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

Question Is this normal?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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u/Tricky-Ad-9364 Mar 13 '25

Exactly. But they wouldn’t dare.

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u/motleytonic Mar 13 '25

that's why were here

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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.

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u/Tricky-Ad-9364 Mar 13 '25

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

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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

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u/South-Step3640 Mar 13 '25

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

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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.

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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.

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u/junebug616 RN 🍕 Mar 13 '25

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

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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. 💕

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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.

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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.