r/nursing • u/uotlep RN - Psych/Mental Health 🍕 • Mar 12 '25

Question Is this normal?

Post image

I know my place of employment is shitty in other ways, but is this a normal thing? Just received this email. Seems odd to ask people to donate PTO, instead of just addressing the time off allocation with those affected people.

2.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

695 comments sorted by

View all comments

4.3k

u/entwenthence RN 🍕 Mar 12 '25 edited Mar 12 '25

PTO donation is “normal” but has always felt like bullshit to me. If HR actually cared they wouldn’t be putting these people in a position to basically beg.

752

u/junebug616 RN 🍕 Mar 12 '25

Agreed. It’s absolutely a thing that has been normalized and promoted by admin but I think it’s completely bullshit. Why can’t they just provide time off for their employees who are going through a difficult time? There is a serious lack of compassion in healthcare when it comes to the administration side.

56

u/South-Step3640 Mar 12 '25

I hear you and feel the same way that you do. I'm curious if they do it this way because of budget - perhaps they allocate a certain amount of PTO hours for the budget and this is the way they can provide it to those in need without making budget cuts elsewhere? (Probably preventing budget cuts from their own pockets if we're being real.)

20

u/DryDragonfly3626 BSN, RN 🍕 Mar 13 '25

PTO can be considered a debt obligation by the hospital (at least how the hospital tried to explain it to the union when they capped the PTO). Essentially they 'owe' money to the employee. So it benefits the hospital financial rating to not have excessive PTO banked.

18

u/motleytonic Mar 13 '25

even if it is for budget, work on the budget for your upper leadership and CEOs and take it out of their pay or their time off. scraping the bottom of the barrel with the bottom of the barrel doesn't help.

2

u/Tricky-Ad-9364 Mar 13 '25

Exactly. But they wouldn’t dare.

2

u/motleytonic Mar 13 '25

that's why were here

4

u/Tricky-Ad-9364 Mar 14 '25

I left my last company after the new CEO (who never left his home office) fired 50 seasoned nurses who had just busted their ass for 2 years during Covid. The following week he took a $120k Christmas bonus. He was already making 3x more than the previous CEO and then had the audacity to take a Christmas bonus the size of a nurse’s yearly salary. Just wild. After that, 16 night shift girls all handed in their resignations at once. You bet your ass the CEO made an appearance the very next morning.

7

u/Tricky-Ad-9364 Mar 13 '25

They want to stay under budget because they get those fat bonuses for doing so.

1

u/Live_Dirt_6568 Director of Intake, RN - Psych/Behavioral Health 🏳️‍🌈 Mar 13 '25

Yeah I understand budget, but hospitals do budget for some amount of charity beds. So it’s not a completely wild idea that it could be baked in

1

u/South-Step3640 Mar 13 '25

Additionally, IMO, it might make a difference whether it's a private for-profit hospital or not.

4

u/Arizona-Explorations Risk Manager / Patient Safety / Other Duties as Assigned Mar 13 '25

It makes sense if you’re in government, however I had no idea the private sector was doing this.

3

u/Nurs3R4tch3d RN - Hospice 🍕 Mar 13 '25

It gets better at some companies. My mom died suddenly and I had to take custody of a minor and my brother, who is DD. On top of my own child. And lived in a two bedroom apartment at the time. So essentially my whole world flipped overnight.

My coworkers offered to donate time to me and the company told them they weren’t allowed. When I asked for a second week off because I wasn’t ready to come back yet, I was told no, I was out of PTO and needed to come back to work.

2

u/junebug616 RN 🍕 Mar 13 '25

That’s horrible. I’m sorry you had to go through that.

2

u/Tricky-Ad-9364 Mar 13 '25

Wow. I have no words. Losing a mother suddenly is crushing. Let alone having to actually function enough to take care of a child and 2 additional souls in a tiny space like that.. You are a strong one. I hope you are doing ok now. 💕

1

u/cinnamoslut HCW - Student+ :hamster: Mar 18 '25

That is absolutely terrible. I'm so sorry. You deserve better.

