PTO/Sick Leave for Nurses

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I think it would be interesting to see how many PTO/sick leave days everyone gets in their varoius positions and if you feel that it is sufficient to create work/life balance. Please indicate how long it took to get to the accrual you are currently at.

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Specializes in PCCN.

5 days. which all got used up when i had my knee surgery. so now I can't be sick for the rest of the year.

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I earn about 7 hours a pay period. I have worked for this company for 1.5 years. I think I have about 114 saved at this point. I find that I do have balance, but wish I could have more time off!

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Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I'm an APN but earn about 8 hrs a pay period. I currently have approx 300 hrs saved.

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Specializes in PACU, OR.

I'm not 100% sure of what type of leave you're referring to. My company gives 36 days sick leave over a 3 year period, and a maximum of 5 days "family responsibility" every year; this is for occasions when your kids or spouse is ill or when a close family member dies.

My annual leave is calculated by hours; as I have over 20 years service, I'm on the maximum scale of 25.83 hours per month, or 309 hours per year. The "days" I refer to under the other categories are calculated as 6 hours. My working week is 42 hours.

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Specializes in MSP, Informatics.

where I worked, it really didn't matter how many you had... they didn't want you to use any!

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Specializes in Family NP, OB Nursing.

The last two years I worked as a staff RN in OB they changed the policy. Even though we earned about 7 hours/pay period, no matter how much time we had saved up, when we called in we received a demerit. Three demerits in a year and you received a written warning. Five demerits and you received a second warning. Six demerits and you were terminated. So basically, you could only call in five times a year.

Oh, and a weekend/holiday call in equaled 2 demerits. Of course, I worked Fri, Sat and Sun because I was in NP school, so I could call in only twice a year.

The only time a call in didn't cause demerits was if it was related to an FMLA condition. So you bet those who ALWAYS called in before the policy change went to their docs and got some kind of FMLA papers filled out. So, all they had to do was say they were calling in for their migraine, back pain, fibromyalgia, or whatever and they had up to 12 weeks of call ins demerit free.

PS - I'm not saying those aren't legitimate conditions for an FMLA, only that it seemed that for SOME of those people they suddenly and conveniently had such a condition that no one had ever heard of before that time.

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In my facility, the rate at which I accumulate hours is based on years of service. I am now in the second tier, and I accumulate something like 24 days a year. Our six annual holidays are included in this. This is a combined vacation/PTO/sick leave tank. I'm not exactly sure how many days I get...I just know I can't get rid of them! I've accumulated about a month of time off in a relatively quick time now that I'm on this next tier. I'm going to have to start taking more time off, I guess.

We also accumulate long term sick leave, at a much slower rate. You can only use the long term sick leave if you are sick for more than 3 days in a row and have a physician's note. People use it for pregnancy/maternity leave, recovery from surgery, etc. I have about 3 months of long term sick leave, as I've never touched it.

I feel it's adequate, but I don't have little kids at home who need me to call in for illness, I'm not a single parent with child care issues, and I don't have any health problems. I take excused absences sometimes (ie I volunteer to stay home when our census is low) and use my PTO then; otherwise I would have a lot more. I take one week off a year to go to a music festival and usually about two weeks off every summer for some type of vacation. I've never had a problem with running low on my sick leave or vacation leave. I haven't called in sick in probably 4 years, though. I appreciate that everything is banked so that, if I were truly a sickly person, I would have more time to call in; since I'm not, it means I have more accumulated vacation time, should I want to use it.

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Specializes in ER, ICU.

I get 3 hours of PTO per paycheck. No it's not enough and I'm thinking of moving to France.

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Specializes in ER, education, mgmt.

Accrual of PTO is based upon hours worked and years of service. More time with the hospital means you accrue at a higher rate. I find it to be very generous.

We are allowed 4 occurences of absence in a rolling 12 month period, on a no fault basis (meaning dont give us a reason just say you can't be there). Absences due to jury duty, FMLA, OJI, states of emergency, or those qualifying for bereavement do not count as an absence.

5 occurences- informal write up, 6- 2nd write up, 7- suspension 8-termination

I have only at one time in my almost 20 years with this facility have ever received an informal write up due to absenteeism (my kids were sick alot that year). Pretty fair and enforced consistently which I know is not the case with many of you.

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8 hrs of vacation and 4 hrs of sick leave per pay period

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Specializes in Urology/Telemetry, Ortho.

9 days within a calendar year for 12 hour shift nurses. Occurs as soon as you start. Can accrue up to 3 months worth of sick time before you can't get anymore & have to use in order to accumulate more. They don't like you to take sick time but I'm not jeopardizing my health. If you don't have your health, how can you do your job?

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