an acute-care charge nurse manages assignments and flow on a hospital unit. That is why the templates below differ by setting. The role is usually a registered nurse, though some long-term care settings use an LPN or LVN. The next section makes the title distinctions clear.
Charge Nurse vs Nurse Manager vs Supervisor
These three titles get blurred constantly, and hiring the wrong scope is a costly mismatch. Here is how they differ.
The charge nurse runs one shift; the nurse manager runs the unit around the clock; the supervisor oversees multiple units or the whole facility. Pay and required credentials climb accordingly, from a shift-level RN to a graduate-degreed manager. If you need someone to lead shifts and stay patient-facing, you want a charge nurse, so name that rather than the broader management titles.
Charge Nurse Duties and Responsibilities
Across every setting, charge nurse duties group into shift leadership, patient care, coordination and flow, and compliance and documentation. What fills each bucket differs by setting, but the structure is shared, which is why the templates follow the same shape.
A strong posting fills these with the specifics of your facility: the unit and population, the team and shift, the acuity, and the certifications you require. For a structured way to scope the role before posting, the guide to defining job responsibilities walks through the process.
Which Template Should You Use?
Pick the template by your setting. The shift-leadership core runs through all five, but the setting changes the population, the license, the acuity, and the compliance. Use this guide to choose.
5 Free Charge Nurse Job Description Templates
Download all five as a single Word document or copy individual templates. Each follows the same structure: facility and role overview, key responsibilities, qualifications with the required license, the FLSA status with a confirm note, compensation, and how to apply, with the specifics left as fields. Fill in the brackets and post.
Template 1: Nursing Home / Long-Term Care
For a skilled nursing or long-term care facility: leads nursing staff and CNAs on a shift, oversees resident care, and meets the CMS rule that requires a designated charge nurse every shift. May be an RN or, in some LTC roles, an LPN/LVN.
Template 2: Dialysis Clinic
For a dialysis clinic: leads the treatment floor on a shift, supervises nurses and patient-care technicians, oversees patient assessments and treatments, and owns infection control and compliance.
Template 3: Med-Surg / Hospital Unit
For a hospital medical-surgical unit: makes patient assignments, coordinates admissions and discharges, supports the nursing team, and serves as the clinical resource. The classic acute-care charge nurse.
Template 4: ICU / ER
For a critical-care or emergency unit: manages assignments and patient flow in a fast-paced, high-acuity setting, supports the team through emergent situations, and usually requires specialty certifications.
Template 5: Small Facility / Clinic
For a small clinic, facility, or agency: the licensed nurse in charge of the shift in a close-knit team, supervising staff and owning care and compliance with direct access to leadership.
Is a Charge Nurse Exempt from Overtime?
Most charge nurses are non-exempt from overtime, because most are paid hourly. This is the single most useful compliance point for the role, and most templates miss it. The reason: federal guidance treats hourly RNs as overtime-eligible regardless of the leadership duties.
Under the rules for nurses, a registered nurse may meet the learned professional exemption only if paid on a salary basis of at least the federal floor, while an RN paid hourly should receive overtime, and LPNs and LVNs generally do not qualify as exempt at all. Here is how that plays out for charge nurse roles.
The federal salary floor is $684 per week ($35,568 per year); a 2024 rule that would have raised it was vacated in court, so the 2019 level remains in effect, and some states set a higher floor or stricter rules. Since the typical charge nurse is paid hourly, the typical charge nurse is non-exempt, and an LPN charge nurse is non-exempt regardless of pay basis. Set the classification from how the role is actually paid rather than the leadership title. This is general information, not legal advice.
Charge Nurse Licensing and Compliance
This is the part to get exactly right, because the charge nurse is licensed, often federally required, and works in a regulated facility. Here is what to require and verify at hire, recognizing that requirements vary by state and setting.
The simplest rule: verify the active RN or LPN license your role and state require, confirm the CMS charge-nurse requirement if you run a nursing facility, and check whether your state has nurse-to-patient ratios or added screening. Build license verification and document capture into onboarding so credentials are current and survey-ready. Requirements change, so date your compliance review. This is general information, not legal advice.
Charge Nurse Pay
There is no separate federal wage series for charge nurses, so benchmark against registered nurses and adjust for setting and the charge premium.
Within that range, setting matters: hospitals pay above the median, while nursing homes and other long-term care settings pay below it, and a charge nurse typically earns a premium over a staff nurse for the added responsibility. Market data shows charge-nurse pay clustering in the upper part of the staff-RN range, varying by region, setting, and experience. Benchmark against the RN figure for your setting and market, add for the charge role, and disclose a range where your state requires it. The templates leave compensation as a field so you can set it for your market.
