Your Employer - Are You In For The Long-Haul?

Nurses General Nursing

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I am planning to move in the next year, and have not yet settled on a location, although I have criteria in mind, such as which employer I choose, what the climate of the region is, cost of living, etc. My question is, do you love your health system (employer), and are you in for the long-haul? I need to choose an employer that I could stick with for a long time, like 20 years, and then retire. If you consider yourself permanently placed, what makes your health system worth staying with until you retire?

Specializes in CVICU.
Man! I'm jealous. I havent found a place wonderful enough yet to feel like I'd work there forever....maybe I'm a bit disillusioned dunno.

Maybe not! Maybe I'm the one looking for an idyllic situation that doesn't exist. Still hoping to hear more from others...

Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
My question is, do you love your health system (employer), and are you in for the long-haul?
I am not loyal to my employer and, quite frankly, am not sticking around for the long haul. Loyalty to any healthcare employer is, in my honest opinion, a big mistake for nurses. After 20 years management won't even notice you're leaving.

The mortgage on my home is completely paid off; therefore, I don't need to become stressful over scraping up house payments. I have no children or mate, so I am the only mouth to feed in my household. I'll stick around at my job until the work environment becomes noxious, then I'll leave and bounce to some other facility if my current employer mistreats me too badly. It's always beneficial to remain as flexible as possible.

Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.
I am not loyal to my employer and, quite frankly, am not sticking around for the long haul. Loyalty to any healthcare employer is, in my honest opinion, a big mistake for nurses. After 20 years management won't even notice you're leaving.

The mortgage on my home is completely paid off; therefore, I don't need to become stressful over scraping up house payments. I have no children or mate, so I am the only mouth to feed in my household. I'll stick around at my job until the work environment becomes noxious, then I'll leave and bounce to some other facility if my current employer mistreats me too badly. It's always beneficial to remain as flexible as possible.

Not a "big mistake" in my opinion. Of course no one is indepensible, and yes, they will carry on without a beat when you leave, won't even give you a parting glance. But the advantages could be accrued paid vacation, savings and investment plans, higher rate of pay (as I indicated above, I've maxed out by getting good reviews and raises over the years and wouldn't make the same if I jumped ship), familiarity with the system and doctors so you can mentor and precept new grads, students and employees, preferential shifts, just to name a few.

Mind you, I'm not advocating staying at a job where one is mistreated and disrepected, or toxic. I do believe in voting with your feet. I'm just not sure I buy into your idea that it's a "big mistake for nurses".

To each his/her own. I do have a mortgage to pay and that's not even a consideration to my loyalty to my position because I can pay it with any nursing salary anywhere.

I do agree, it's always a good idea to be flexible and keep your eyes open, and not be married to your job for life. We must recognize when it's time to leave. I don't care how many years I have, if I'm not happy or there are compelling reasons for me to leave, then bye bye bye it is. But I know the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. So it's more out of loyalty to myself that I stay, and in staying I've reaped some benefits that job hoppers don't get.

Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.
Not a "big mistake" in my opinion. Of course no one is indepensible, and yes, they will carry on without a beat when you leave. But the advantages could be accrued paid vacation, savings and investment plans, higher rate of pay (as I indicated above, I've maxed out by getting good reviews and raises over the years and wouldn't make the same if I jumped ship), familiarity with the system and doctors so you can mentor and precept new grads, students and employees, just to name a few.

...

I do agree, it's always a good idea to be flexible and keep your eyes open, and not be married to your job for life. We must recognize when it's time to leave. I don't care how many years I have, if I'm not happy or there are compelling reasons for me to leave, then bye bye bye it is. But I know the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence. So it's more out of loyalty to myself that I stay, and in staying I've reaped some benefits that job hoppers don't get.

Very good points: a person who job-hops may miss out on larger pay increases, greater accumulation of vacation & PTO time, vesting in retirement plans, preferred scheduling opportunities and many other *perks* of being a more senior employee.

Specializes in CVICU.
Very good points: a person who job-hops may miss out on larger pay increases, greater accumulation of vacation & PTO time, vesting in retirement plans, preferred scheduling opportunities and many other *perks* of being a more senior employee.

Yeah, see...I'm 45, and will need to take advantage of every one of these benefits in order to retire safely at 65, since I have some savings/retirement accumulated, but not nearly enough. If I were 20 I'd probably have a different outlook.