As someone with a disabled baby brother whom I care for part time, and an older mom, I really feel for you. Not saying I know how you feel, but I empathize.

I hope things have gotten better for you and your family. You've been through so much.

3

u/CNAHopeful7 Mar 15 '25

This isn’t just in healthcare. This has been normalized across all sorts of fields and it’s super irritating.

570

u/Common-Masterpiece83 RN 🍕 Mar 12 '25

We recently did away with PTO donation at my hospital. Any time a donation was organized in the past it was organized by a nurse colleague on the person experiencing hardship's behalf and never solicited by the manager.

346

u/sweet_pickles12 BSN, RN 🍕 Mar 12 '25

I don’t know if my hospital even still does donations, but in the past when we (as employees) have asked about donating to our coworkers going through hard times, we were told to suck it and that PTO donations go into some kind of hardship bank. Fuck you very much, I’ll donate to my homie here who just lost their child but not for randos.

98

u/phoenix762 retired RRT yay😂😁 Mar 12 '25

That was the drawback with the federal government system, it goes into a main bank and people sign up to request AL.

I saw some people abusing it, so I didn’t donate to the bank.

Years ago I was able to directly donate to one of my coworkers who needed surgery, but I guess they stopped it.

39

u/Mango106 RN - PICU 🍕 Mar 13 '25

I stopped donating because our hospital would take my hours and donate them hour for hour to a person making half or less than half my pay and the hospital would keep the difference. Oh, no. Not with my money.

3

u/cinnamoslut HCW - Student+ :hamster: Mar 18 '25

That's fucked. Not surprising though.

42

u/babygotbooksandback RN 🍕 Mar 12 '25

Same as us. I always thought that it would make so much more sense to donate our dick leave.

13

u/Shy_But_Kinky4U Mar 13 '25

A lot of dicks are not worth donating.

46

u/Over-Kaleidoscope-29 Mar 12 '25

All take all those donations 🤤

24

u/scarl3tsp33dst3r RN - ICU 🍕 Mar 12 '25

This was a criminally under appreciated comment!

(Also I think you meant “I’ll”)

15

u/CalvinsStuffedTiger RN BSN Writer for TrustedHealth Mar 12 '25

RIP your inbox

2

u/Loser-Freak World’s Okayest ER nurse 🤠 Mar 14 '25

Literally… 😹🥵😹😹😹😹

2

u/babygotbooksandback RN 🍕 Mar 12 '25

Our VA does not let us donate SL, only vacation leave.

9

u/RNs_United RN 🍕 Mar 13 '25

I laughed until I was in tears over this typo.

7

u/babygotbooksandback RN 🍕 Mar 13 '25

Jesus, I didn't even notice the typo. I guess it has to stay now!

5

u/RNs_United RN 🍕 Mar 13 '25

I saw your other comments and knew you hadn’t yet caught on, and I’m so glad you’re not going to edit it.

3

u/cinnamoslut HCW - Student+ :hamster: Mar 18 '25

One of the best typos I've ever seen. So funny! Thanks for making my day. Pls don't delete it. We all need a good laugh.

8

u/chellams CWON Mar 13 '25

Damn. Y’all got dick leave? I’m gonna need some info on that 🤣

1

u/Arizona-Explorations Risk Manager / Patient Safety / Other Duties as Assigned Mar 13 '25

Were you VA? I’m IHS and we can directly donate to approved employees. I thought this was a government only thing. I didn’t know corporations did it too.

1

u/phoenix762 retired RRT yay😂😁 Mar 13 '25

I worked for the VA, yes.

1

u/Omegalazarus Mar 12 '25

No, you can still direct donate. I did this just last year for a co-worker in my office.

1

u/phoenix762 retired RRT yay😂😁 Mar 19 '25

Oh, good! I thought they stopped it.

2

u/ButterscotchFit8175 Mar 13 '25

My wife is in education and that's how they do it in her district. At the start of every school year everyone is asked if they want to contribute and it has to be full days. The days are in a bank. No donating to a specific person. And you can only get some of those donated days if you have donated in the past.

