Nursing Staffing: Agency vs Overtime
The ongoing dilemma to use regular staff vs agency staff is getting worse as the nursing shortage continues. Using your own staff is ideal, but with vacancies and turnover increasing, it leads to staff working overtime. It’s ideal to use your own staff, but from a cost saving standpoint, at time and a half, it’s almost the same rate as using an agency employee. With good on-boarding, the agency nurse becomes part of your team.
Too much overtime causes nurses to burnout and increases the risk of injury at work, increasing the use on non-productive time(sick, FMLA, workmans comp..). So... how to we decrease turnover? Because, with even the best recruiting methods do not guarantee that the nurses will stay. The answer sounds simple, value your employees, let them know they are appreciated, and implement employee retention programs.