Should I tell my boss that I work weekends for another HH agency?

caliotter3 · Feb 9, 2014

If it doesn't affect them, they don't need to be told. You only need to give availability, not the reasons for not being available. And with all hh agency work, it is expected that you will sign on with a second agency.

jlmanzano13 · Feb 9, 2014

I work full-time Mon-Fri 8-5 at the other agency, but you're right, as long as it doesn't interfere with my full-time job.

Sam J. · Feb 9, 2014

You say you get paid well. And of course your boss doesn't want to pay you overtime. You made the better call to get W/E nursing work elsewhere. But not a good idea to tell your boss about your new job- regardless of the fact he doesn't want to give you patients on the weekends. It won't serve any good purpose to let him know you 'defected' to a competitor- it may even risk your job with him, if for no other reason than spite- he may feel your W/E job may be a risk to his own client base, or etc.

middleagednurse · Feb 9, 2014

My agency has a "rule" that you're not supposed to work for other agencies, because it's "conflict of interest". However, most nurses do it anyway because they want to earn more money. It's sort of a "don't ask, don't tell" situation.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Feb 10, 2014

I been with this home health agency for 9 years, secretary to LVN. I just got my license a month ago. I do QA work including coding of the recerts. I asked my boss if I can see 1 or 2 patients on the weekends. He said he would think about it and let me know, I asked him twice, and still hasn't said anything. He did mention something about worker's comp, and that me working in the field is something totally separate. I'm also thinking he doesn't want to pay overtime since I get 40hrs/week, and those visits will count as extra time... So I decided to apply to another agency, and I got hired for the weekends or after hours, and will get my first patient next week. I'm a little disappointed that my boss couldn't give me at least 1 patient, especially that I've been a long time employee.. Anyways, they pay me well for the office, and won't push the issue further, should I tell them of my new part-time job?

Workers comp is an insurance that provides wage replacement if you are injured on the job. I'm sure your boss wasn't talking about that when you asked about weekends. No employer wants to pay overtime if they can help it. They want to give overtime to long-time employees who [possibly] make more money even less. I wouldn't tell your boss. If you are strictly M-F with no weekend obligation to him, there's no need for him to know what you do on your weekends.

Sam J. · Feb 10, 2014

Workers comp is an insurance that provides wage replacement if you are injured on the job. I'm sure your boss wasn't talking about that when you asked about weekends. No employer wants to pay overtime if they can help it. They want to give overtime to long-time employees who [possibly] make more money even less. I wouldn't tell your boss. If you are strictly M-F with no weekend obligation to him, there's no need for him to know what you do on your weekends.

My thought is that the boss mentioned worker's compensation because said boss didn't have a more credible reply at the top of his head.

Sam J. · Feb 10, 2014

If you are strictly M-F with no weekend obligation to him, there's no need for him to know what you do on your weekends.

Separate your Church from your State??

brillohead, ADN, RN · Feb 14, 2014

Worker compensation rates are significantly different depending upon your scope of work. In my previous life, I worked in a construction company's office, and the premium for me in the office was almost non-existent compared to the obnoxious rate that we had to pay for our field personnel (carpenters, etc.).

It makes sense... there's not a whole lot of danger of being injured on the job when you're a desk jockey -- what are you gonna do, get a paper cut? Construction workers on the job-site, however, are at risk for all kinds of accidents and injuries -- fall off a roof, drop a cement block on your foot, cut off a body part with a circular saw, get run over by a backhoe, etc.

When the OP is working in the office doing QA work, that's a desk job with a tiny little WC premium that the employer has to pay based on the worker's pay. However, if the OP is working as a nurse in the field, that tiny little WC premium changes over into the nursing equivalent of the "construction worker" rate -- nurses are at risk for all kinds of back injuries, needlestick injuries, etc.

In a logical/rational/fair world, the insurance company would only charge the higher rate for the hours that the OP is actually working as a field nurse, but that's not the way things actually work -- they want to collect as much money as possible, and they also want to make sure that nobody is "working the system" by classifying an employee as one thing but having them work as another. So they're going to charge the employer the higher rate for ALL of the OP's wages. And I'm not kidding about the difference in rates -- it could be as drastic as 50 times as much (not 50% more, actually 50 times higher).