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

No company these days garners the kind of loyalty that most of us consider staying for "a long haul", except the military, maybe. I myself, agree with the other poster who said the "long haul" pertains to being true to family and self, not a company. Things change, hospitals get sold. You never know what will come down that may change your viewpoints, or your venue. Be open to the concept of moving if need be, and keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to advance, or get out of bad situations, if need be.

There's no gold watch waiting for us these days. We are lucky if we can retire before we are physically unable to work, nowadays. The brutal truth.

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

If you are thinking retirement, company loyalty will get you little to nothing. Get a good financial advisor and invest in a diverse manner. That is your BEST bet.

Specializes in oncology,med-surg,orthopedics, tele.

In my situation the only way for me to get a significant pay increase IS to jump ship. I love working at my hospital, but I went into a lot of debt to become a nurse, and my current employer doesn't offer a very competitive pay rate. It's sad really, because if they were recruiting me from another facility they would be more competitive. My skills have grown by leaps and bounds since I was a piddly new grad, but their pay scale does not account for that. I'm stuck with these miniscule yearly increases that really only account for cost of living increases, not they increased contribution I'm making the organization. Now all of that $$ they put into training me will be wasted, because after 2 years I need to go somewhere else if I want to make a dent in my loans AND plan for retirement. My plan is to go somewhere with a better rate of pay, and then possibly come back to my current facility in a few years when they need to compete with what I'm making elsewhere.

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.
No company these days garners the kind of loyalty that most of us consider staying for "a long haul", except the military, maybe. I myself, agree with the other poster who said the "long haul" pertains to being true to family and self, not a company. Things change, hospitals get sold. You never know what will come down that may change your viewpoints, or your venue. Be open to the concept of moving if need be, and keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to advance, or get out of bad situations, if need be.

There's no gold watch waiting for us these days. We are lucky if we can retire before we are physically unable to work, nowadays. The brutal truth.

While I agree with these sentiments I am in it for the long haul with my full time employer....or at least until I'm vested, lol The reason I got a state job was for the benefits and retirement. I'm very happy with my job and if I wasn't I'd find another unit but I'm not in any hurry to leave state employment. Like others, I am very leery of private companies but I believe that state and federal employees will end up getting paid what was promised to them no matter how dire the economy may be at the time. I have seen large companies go bankrupt and hospitals that changed the terms of their retirement payouts without any notice to its employees. As for my per diem job, which I totally love, I will not stay if things change and I'm no longer happy.

Specializes in neonatal intensive care.
The reason I got a state job was for the benefits and retirement.

I agree with this statement as that is exactly what I did. I retired at the end of Oct. from a state job. I did not realize when I began working there that I would eventually retire from that job, but found out along the way that the grass was not greener somewhere else.

Sometimes it is very worth it to stick it out with "the devil that you know."

Linda RN BSN

Specializes in NICU Level III.

i'm 24 and single. who knows? i don't plan on going anywhere right now but once a family comes into the picture, i can't really see the future.

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

I have learned that there probably is no such thing as a "forever job". I'd planned to stay with my former ALF for the rest of my career, but they brought in a new management company in my second year, and the focus changed from providing excellent care to generating revenue so they could expand the parent facility. I lived with it for 1 1/2 years before I finally got sick of seeing my residents' rental rates zoom into the stratosphere so TPTB could pour all the money into the other building instead of ours! The administrator they brought in was also a hard-nosed, two-faced (rhymes-with-rich) who slashed staffing to the bone and dumped most of the remaining workload on me.

So I reluctantly left that place and allowed myself to be lured to another ALF with big money and a fancy title, only to learn that these things do not make up for lousy working conditions. Nowadays, I'm under no illusions about being 'in it for the long haul'; ironically, however, I'm happier than I've been in years with my LTC job, and a position that was only supposed to be a brief stop on my way to another "serious" job might just be what I needed all along. I don't know how long my knees and back will hold up under the physical strain of floor nursing, but I'll be 50 next month and my body seems to be doing better, not worse.........and in the meantime, I'm loving the freedom of NOT being chained to a cell phone 24/7/365 or working 60-hour weeks, and this job feeds my soul in a way that paper-pushing never did.

The thing is, the only consistency in life is INconsistency---change happens, and I think life turns out better if one doesn't count on too much. That way, when something does work out it's like a gift, and when it doesn't, you've got the adaptive skills to get through it. JMHO.

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