low volume days & ed pay

[punkydoodlesRN]

I'm just 3 months into my first hospital job, but there is something done here with pay that really bothers me and I just wanted to see if it was the norm..

When you are cancelled for low census, how does your pay work?? We're forced to use 12 hrs of PTO.

What about education days? I work nights, and recently needed an education day for NRP and since I'm on orientation, I'm not authorized overtime. I was given an "ed day" which is 8 hrs of base pay. Tonight I discovered that my NM took 4.75 hrs of my PTO that day to complete my 12 hrs. And last night I was cancelled for low census... I'm am just 2 weeks off of orientation and have already lost almost 17 of my 30 hrs.

We acrue from hire date, but aren't allowed to use PTO until we've completed orientation. We get around 7 hrs/ck.

Is it just me, or is that total BS??

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

That's how they do it at my last place as well. You should be able to decline to use them, I always did. Did you ask payroll?

[MntnGirl]

You should get your facilities Policy regarding this and have a paper copy to present to your Nurse Manager. At my workplace we do have low census times - we are not required to use PTO with low census shifts, and we do acquire PTO for low census oncall shifts (cuz we are still 'oncall' - we could be called in at any time). We also acquire about 7 hours of PTO every 2 weeks and I work 12 hours shifts, I save my PTO for my actual vacation, it certainly isn't a vacation waiting around at my house to be called into work. I find that because of my 12 hours shifts, taking 1 shift off of work (be it for sick day, vacation, or oncall low census) requires about 1 month of PTO - it takes awhile to get those hours accummulated to a nice amount. I'm curious to why your nurse manager is 'requiring' your unit to use PTO for low census? Please fill us in on your thoughts. Good luck and I hope this is able to get figured out so that you aren't losing all your PTO and you don't even get to go on vacation.