Nurse differential pay question

caliotter3 · Sep 17, 2020

You should. Isn't 7 pm to 7 am between 3 pm and 7 am? Go to HR, or call, and ask for clarification. What I don't see is a difference between a PM and night shift differential, should there ever be 8 hour shifts. Usually 3 to 11 get one differential, and 11 to 7 gets more.

MunoRN, RN · Sep 17, 2020

Common sense would suggest they meant the differential applies to house worked between 3PM and 7AM.

The way they worded it though, taken literally, would mean the differential only applies to the 3PM hour and the 7AM hour, ie you only get the differential pay between 3 and 4PM and between 7 and 8AM.

This would be the sort of situation where I would hope I wouldn't want the job, although for other reasons, just so I could say I was turning down the offer because I was concerned about their lack of ability to communicate coherently.

Jedrnurse, BSN, RN · Sep 17, 2020

Bad writing. Odds are, it means that you get the differential for your entire shift.

Newnurse23 · Sep 17, 2020

Thank you!!

HiddencatBSN, BSN · Sep 18, 2020

1 hour ago, Thaithomas said:

I got my offer letter from the hospital. It states : “Your base rate of pay will be $25.50. If you work during the hours of 3pm and 7am, this rate will increase by 15% for shift differential.”

If I work 7pm-7am( night shift), will I get the 15% differential?

Im just a little confused on how they worded it

thanks!

Most places I’ve worked you only get the differential if the bulk of your shift falls in the differential time, so 7a-7p wouldn’t but 11a-11p would. We’d get the full differential so all 12 hours of the 11-11 would be at differential rate.

How differential is handled is very facility dependent though so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for clarification. The complete policy is likely detailed in the employee handbook.

HiddencatBSN, BSN · Sep 18, 2020

Oops, just realized you’re working 7p-7a. You fall within those hours so you get shift differential.

I suggest, especially if this is your first job, to set aside the differential amount and not consider it as part of your budget. One of the reasons people can get stuck on night shift is budget expanding to that differential and it becomes really hard to take a paycut to work on days. Save some, use some for fun and relaxation things, but keep your essentials within the base salary. I didn’t do this and there’s not enough wiggle room in our budget for me to go to day shift without increasing our income somewhere else or downsizing our home.

mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN · Sep 18, 2020

I work weekend option: Fri/Sat/Sun. My w/e starts at 1500 on Fri

Nunya, BSN · Sep 18, 2020

20 hours ago, caliotter3 said:

You should. Isn't 7 pm to 7 am between 3 pm and 7 am? Go to HR, or call, and ask for clarification. What I don't see is a difference between a PM and night shift differential, should there ever be 8 hour shifts. Usually 3 to 11 get one differential, and 11 to 7 gets more.

Yes, you'll get it. I wonder if there are still some 8 hour shift workers and they give a 3p-7p shift diff to encourage them to stay till 7. That was the case at a job of mine in St Louis. I got called quite often to add 3p-7p onto my 12 hour 7p-7a. I never did it but a friend did it almost weekly.

HiddencatBSN, BSN · Sep 19, 2020

12 hours ago, Nunya said:

Yes, you'll get it. I wonder if there are still some 8 hour shift workers and they give a 3p-7p shift diff to encourage them to stay till 7. That was the case at a job of mine in St Louis. I got called quite often to add 3p-7p onto my 12 hour 7p-7a. I never did it but a friend did it almost weekly.

I’ve worked some places where there’s a separate evening and night shift differential and places where there’s just one differential for offshift.

areason4stars, ASN, RN · Sep 23, 2020

Yes you should get it. study your paystubs to make sure its accurate ask HR if you need help understanding the breakdowns.

At my facility there is a differential for evening shift (3p-11p) and a different one for night shift (11p-7a) and a weekend differential in addition. Sometimes I work just night shift but other nights I work a 12hr from 7p-7a.... On my 12hr shifts I get the eve differential from 7p-11p and then I get the night differential for my hours from 11p-7a. Any hour's that fall on a weekend get the weekend differential added to the other differential. Also the nights I am charge I get the charge nurse differential added as well.

ITs a lot to try and decipher when I looking at my paystubs LOL But you can see the breakdown of Base pay and the differentials added..

areason4stars, ASN, RN · Sep 23, 2020

On 9/17/2020 at 8:18 PM, HiddencatBSN said:

Oops, just realized you’re working 7p-7a. You fall within those hours so you get shift differential.

I suggest, especially if this is your first job, to set aside the differential amount and not consider it as part of your budget. One of the reasons people can get stuck on night shift is budget expanding to that differential and it becomes really hard to take a paycut to work on days. Save some, use some for fun and relaxation things, but keep your essentials within the base salary. I didn’t do this and there’s not enough wiggle room in our budget for me to go to day shift without increasing our income somewhere else or downsizing our home.

This is soo true. I wanted to move to days in about a year but I am not sure my budget can handle it ? I am so used to the differential now.