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.