Wheres My Paid Time Off!!!

ukstudent · Dec 5, 2007

Nursing is a strange and wonderful career. Time off (at least in the places I have worked) is earned as you work. I should have 19 days by the end of the year as a new grad. The strange and wonderful part is if you get sick there is no separate sick days so you have to use your time off pay (cuts into your vacation time) and if you are called off for low census then you either don't get paid or have to use your time off pay (and again eat into your vacation time).

caliotter3 · Dec 5, 2007

Benefits differ with each institution. One who has questions about their benefits that were not answered during the hiring interview should get in touch with their Human Resources Dept. to get their specific questions answered.

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Dec 5, 2007

Consider all the major holidays as 8 hours each. Then, each month that you work you will receive more hours. In my facility this starts off as about 12.5 per month. So if there was a holiday in that month I would get 20.5 hours for that month. Usually the base amount will be increased as your length of service increase. There are rules on how they can be used as well. HR will be able to tell you. We can cash in PTO and donate PTO to other employees (like emergency reassons).

MiaKeaRN · Dec 5, 2007

It's funny that you should bring this up....as we were just trying to figure this out the other day at school. I think most facilities lump holidays & sick time together as PTO (paid time off). I currently earn 20 hours a month PTO at my current job, so I'm going to be in for a real wake up call when I graduate and have to go down to maybe only 8-10 hours of PTO earned per month. Egads! lol

anonymurse · Dec 5, 2007

If Henry has you covered for health insurance, like I'm covered by Tricare from my military retirement, maybe you could do like me and get the no-bennies package. I don't get any sick or vacation days, I buy my own liability from NSO cheap, I don't need the dental package, I don't want to participate in their retirement scheme, and I get something like $3.50/hr more.

madwife2002, BSN, RN · Dec 5, 2007

At my facility we get 12.5 hours a month but we cannot start to take any until after 3 months-in fact you dont know how much you are gettting until after this 3 month period as it is not written on your payslip

fultzymom · Dec 5, 2007

We get two weeks vacation after your first year of employment. We also earn 4 hours of time for each month you don't call off so at the end of the year you have 48 hours. You can use what you have built up if you should have to call off of work sick but if you call off then you don't earn your 4 hours for that month. Then if you don't use it you can have it paid out to you in a seperate check on your yearly anniversary.

EmmaG, RN · Dec 5, 2007

I think most places bundle the sick and vacation into PTO. As far as sick time occurrences go, one hospital I worked allowed for 5 sick calls per year before you were counseled. But they also allowed the staff to work them off. If you agreed to come in and help out when they were short, you'd get a percentage of your call in time knocked off. If you didn't have any sick calls, they'd bank that time for you, up to a certain number of days per year (can't recall the specifics on that).

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Dec 5, 2007

A nurse-in-training needs to know:Whats Many Paid Time Off Days are Usually Given to First year nurses?

It is wise to not automatically assume that all healthcare facilities offer benefits such as paid time off (PTO), sick pay, holiday pay, health insurance, retirement plans, bonuses, or so forth. Not all hospitals and facilities feel the generous urge to bestow benefits upon their employees. I've worked at a facility that offered no paid time off, health insurance, retirement plan, or bonuses to any nurses that worked for them. My current workplace grants me about 8 hours per month of PTO, assuming I worked my regularly scheduled hours for that month.

Each facility will have different benefit packages. In general, my non-nursing jobs have had superior benefits packages, while my nursing jobs have had mediocre benefits (if any).

BTW, nurses are educated (not trained). 'Nurse in Training' may not sound too hot. :)

Nursebarebari · Dec 5, 2007

my job give first 5 yrs is 4 wks vacation, 12 sick days, 8 hoildays, 4 personal days and 5 CE days. After 5 yrs, vac days increases to 5 weeks and sicks days to 15. this is ny btw.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Dec 5, 2007

My first job RNs (not the rest of staff) received 3 weeks PTO upon hire, it was nice to be an RN.

My current job we get 40 hours after six months.