No Raises for ER Nurses/Staff

Specialties Emergency

Published

I'm currently an ER tech, soon to be graduating from nursing school. I took this job to get my foot in the door because I will get a job in the ER after graduation, which is where I'd like to be.

This has been my first year at this particular hospital and annual evaluations just came due. Nurses and staff alike were told during evaluations (depending on which supervisor gave them) "we aren't allowed to go beyond a 3 because we can't give you a raise this year". Needless to say this has caused a lot of discontent in our ER. We have improved our numbers by 20% in most areas since the same time last year, we have worked incredibly hard, our surveys come back positive, etc. They have told us this is because our "costs" are too high in our department.

Is this common practice among hospitals? The last hospital I worked at was union, so we received pay raises frequently, and they were guaranteed. The problem at that hospital was it was very pro-physician and the staff was incredibly difficult to work with - which is why I switched organizations. This just kind of put a bad taste in my mouth though. We all worked so hard to achieve our department goals, yet we are receiving no incentive to continue these goals. I find it disheartening. I'd like to hear what others have experienced in this regard?

Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

I am sorry you are experiencing this. It is not normal, I have received two raises in the last 6 months. While it is great you have a guaranteed job there as a new grad, you may want to look around for another hospital for employment once you have experience

Thank you Christine, I appreciate your feedback. I definitely don't want to go back to the last organization I was at, but there are several other hospitals in the area I could certainly apply for once I graduate.

Thanks again for your input.

The company I work for hasn't given raises in three years. What's crazy is that in the employee forums they claim our past few fiscal years have ended better (financially) than the surrounding hospitals.

Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

My facility publishes the matrix for raises after all of the evaluations are completed and analyzed. I'm sure they never use the scores to "adjust" the raise amounts

Specializes in Emergency.

Yea, we haven't had raises in over 3 years either. Of course our hospital has no competition in the area, so there is an abundance of new nurses willing to work for the bottom 10 percentile of nursing wages nationally. Unfortunately this leads to a nursing turnover that is very high.

I found out from a friend that works at the same hospital that she got a raise - she works in the sterile processing department. It's frustrating because their department is a complete JOKE. They send us our code carts without proper equipment (our last code we went through FOUR code carts to find a doppler that works because they didn't check the batteries like they were supposed to), and our intubation trays we use had a bunch of mismatched items in it so we couldn't even intubate the lady until we grabbed another tray. Or our suture trays - two sections are supposed to get four trays every day brand new and lately we've only been getting one per area and needing to run to sterile processing for additional trays later in the day. Our housekeeping dept received a raise too, and they are pretty horrible. They are always on "break", they lie to us that they've been in a room (we are designated sections and when you tell me you clean a room and I can walk in and see blood and feces on the floor still I KNOW you didn't clean the room).

I noticed since this happened a general attitude of bitterness floating around - a lot of nurses don't feel like they should put forth an effort to go above and beyond since they did that and it resulted in nothing. I can't say I blame them, I feel the same way. There are four major hospitals in the area within 30 minutes of each other, if you expand it out to an hour that adds another two in addition to that, if you include more minor hospitals there are eight pretty close to each other. I guess I'll apply to all of them though in hopes of getting in one that DOES include pay raises. I just hope the other hospitals have the same teamwork efforts that this one does.

I really feel bad for all of you going through this as well. I've never seen a nurse that didn't deserve a raise in the ER!

Specializes in RN.

Well, I am pessimistic about the whole system. Hers my thoughts: 1st if it is a Unionized work force then the raises are factored in and increases come at set increments. I have only worked Union. I would imagine that non Union Hospitals can decide on individual merit increases, so maybe that is what you are talking about?...

My predictions: Union or not, with the "quality score/ dog and pony show" system in place, raises can be phased out, under the guise of "we didn't make profit, or whatever." But you can bet that those not to far up the ladder from the "real nurses," ( the ones actually in the trenches doing direct patient care), these will see bonuses and such. It is their method of skimming money from RN's so they can distribute the money to those higher on the food chain, so to speak. Regarding all of this, and Nationalized Healthcare, wages for RN's will stagnate. SOMEONE is getting paid! Government controls, post visit surveys, and so on are NOT our friend. Nationalized Healthcare should be about "we the people." Post visit surveys are about Lawyers, Government, and Bonuses for the pigs at the top. Even the CEO's of rural hospitals are OVERPAID Figureheads for the "Dog and Pony Show."

Magnate Status? Hogwash!! More education is great, don't get me wrong. But, it is MAINLY Beaurocracy! NOT about the patient.

Ugh don't even get me started on magnet. Inflated staff numbers, being forced to smile all the time, "coaching" on how to respond to questions, etc etc. Oh and those inflated staffing numbers always seem to disappear the moment those accrediting us walk out the door. I've gone through TWO magnet renewals at both the hospitals I've worked at, I hated both times and saw it for the scam that it was.

Exit - I like your rant :yes:

Specializes in ED.

No raises in my ER this year. Which is great because my base pay is less than $19/hour and I have no bills to pay or anything :sniff: Our numbers have consistently gone up, we're regularly told that other nursing departments ask what we do to have such good results, etc....I guess it could be worse. Another hospital in the area recently implemented a 5% pay cut for all employees to avoid lay-offs.

My last job: Three years... no increases.

This job: Three increases over two years.

The difference: The latter is a very large organization and we have a strong union while the former was a very small facility and we were all at-will employees.

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