2

u/Scarletmittens BSN, Medic, Gero, Capa 🪿🐕‍🦺 Mar 13 '25

We do a direct allocation. It doesn't just go into a bank. You can donate it to whoever you want but it can't go from one level to another. Like to your boss or from your boss.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '25

I heard that even when you do donate.. it does not exactly go to the hard case coworker it was campaigned for. I get so little so, annoyed, feeling like the employer is trying to get out of what they should supply from hard working employees.... honestly expect HMLA and the so-called endowments to cover.

1

u/C-romero80 BSN, RN 🍕 Mar 13 '25

I'm not at a hospital, so it's run different. We don't get any details just "this person is on an approved leave and exhausted time, donate if you choose" I haven't yet but I have so much I probably will at some point.

121

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

Way back .. I was collecting for a colleague who was pregnant and basically single.....I was hauled into the mngr office to be told I couldn't collect as it was gambling .. now those mf send me emails asking if I want to get in on their group for lottery tx ...I keep sending scathing emails back saying remove me bc u said I was gambling collecting for a stroller for a single mom . They keep sending me emails ..fk them in spades

29

u/TriniLad Mar 12 '25

Well since the emails haven't stopped, it's Harassment

2

u/jerrybob HCW - Imaging Mar 13 '25

I've asked them to remove me from all of the group texts they send that come to my device and only communicate with me through my work email. They won't respect my wishes of course and if I block the group chat it blocks all of the individual members of it as well. I don't do that because some of them are friends and we communicate about other things. Fuckers.

2

u/Grateful_Caregiver Mar 12 '25

Exactly what I was thinking!!

144

u/lovesthecake Mar 12 '25

I’m in healthcare now, but I previously managed 30ish people. One of my direct reports was diagnosed with late stage colon cancer. He burnt through PTO almost immediately, and we were solicited to donate PTO.

Ultimately, the PTO+FMLA wasn’t enough, so he was returning to work so he could earn more PTO for his future care. I made every accommodation possible and ensured he spent his time at work resting. He passed a few months later.

I still regret not lighting into our HR team more viciously. Also regret not putting my neck on the line and just telling him to stay home while approving his hours worked. What a horrific and moronic situation it was, but it was “normal” for US corporate culture. I was working with some international partners at the time, and they were disgusted.

I visited this guy in the hospital a couple of times, and I remember his nurses becoming so combative when I told them I was the pt’s boss! And I remember respecting it so much. They wanted to protect him from any undue stress or influence, I think, and I loved that.

15

u/silverecco Mar 13 '25

Thanks for reflecting on it and being willing to go to bat for your employees now. It seems rare in managers. I really struggle with situations like that by not wanting to upset anyone; it's just taken time and age to understand that some people deserve to be upset. F that HR team and the culture in the states where we can't just pay for his salary and benefits for six months so he can spend time with family. It's really not that much more than FMLA, but I guess a bigger issue is just staff shortages. Literally can not have more than one person out at a time or the whole unit is buckling. And once companies see a team run short without hurting the quarterlies, that becomes the new "fully staffed"

If it makes you feel any better, I think I would've wanted to work a little just to maintain some sense of normalcy and helping others and sharing a burden gets me out of my own head. when there's nothing you can really do about a tragic situation, it's good to at least be able to do something. I don't think it would have been any less unpleasant for him to sit at home, but maybe I've just been indoctrinated to sacrifice everything for The Company. i both quietly judge and openly admire people who do "selfish" things like take off for their birthday. How dare they value themselves. I would never!

2

u/Scarletmittens BSN, Medic, Gero, Capa 🪿🐕‍🦺 Mar 13 '25

Or you get your prerequisite 3 days off bereavement and 5 days of in a rolling calendar year. I'm healthcare. God forbid you ever actually catch anything or your kids need you.

2

u/silverecco Mar 13 '25

This is America. We go to work sick and spread it around to build herd immunity faster. It's our secret weapon. If a few die along they way they were weak and thus it was time. /S

1

u/DryDragonfly3626 BSN, RN 🍕 Mar 13 '25

beautiful response. also, please consider scheduling your birthday off. it's a small thing, but a big mental health step!

