I am wondering if hospitals do this for those working overtime? It is very common in the fire departments and I thought it was a great idea as someone who values their vacation time over making a bit more money. It may also be a way to keep from going into the next tax bracket.
If you are not familiar with this, it works like this.
TIME:
you work OT for vacation time, 1.5 days vacation for 1 day of overtime
LOVE:
you work a direct shift trade with someone and no change in pay etc.
MONEY:
This is the traditional OT where you get paid your OT $$ for working the shift
Just curious if this is a thing in the nursing profession or not.
Prepare to be very unhappy. The likelihood of this happening is slim to none and slim just left. This is prime time vacation and you will be lucky to get a week maybe ten days. The only way you could possibly do this is to go per diem.
That is what I wanted to know, Per diem is an option for sure. Good to know how the system works too.
Problem is that if we are offering significant OT. We are not staffed well enough to allow anyone to take extended vacations so offering extra vacation that won't be approved...
As a nursing student, which I see from your profile you are, if you're under the impression that as a new nurse on a typical inpatient unit, you will be able to take off many weeks at a time in the summer when your kids are off, I think you should know that's not realistic.
Yup. I knew one nurse that always took summers off, but she was the highest seniority person in the unit, basically the surrogate manager, and she also was the person who made the schedule. She worked some OT, but not a ton...she just never used any of her OT during the rest of the year.
Its a great idea but nursing just doesn't offer then flexibility for most to take off big chunks of time like that. I remember as a new grad living in a different state than my entire family, I missed Christmas for 5 years in a row because no one was allowed to have more than 6 days off consecutively during the holidays (end of Nov. thru Jan 5th), vacation or not. Since it didn't make sense to pay hundreds of dollars to fly home for such a short time, I just spent the holidays alone every year. It only changed when I quit my job and started working travel contracts vs. as regular staff, because then I just would plan my contracts to not work during the time that I wanted to visit family.
It only changed when I quit my job and started working travel contracts vs. as regular staff, because then I just would plan my contracts to not work during the time that I wanted to visit family.
SouthpawRN
337 Posts
That is what I wanted to know, Per diem is an option for sure. Good to know how the system works too.