Should I take higher pay or excellent benefits?

Dear Nurse Beth Advice Column - The following letter submitted anonymously in search for answers. Join the conversation!

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Hello,

I have a serious dilemma and in need of advice. I currently work for a public university hospital. I love my coworkers it's a very good team. The benefits are the best I have ever seen. The problem they pay the lowest in my area and we have to pay to park. I left a clinic job full time to go PRN so I could work at Public hospital due to the benefits. So now I am working both jobs and burned out. Clinic offered me to come back full time and a promotion.

Now to throw a monkey in this another hospital I use to work at contacted me about coming back and they have decent benefits but I would have to work every other weekend and holiday. The reputation of this hospital is not that great and they are really understaffed.

Sum it up options are clinic Monday thru Friday and no holidays. Pays the most but benefits are practically non existent. Option 2 stay at current job but pay is not good and pay for parking but the benefits are amazing. Option 3 take another hospital job with sign on bonus and 2 year commitment with every other weekend and some holidays with decent benefits. I really don't like the thought of every other weekend. I have no weekend commitment now. Please help I feel like my head is about to explode from thinking.

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6 Answers

Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.

Dear Head Exploding,

In short, stay where you are.

Do not go to a hospital with a poor reputation. Some of the worst hospitals pay the highest hourly rate because they are chronically understaffed, suffer high turnover, and are in a high-pay, constant turnover trap.

Currently, you have no weekends, a very good team of coworkers you love, and amazing benefits. Benefits can count for up to 30% of your overall compensation package and your appreciation for benefits generally increases as you get older. If your employer participates in a retirement fund, you are golden. 

Best wishes,

Nurse Beth

Specializes in retired LTC.

Nurse Beth answered this dilemma sooo super well. STAY WHERE YOU ARE!

Option 3 has weekends - you'll be grumpy & grousing every time your req Sat/Sun rolls around. And then after 9 months or so, you'll be trying your darndest wanting to get out of your 2 yr contract and payback on your bonus.

Is your current job Civil Service? You have union? I'd not give THAT up ever.

Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, Psych, Interventional Cardiac,.

Thank you! I was at my public hospital job today thinking to myself how can I leave. I really do love the job, and my coworkers. They announced they would be giving an increase in pay to nurses as a result of current market and what other area hospitals are offering.

until then I can work overtime if you needed. Time to decline my other offers ?

Specializes in Physiology, CM, consulting, nsg edu, LNC, COB.
On 11/23/2021 at 10:32 PM, CardiacRN#1 said:

The more I re-read the advice it really is a no brainer!

Sometimes good ideas sound better if they come from other people; they don't sound so desperate or pie-in-the-sky as they do in the middle of the night when you can't sleep.

Congratulations!

"I love my coworkers. It’s a very good team. The benefits are the best I have ever seen"

As you get older, no holidays or weekends and time off is golden. Short-staffing and a poor facility = crabby coworkers!

Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, Psych, Interventional Cardiac,.
amoLucia said:

Nurse Beth answered this dilemma sooo super well. STAY WHERE YOU ARE!

Option 3 has weekends - you'll be grumpy & grousing every time your req Sat/Sun rolls around. And then after 9 months or so, you'll be trying your darndest wanting to get out of your 2 yr contract and payback on your bonus.

Is your current job Civil Service? You have union? I'd not give THAT up ever.

No union, but the hospital is tied to state so their benefits are much better than all the other are hospital. The more I re-read the advice it really is a no brainer!

Thanks again 

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