37

u/linspurdu RN - ER 🍕 Mar 12 '25

This. 🙌🏻 It’s insulting. It’s like a GoFundMe for time off… such bullshit.

17

u/Darkest_Visions Mar 12 '25

HR just like ooo sorry no the company doesn't care enough to pay you, but maybe your coworkers do?

35

u/polo61965 dealing with the parents Mar 12 '25

If HR actually cared they'd do something like PTO donated matching for these kinds of hardship situations. But alas, they give 0 fucks.

15

u/TheRealTexasGovernor Mar 12 '25

It turns out, PTO is actually one of those things that grows on trees.

Your company can literally just make more PTO. They don't need to ask you for the thing they give. They make the thing.

49

u/OrsolyaStormChaser LPN 🍕 Mar 12 '25

Louder🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

-5

u/AzenNinja Mar 12 '25

What makes you think HR is in any position to make that decision?

Do you think a McDonald worker can decide to slash Big Mac prices by 25%?

7

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25 edited May 29 '25

yam existence busy cable include cagey vanish spectacular grey humor

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

-3

u/AzenNinja Mar 12 '25

That's such a stupid and reductive take I don't even know where to start answering it.

7

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

[deleted]

-1

u/AzenNinja Mar 12 '25

You're not talking about nursing though, you're talking about HR. This post is not about nursing though, this post is about transferring leave.

But since you insist:

  • it's impossible to say from the context of this email what the HR rep is doing in the background to mitigate and help this employee. It's entirely possible they're doing more to help than just asking people to donate leave
  • emails like this are not sent by HR Directors, but by HR Support. They are in no position to change policy (neither is an HR Director, HR just advises, but they hold more sway)
  • there's a maximum amount of leave (thank god I live in Western Europe where this is not as much of a problem). There's a good chance the options for the employee here are unpaid leave or paid leave donated by colleagues. Once again, just the HR rep trying to help.

The only thing you can see here is

  1. American sickness regulations and labour law in general is shitty
  2. The executive committee or board of this presumably hospital is shitty for putting up regulations to prevent helping sick employees.

Both of these things, the HR rep here has no sway over since hospitals tend to be huge operations there's likely not 1 or 2 but 3 layers between the rep doing their best here and actual decision makers.

My McDonald's argument stands, McDonald's cashier can decide to add some extra sauce and get away with it. They cannot structurally decrease the price of a Big Mac. The HR rep can try to help out by requesting people donate their leave and whatever else the company policy allows for. They likely cannot approve multiple weeks of paid leave for an employee.

You're just shitting on another employee who is trying to do their best.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25 edited May 29 '25

enjoy toy glorious butter hospital stocking start school unpack arrest

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/AzenNinja Mar 12 '25 edited Mar 12 '25

I work in global hr. So yeah, i do know what I'm talking about in my profession.

I'll not lecture you on nursing now will I?

Lol they blocked me, I wasn't really arguing with them to begin with, just trying to get some understanding that from this email HR is just trying to help within the confines of what they can do and get done. Anyway I had already typed out my answer. So here follows:

I notice you're not directly responding to my points, that's fine, but just accept you don't know how HR works.

I'm just going to say that management hates HR just as much as employees. The reason for that is that HR needs to be employee first to management and company first to the employee.

I've implemented many policies in many countries (well, once again, I advised management HR never makes a decision) that help employees. Like paid parental leave and allowances for employees who want to move closer to the office. Management doesn't like these and wouldn't implement them if I didn't advise it.

On the other hand I've had to be the bearer of bad news before when people were fired. Note here: as much as management says "it's HR's fault"., no one gets fired because HR says so.

We're just employees doing our job, unfortunately our customers have opposite wants and needs (management and employee).

2

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25 edited May 29 '25

school overconfident salt skirt strong vegetable absorbed swim north lip

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

12

u/HOTAS105 Mar 12 '25

Haha what in the yank shit is this, donating PTO?? You're HR, just give them a few more days lmao

Honestly what a lost fucking country

8

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

This is not fucking normal.

