HCA Staffing incentives

[Flo., BSN, RN]

On my unit we are critically short staffed. We are a 30 bed unit and have reduced census to 24 due to staffing. Even with that, we are still having trouble staffing shifts. We have a shift coming up this weekend with only 1 RN scheduled. All the RN's are into overtime now and management says there are no extra monetary incentives they can give us. They only offer incentive pay of $15 an hour when you are not in overtime. You can't have both. My question is, are they for real? Is this really an HCA thing or is my management team just trying to guilt us into working for less? It would seem like our unit would qualify for some extra money. I mean I am doing the work of at least 2 RN's, I should be paid accordingly. We are a psych unit so the float pool can't help us out.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

That is an epic management failure in the area of staffing. Like a Cecil B. DeMille, Trojan War, Genesis flood epic failure.

[AceOfHearts<3]

I agree with Here.I.Stand. My old job wasn't HCA, but they did initiate a staffing incentive that was for anything over your scheduled FTE and it was on-top of time-and-a-half if you worked over 40 hours in the week. The whole point of the incentive was that 1.5 pay wasn't enough for people to be willing to pick-up. People in my organization loved being able to double their hourly rate for a shift or part of a shift and the incentive pay really worked, but we also weren't nearly as short as your unit.

[JKL33]

My question is, are they for real? Is this really an HCA thing or is my management team just trying to guilt us into working for less? It would seem like our unit would qualify for some extra money. I mean I am doing the work of at least 2 RN's, I should be paid accordingly.

You're asking the wrong question :)

The only question that really matters is, "Am I willing to sell my time and energy for what they want to pay?"

ETA: I shouldn't sell us short, let me amend: "Am I willing to sell my time, energy, experience, skills, and knowledge for what they want to pay?" (!!)

[Calalilynurse]

Its not just HCA. My facility offers no incentive for working extra what so ever. If my unit doesn't need help I mostly see screw it.