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Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Orthopedic, Emergency.

Anyone else have this prob?? I have two pressing questions:

Firstly, we're heading into slow season, and NOW my DON decides to hire the 5 full time staff we've been missing. Now we are being put on call at least once a wk. Having to use PTO to make a full pay ck. She seems to do this every year. We have poor retention on our night shift. Anyone else coming across this? From a hospital-provided-benefits perspective, does it seem fair I have to use my PTO (one of my benefits which Id like to use for say, I don't know....a vacation??) to make a pay ck??

Secondly, if staff on my shift sign up for a CEU class, esp one that is 7-8 hrs, we will get cancelled because my boss doesn't want to pay us OT (by law anything over 40 hrs must be paid @ 1.5). So, there I go again. Short my pack by four hours or use my PTO just to make my normal 36 pay. Is this ethical, moral, legal?

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Legal- yeah, probably

Moral & Ethical...... how does that apply to the nurse/employer relationship? :cool:

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

It may not be fair. It may not be ethical or moral.........:devil: but it is legal. Technically the class wouldn't be included in the over time because it is "non-productive" time and therefore can be excluded from OT. To qualify to be OT it has to consist of functions normally performed by you....ie: being at the bedside vs being in class. Technically speaking federal law mandates OT over fourty hours if in job performance usually performed by the worker. Making you take the time is up to the employer. There are no federal laws protection when you get paid your vacation or how you take your vacation just that if there is a vacation promised that you get what you are promised.

It is cost effective to make you use your vacation pay to make up cancelation. If you take vacation during "busy times" they have to pay for a replacement or pay OT to cover you with a replacement plus pay your vacation. this way they are saving cost by canceling you and making you use the money already set aside for your vacation and getting it "off the books" so you can't use it at a more expensive time for them later.

Shady?Yes:mad: Amoral?Yes :angthts: Self serving? Yes:banghead:.......welcome to nursing administration 101.:grn:

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Specializes in ICU, Public Health.
Shady?Yes:mad: Amoral?Yes :angthts: Self serving? Yes:banghead:.......welcome to nursing administration 101.:grn:

I'm laughing about this, but it really isn't funny. I always enjoy your posts Esme.

What I don't understand is, if retention is important why not try to please your employees? I know the budget is important and necessary, but I look at a unit and see that if administration made an effort to assure breaks, vacations/personal time, sick time...nurses would be happier and willing to stay, trade shifts, work OT once in a while, use OT once in a while... Nurses can see that administration is self serving. It truly doesn't make for a cohesive unit. If nurses saw administration making an effort on behalf of their staff, nurses would do the same. It would make everybody happy! It works with other companies. Why not nursing?

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I'm laughing about this, but it really isn't funny. I always enjoy your posts Esme.

What I don't understand is, if retention is important why not try to please your employees? I know the budget is important and necessary, but I look at a unit and see that if administration made an effort to assure breaks, vacations/personal time, sick time...nurses would be happier and willing to stay, trade shifts, work OT once in a while, use OT once in a while... Nurses can see that administration is self serving. It truly doesn't make for a cohesive unit. If nurses saw administration making an effort on behalf of their staff, nurses would do the same. It would make everybody happy! It works with other companies. Why not nursing?

Right now...there is a HUGE sepparation of "church and state"!:anbd: Between fact and fiction. I think it has ALOT to do with supply and demand and right now you can almost say ....nurses are a dime a dozen. There is a plentiful supply so there is no demand.

The current administrative mentality is that nurses are the leeches upon which their budgets are caused to fail. We are a huge expenditure, we bring no true revenue and are easily replaced and that makes us disposable (in their eyes). :devil: The coporate mentality/model for increasing productivity and decreasing expenditures doesn't work in nursing because of the human factor......you get what you pay for right? cheaper isn't necessarily always better.....if that were the case why would they buy a Mercedes or Bugatti when a Kia would do?:idea: The code at shift change, the death at lunch, the fall on the way out the door. We cost them money therefore we must "pay". It sounds incredulous...but true! :dzed: I've heard it with my own ears.....:uhoh3: and in that respect I am glad right now I am at home.

I remember, not that long ago, of Baylor programs and loan forgiveness:loveya:, extensive training and orientations, paying for my advance degree and tuition reimbursement:yeah:, and of 15,000$ sign on bonouses just to work nights for a year:eek:. This was costing a fortune........Hospitals screamed "SHORTAGE WHAT WILL WE DO?":smackingf and the "accelerated programs" were born.

Now with a glut of nurses they can do as they wish and the ecomony that fell brought many for that steady job....with advanced degrees and the promise of the "big bucks" that draws many like magnets. Stay at home Moms have returned to the work force and the hospitals know they can do as they wish.....the nurse is easliy replaceable right now:crying2:.

The good news about this is that this has happened before in the 80's and this will pass too.*wine

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You have pto to use for a full check. I have nothing.

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