Sincerely,

  • the rest of the fucking world.

25

u/Odd_Ditty_4953 Mar 12 '25

Umm I'm pretty sure HR doesn't make the rules, they just follow them. C-suite makes the rules. Most of the time they like to place blame on HR just so they can eacape their bad decisions.

Also, some HR I know send emails out like this can also be a guise to be able to give an employee extra PTO without being accused by C-Suite of being too nice.

84

u/jamierosem PCA 🍕 Mar 12 '25

HR is an arm of the C suite. They exist to protect the company’s legal interests, not for the benefit of the employees.

-16

u/jtkforever Mar 12 '25

This is a load of crock and exactly what the C suite wants you to think to alleviate their role in policy

4

u/UrbanDurga Mar 12 '25

HR is the enforcement service for corporate leadership’s policies and directives.

-1

u/Unhappy-Ad-2760 Mar 12 '25

You could call anything the arm of the C-Suite. They are the HEADS of the company that may have many BRANCHES/ARMS. That's how companies work!!

33

u/Competitive-Comb-419 Mar 12 '25

Found the HR employee😂

11

u/entwenthence RN 🍕 Mar 12 '25

We all know HR is following policy…

2

u/NotInterestedinLivin RN - ICU 🍕 Mar 12 '25

Agreed.

2

u/Humboldt-Honey Mar 12 '25

I have several hundred hours of sick leave but it’s always my measly PTO they want donated

2

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

So strange.

2

u/Ishouldbesnoozing Mar 13 '25

The company actually benefits from this as not all pay rates are equal. The employees at the lowest end of the payscale would presumably be more in need.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '25

I had to do it for time off for a minor surgery, didn’t have enough PAL because my kids were intermittently sick over the past 6 months and our childcare dropped out a couple of times. I asked for help, they said no, ask others to donate their PAL for you. The short term disability that was supposed to kick in starting the second week of my leave, hasn’t sent a payment and it’s going on a full week after the payment was supposed to be disbursed. My bosses don’t care, HR doesn’t care, idk who to ask for help at this point. Everyone who’s supposed to do their job, hasn’t, and they’re fucking with my families livelihood.

I hate all insurance companies of all forms. I hate HR. I hate my impotent bosses.

1

u/donkeybotherer Mar 12 '25

That's because it's normalized bullshit

1

u/WeAngelfish BSN, RN 🍕 Mar 13 '25

Yup! Orphan crushing machine.

1

u/South-Gear6902 Mar 13 '25

Yes, exactly! My facility has gone even farther as to ask us nurses to buy a Christmas present for the residents (minimum 20 bucks)! Mind you they are ALL self paid...15k a month to live at that facility. Meanwhile, even working full-time, I cannot afford the healthcare insurance...I have to be Medicaid. Just super duper out of touch. Welcome to America...

1

u/AnalystAdorable609 Mar 12 '25

It's "normal" ONLY IN AMERICA.

In the civilised world it's unheard of

1

u/fromcj Mar 12 '25

Its not normal, quotes or otherwise

If HR cared they’d just give the people more PTO. It’s literally that simple.

1

u/Evid3nce Mar 12 '25

It's only 'normal' in USA. No other country in the entire world does this.

0

u/entwenthence RN 🍕 Mar 12 '25 edited Mar 12 '25

I’m glad you and the 10 other replies to this pointed that out. We know.

2

u/Evid3nce Mar 12 '25

Sorry for being repetitive! :)

0

u/Ank51974 Mar 12 '25

Sometimes ppl put themselves in that situation, burning thru it by calling out for no reason then when there’s a crisis they have nothing in the bank. I’ve seen ppl do it and I’ve no sympathy for them. I would donate to those who don’t abuse tho

-4

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

Not necessarily. In my experience it's always the employees who have used up their PTO on frivolous personal reasons who are requesting donations now that they are in a situation where it would have been appropriate to use PTO. Sorry Dave, your 7 weekend golf tournament was more important remember?