As for overtime, it's not so much that they don't want to pay it, but rather they don't have a way to pay for it. The insurance company pays them a set rate per hour for services, and the agency doesn't get to charge 50% more just because the nurse they happen to send happens to be on overtime for that assignment. Overtime has to come directly out of the company's pockets, with no way to be reimbursed for the expenditure.

But all that aside, I see no reason to have to disclose your part-time job to your employer. It doesn't affect your availability for your primary job, and you're not going to be stealing business or divulging company secrets. If you picked up a shift on the weekend flipping burgers or waiting tables, you wouldn't need to disclose that to your other employer -- this shouldn't be any different, IMO.

Sam J. · Feb 14, 2014

Interesting synopsis about WC- then again, all the other nurses would already have the same coverage, so would adding one more cause a premium increase? As far as OT- I've yet to work anywhere where the employer didn't bemoan paying OT for any reason. But in OP's case, she would likely not only get OT, but hopefuly would be paid more in base pay to work as a nurse, as well. Also, the owner may not want OP to work as a nurse, and find she likes it, because maybe then she'd want to give up the desk job?

brillohead, ADN, RN · Feb 14, 2014

Interesting synopsis about WC- then again, all the other nurses would already have the same coverage, so would adding one more cause a premium increase?

The WC premiums are paid on actual wages paid to each employee, and at the end of the policy period it is audited. At the beginning of the policy, the annual wages to be paid are estimated, and the premium is set at that rate. Then at the end of the policy year, the insurance company sends in an auditor to examine payroll records to see how many people were paid how much money in which capacity/position, and the actual premium is determined based on that figure.

It's kind of like the escrow account on your mortgage -- they estimate how much your taxes and insurance will be, and they divide that by 12 to figure the monthly escrow payment. If the estimated payments are less than the actual costs, you have to cough up the difference at the end of the year. Same for WC premiums.

If they estimated the OP at $50K at the desk job rate, then at the end of the year the actual wages were $50K at the desk job plus $20K at the nurse job, the insurance company is going to want to charge all of those wages at the nurse premium rate, so they would credit back the premium they estimated on the desk rate and charge the employer for $70K at the nurse rate.

I have no idea what the actual rates are, but I'll give an example of what I'm talking about. WC rates are charged as "fee per $100 in wages paid". Based on my construction experience, I'd guess that the desk rate is something like 30-cents per $100, and the nursing rate is more like $15 per $100.

Using those numbers, the rates would work out like this:

$50K at desk rate = $300 annual premium

$20K at nurse rate = $3,000 annual premium

If the rate is broken down per hours worked in each category, the total premium would be $3,300.

But if the insurance company counts the entire annual wage:

$70K at nurse rate = $10,500 annual premium.

For the same exact amount of wages paid, the employer would have more than seven thousand dollars in extra costs.

And this doesn't even take into account that the $20K in work would actually cost them $30K because it would all be overtime hours, which would then increase the WC premium an additional $1,500.

By the time you add up the cost of the overtime ($10K), the cost of the OT's WC cost ($1,500), and the cost of the additional WC cost for the desk hours that are being charged the nurse premium ($7,200), that's a total of $18,700 in extra cost that the agency will incur that it cannot be reimbursed for. That's one heck of a financial hit to take for only $20K in extra work performed.

Again, my numbers were kinda pulled out of my buttocks, and every state's rates and every individual company's rates are different, so I hope nobody will try to break down my example and point out all its flaws as it relates to their own personal situation -- it's just an example, not a guarantee.

I don't have a pony in this race at all, and I'm not on the management side of things anymore -- I'm a nurse like the rest of you now! I just wanted to point out that the OP's employer did indeed have a very good reason for not wanting to hire the OP in a nursing capacity while also maintaining the office job -- there was unlikely to have been any spite or malevolent intent in the denial, it simply did not make good financial sense to have done it.

When I first got involved in the corporate insurance stuff at my old job, I was just amazed -- I had NO CLUE at how much business are paying out. By the time you add up the costs for worker compensation insurance, state unemployment insurance tax, federal unemployment insurance tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax, you're talking about a HUGE chunk of money that the employer is paying out in addition to your actual wages. And all of this is completely invisible to the employee -- this is all in addition to the income tax withholding and FICA withholding that you see on your paystub. It really is a pretty big deal, and like I said, it was a very eye-opening experience for me.