I am in my last semester of Nursing school..YAYYY! and it has been a HARD road to get here but now that I'm almost done I'm starting to think about working and applying. I have been a tech on a specialty unit for 5 years now and I love me job and would like to continue working there as a RN. I am a hard worker and I know my unit and it shows because the DON for our unit told me personally to go speak with my new manager of 4 months about what positions they could offer me, well I did this and to my surprise she said I had to wait until AFTER I passed my boards to apply:(. At this point I was shock because 3 of our techs who just graduated from nursing school in May were all offered positions in March and didn't take their boards until June. So I mentioned this to my manager and she said "oh the policy has changed you have to wait now". An because she went on a hiring frenzy we have about 15 new nurses on the unit, so I have to wait until someone quits in order to have a position. Well after our meeting I decided to call HR for our hospital just to ask about the new policy and if it was the entire hospital, I was told she didn't know anything about it and its up to my manager and she could hire me up to 6mths in advance and if I was not already an employee there I could apply up to 2mths in advance.
This entire thing had me in tears, I didn't understand why I have to wait and why she lied to me. FYI I am African American and the other girls where Caucasian. Is this discrimination?? Also we do have about 6 out of 15 African Americans on our unit as Techs but only 2 out 45 +nurses are African American. (Who have been there for 40 + years) And NONE of the new nurses she hired are AA either.
Maybe she wants to. Maybe she shouldn't have to go to another 'drinking fountain' or lunch counter.
Maybe it is discrimination maybe it's outright racism.
There's nothing wrong with demanding fairness and justice. I'm just sad and frustrated that the need is still so strong.
I'm from Central American with a black skin tone. Discrimination? I have been on the receiving end more than once, trust me. It's one of the hardest things to face, especially since I don't see color; I see people. What I suggested to the OP came from personal experience. If this truly is discrimination, she's going to have one heck of a fight on her hands to prove it. If she is up for the fight, I wish her all the best. And as I stated, maybe someone just screwed up. That does happen. We don't know the whole story in this situation.
The agency you work for does not sound very consistent or organized. As competitive as nursing is, I am quite surprised your HR dep't is not more conscientious and thorough in formulating and articulating a standardized hiring policy for current and future employees. Many (if not a majority) of newly graduated nurses at present find employment as an RN by taking on employment as a patient care tech or in another unlicensed capacity in a hospital or other health care facility prior to graduation. Not having a written standard and/ or not applying it judiciously just begs for a lawsuit in my opinion.
I am not offering an opinion as to whether you have been discriminated against. I am simply expressing my surprise that an HR dep't would allow an employee to hire so many nurses with one standard and then (as you describe it) arbitrarily change said standard so fundamentally without a written policy change. A major focus of most HR departments is to maintain hiring practices that are compliant with state and federal law. I am not stating any law has been broken. However, I believe any HR dep't worth its salt would be ALL OVER the glaring inconsistency you describe, even if this simply meant communicating/ clarifying current policy to your manager.
Discrimination, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. If your gut feeling is telling you that you are being subjected to discrimination, no one can refute this because they cannot feel what you are feeling. However, I will say that discrimination is very difficult to prove from a legal standpoint.
PPs have provided many plausible reasons that could be underlying reasons & great advice for OP's situation. I am joining with those who advise OP to address the situation with HR. There may be other opportunities for OP, particularly since she already has proven herself to be a reliable and valued employee.
chopwood carrywater
207 Posts
Maybe she wants to. Maybe she shouldn't have to go to another 'drinking fountain' or lunch counter.
Maybe it is discrimination maybe it's outright racism.
There's nothing wrong with demanding fairness and justice. I'm just sad and frustrated that the need is still so strong.