Recrutiment and Retention Incentives

Nurses General Nursing

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I need your input, our hospital is looking at incentives, both for recruitment and retention, and for overtime shifts as well.

What are your hospitals doing? What do you wish they would do?

I'd really appreciate any suggestions. TY

Specializes in M/S, Onc, PCU, ER, ICU, Nsg Sup., Neuro.

Hi,

One thing our hospital does is to offer a $100.00 shift bonus in addition to overtime paid for working extra shifts. Our nurses currently work 12 hour shifts and 3 days week. In our ER which has had a staffing issue any shift where there are 4 or less nurses working picking up a shift then results in being double time as well as the bonus. However the shift bonus is only offered to to full or part tim staff, not PRN or pool). Works well.... flaerman

at our hospital the schedules are made for 4 weeks at a time. Once a nurse works atleast 44 hours in one week of schedule, anything over 40 a week for remainder of scheduled weeks is payed as premium (time and 1/2 plus additional 10$ an hour for anything over 40/wk). If the nurse works without calling in all scheduled hours a week (for whole 4 weeks) the nurse gets premium pay. It gives the nurse an extra 10$ per hour (in addition to time and 1/2 for ot) for any extra hours after 40 a week. so basically if a nurse picks up 4 extra hours each week of schedule, the first 4 hours are the qualifying shift and the 4 extra hours for the other 3 weeks get premium (end up with 12 hours premium = 120$ in addition to OT for those hours). hard to explain clearly, sorry

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

I like retention bonuses -- as opposed to hiring bonuses. I have worked for 2 hospitals that have given bonuses to nurses who stay. My current employer rewards nurses on their annivesary date every 2 or 3 years with a "milestone bonus" that increases the longer you stay. For the first year, it is only $500 ... but for the really long-term employees, it goes as high as $10,000 per year.

I worked for another employer several years ago who paid their retention bonus quarterly. So, every 3 months, nurses who had stayed the full 3 months got a bonus based on the number of hours they had worked that quarter. If you left before the quarter was up, you forfeited the bonus for the whole quarter.

What I like/liked about both of these programs was that it gave something "extra" to long-term employees and to those who stay to become leaders and resources to younger staff -- rather than rewarding people who hop from job to job frequently because of the sign-on bonuses.

llg

llg

Specializes in Peds, 1yr.; NICU, 15 yrs..

What other suggestions do you have? I am also looking for ideas to submit to my hospital.

Specializes in MEDSURG, IMU, ONCOLOGY.
at our hospital the schedules are made for 4 weeks at a time. Once a nurse works atleast 44 hours in one week of schedule, anything over 40 a week for remainder of scheduled weeks is payed as premium (time and 1/2 plus additional 10$ an hour for anything over 40/wk). If the nurse works without calling in all scheduled hours a week (for whole 4 weeks) the nurse gets premium pay. It gives the nurse an extra 10$ per hour (in addition to time and 1/2 for ot) for any extra hours after 40 a week. so basically if a nurse picks up 4 extra hours each week of schedule, the first 4 hours are the qualifying shift and the 4 extra hours for the other 3 weeks get premium (end up with 12 hours premium = 120$ in addition to OT for those hours). hard to explain clearly, sorry

wow, your program is really good. Our hospital just started the bonus retention program, From July 1st to Dec 31st of this year, if you accumulate 1000 hours, they will pay 10% of the base pay and overtime. This is only for bedside hours, so, pto, education, inservices do not count. Working 84hours (7days, which most nurses are doing anyway) per pay period does achieve this goal.

Specializes in ICU, CCU, Trauma, neuro, Geriatrics.

New hire support days, one 8 hour day every quarter. I find I am in this with mostly new nurses but getting the inside information on why things are done this way is so helpful. These are informal sessions with an agenda. We also have a bonus for overtime, time and a half plus $10/hr for weekdays and $15/hr for weekends. There is a career ladder but that is also related to those that want to move toward management, after level III you do need to have a bachelors and be pursuing a masters. The pay scale increases are enough to make the steps to level IV worth it though.

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