What do I do? What would you do?

[Junebug59, RN]

I found out my hospital (HCA) is paying  nurses with the same experience and less, 1.16 more per hour.   If this were you, what would you do?

I sent an email to HR asking what they were paying (to confirm) nurses with my experience and she literally sent back a generic email, dancing around the subject without answering the question.  So I had a friend of mine with the same experience to apply for the same job I have and she was quoted 1.16 more per hr.  I saw the email (which came from hca corporate) confirming MY HOSPITAL is starting nurses out with my exp, 1.16 more per hr.....  

I just want to hear from others and their opinions on how they would handle it and advice.

 

thanks in advance, you guys!!

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Sadly this is nothing new in nursing. Loyalty doesn't mean much anymore. In order to get a boost in pay, you pretty much need to go elsewhere. There is so much focus on recruitment, but nowhere near enough focus on retention in my opinion.

[icaspe, BSN]

I would leave if it were me. I am loyal to myself and not a hospital. HCA doesn't care about retention.

[Jeckrn1, ADN, BSN]

Do you have any Federal Government hospitals near you?  If so I would look into one of them. I am not surprised about the pay; hospitals are like insurance company’s which screw over people with loyalty. 

[FurBabyMom, MSN, RN]

Internal inequity is a challenge for organizations to manage. Unfortunately, it's very common. It's a challenge to manage if organizations are not financially solvent enough to provide merit and cost of living/market adjustments each year. While I won't defend that this problem exists, the flip side of this is that most hospitals operate with a 1-6% operating margin (revenue is more than expenses by 1-6% of the operating budget). That kind of a margin makes hiring, retention and expansion of services a challenge. 

Others have advised that you could go somewhere else and get paid more. It's very likely.  To really see a difference you would likely have to leave HCA altogether.  You won't get an answer from your private organization. I work for a state entity, our pay rates are public and our salaries can be looked up (and have been in the paper before).

[Junebug59, RN]

Thanks everyone for the great responses.  I did get the raise (very quickly which was surprising) and also another raise , so pretty satisfied, but would like to get our call pay increased....  Southern states call pay is RIDICULOUSLY LOW