Charge Nurse Skills and Qualifications
Charge nurse qualifications combine the required license and experience with the leadership skills to run a shift, so name them concretely rather than leaning on generic traits.
| Weak requirement | Strong requirement |
|---|---|
| Has a nursing license | Active, unrestricted RN (or LPN/LVN in LTC) license |
| Nursing experience | 1-3+ years in the relevant setting |
| Can lead | Charge or supervisory experience and team leadership |
| Certified | BLS, ACLS, or specialty certs for the setting |
| Stays calm | Composure and prioritization under pressure |
The core is a licensed, experienced nurse who can lead a shift, prioritize under pressure, and serve as the clinical resource for the team. Name the license, experience, and certifications your setting requires, and keep each line job-related, the SHRM job description tools describe a good job description as a plain-language summary of a position's tasks, duties, and responsibilities. Keep the posting neutral, since the EEOC prohibits job advertisements that show a preference based on protected characteristics.
How to Write a Charge Nurse Job Description
A strong charge nurse posting takes about 20 minutes and does two jobs: it gives a candidate the setting, shift, and license they screen on, and it gets the classification and compliance right so you hire defensibly. Here is the process the templates are built around. If this is among your first hires, the small business hiring guide covers the steps around the posting itself.
Hiring a Charge Nurse for a Small Facility
A large hospital system hires charge nurses through an HR department that verifies licenses and handles compliance. A nursing home, dialysis clinic, or urgent-care site, where much of the charge-nurse demand actually lives, has the director of nursing, administrator, or clinic manager doing all of that personally. The same licensing, CMS, and state rules apply anyway. Here is how to approach the posting and the hire for that reality.
After You Hire: Onboarding a Charge Nurse
The job description is step one, and a charge nurse hire is license- and compliance-heavy, so onboarding starts with verification. Confirm the required nursing license is active and unrestricted, plus any specialty certifications, then send the offer and get it signed, and complete Form I-9 and the rest of the new hire paperwork and tax forms, along with any required background check and healthcare screening.
Then confirm classification, since an hourly charge nurse is non-exempt, and orient the new charge nurse to your facility, your patient or resident population, your care and documentation standards, your CMS and state requirements, and the shift and team they will lead, the kind of structured start that good onboarding is built on. For a small facility without an HR department, and in a field with high turnover, a repeatable process keeps license checks and survey-ready documentation from slipping, and once your offer is ready the offer letter template handles the core terms. FirstHR connects the offer with e-signature, runs the onboarding workflow, and stores licenses and certifications in document management, built for facilities without an HR team. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a charge nurse do?
A charge nurse is an experienced nurse who leads a unit or floor for a single shift, blending direct patient care with shift-level supervision. The core duties are making and balancing patient-care assignments for the shift, coordinating admissions, discharges, and transfers, supervising and supporting the nursing team, serving as the clinical resource and escalation point, and liaising with physicians and management, all while ensuring documentation and compliance and often providing hands-on patient care. The role is usually a registered nurse, though some long-term care settings use an LPN or LVN. What distinguishes a charge nurse from a manager is the scope: a charge nurse runs one unit for one shift, frequently as a rotating role, rather than carrying round-the-clock administrative responsibility. The specifics shift by setting, with a nursing-home charge nurse leading CNAs and resident care, a dialysis charge nurse running the treatment floor, and an acute-care charge nurse managing assignments and flow on a hospital unit.
What is the difference between a charge nurse and a nurse manager?
A charge nurse leads a unit for a single shift, while a nurse manager has round-the-clock administrative responsibility for the unit. The charge nurse is patient-facing and shift-level: they make assignments, coordinate admissions and discharges, act as the clinical resource, and keep the shift running, often as a rotating role that requires no advanced degree. The nurse manager is administrative and continuous: they hire, manage budgets and performance, set policy, and serve as the permanent link between the unit and upper management, usually holding a BSN plus a graduate degree. A common way to put it: the nurse manager is the permanent leader of the unit, while the charge nurse is whoever happens to be in charge at any given moment. A nurse supervisor or house supervisor sits between or above, overseeing multiple units or the whole facility across a shift. When you hire, decide which scope you need, because the pay and qualifications differ substantially, and name the specific role rather than using the terms interchangeably.
Is a charge nurse exempt or non-exempt from overtime?
Most charge nurses are non-exempt and overtime-eligible, because most are paid hourly. Federal guidance is specific: registered nurses paid on an hourly basis should receive overtime pay, and since most bedside and charge RNs are hourly, the typical charge nurse is non-exempt despite the leadership duties. An LPN or LVN charge nurse, common in long-term care, is also non-exempt, because LPNs and LVNs generally do not qualify for the learned professional exemption. The only common exempt case is a registered nurse paid on a salary basis of at least $684 per week who meets the duties test, since RN work generally satisfies the professional duties requirement. That salaried arrangement is the exception for charge nurses, not the rule. The leadership title does not change this; what matters is whether the nurse is paid hourly or on a qualifying salary. Some states have stricter overtime rules. Set classification from how the role is actually paid, and confirm borderline cases. This is general information, not legal advice.
Does a nursing home have to have a charge nurse?
Yes. Federal rules for Medicare and Medicaid nursing facilities require the facility to designate a licensed nurse as the charge nurse on every shift. The same regulation requires the facility to use the services of a registered nurse for at least 8 consecutive hours a day, 7 days a week, and allows the director of nursing to also serve as a charge nurse only when the facility has an average daily occupancy of 60 or fewer residents. This makes the charge nurse a structurally required role in long-term care, not an optional one, which is part of why nursing homes hire charge nurses continuously. Note that the broader minimum-staffing rule that would have set specific nurse hours per resident day was repealed, so the standard reverts to the 8-hour RN and charge-nurse-every-shift requirements. State rules can add to the federal baseline. Because the requirements can change, confirm the current federal and state standards when you write the role. This is general information, not legal advice.
What qualifications does a charge nurse need?
A charge nurse needs an active, unrestricted nursing license plus experience and leadership ability, with the specifics varying by setting. The license is usually an RN, though some long-term care charge-nurse roles accept an LPN or LVN. Beyond the license, employers typically want one to three years of relevant nursing experience, ideally in the same setting, since a charge nurse must be a clinical resource for the team. Many roles prefer prior charge or leadership experience and, in acute care, a BSN and specialty certifications such as BLS, ACLS, or PALS for critical care and emergency units. The non-clinical qualifications matter just as much: strong prioritization, communication, and the composure to lead a team and manage patient flow under pressure. Compact-license states allow multistate practice, which can widen your candidate pool. Name the specific license, experience, and certifications your setting requires rather than listing generic traits, and verify the license is active before hire. The templates leave these as fields so you can set them for your role.
What should a charge nurse job description include?
Start by naming the setting and confirming the role is a shift lead rather than a manager, then build the standard sections. The most important choices are the setting, nursing home, dialysis, med-surg, ICU, ER, or small clinic, and the required license, since those drive the duties and qualifications. From there, include a facility overview, the shift-leadership and patient-care duties, the required license and experience, the FLSA status, and the compensation. List the real duties: shift leadership and assignments, patient care oversight, coordination and flow, and compliance and documentation, framed for your setting. State the required license clearly, since the role needs an active RN or, in some LTC settings, an LPN or LVN. Address the FLSA status, since an hourly charge nurse is non-exempt and overtime-eligible. Note the compliance context, including the CMS charge-nurse requirement for nursing homes. Describe the shift, the unit, and the team size so candidates understand the scope. Keep the language neutral and job-related.
Do small healthcare facilities hire charge nurses?
Yes, and small facilities are a strong fit for this role. While large hospital systems employ charge nurses too, the role is structurally embedded in small healthcare businesses. Nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities, many of them single-site operations, are federally required to have a charge nurse on every shift. Dialysis clinics, including independent sites, hire charge RNs to run the treatment floor. Home health agencies, many of them small independent businesses, and urgent-care centers, the majority of which are smaller or independent operators, also hire charge or lead nurses. These facility types are typically single-site businesses that often fall within or near the 5-to-50-employee range, usually run by a director of nursing, administrator, or clinic manager who is also the hiring manager and has no HR department. Combined with high nurse turnover, that creates steady, recurring demand for charge nurse hiring at exactly the kind of small healthcare business this small-facility template is built for.
What happens after I hire a charge nurse?
Verify the license, complete the paperwork, and onboard with compliance in mind, since a charge nurse hire is license- and regulation-heavy. Start by verifying the required nursing license is active and unrestricted, plus any specialty certifications, then send the offer and get it signed. Complete Form I-9 and tax forms, run any required background check and state-mandated healthcare screening, and confirm classification: an hourly charge nurse is non-exempt, so set up overtime correctly. Then orient the new charge nurse to your facility: your patient or resident population, your care and documentation standards, your CMS and state compliance requirements, the shift and team they will lead, and your emergency procedures. For a small facility without an HR department, and in a field with high turnover, a repeatable onboarding process keeps license checks and survey-ready documentation from slipping. FirstHR handles the offer with e-signature, new-hire paperwork, an onboarding workflow, and document management for licenses and certifications where you can produce them for a survey. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.