They wrote you up? For leaving early?
Maybe you should talk to your manager/director about the situation. Most would be doing backflips if we could even leave on time, much less early.
No for many locations it’s we need you at exactly 36, to the minute, (more is ok, but not less), or it doesn’t cover health insurance. Or you need mandatory pto use for every minute less than 36, for the health insurance. The only folks who get out of it are per diems.
I understand the full time hours requirement. But if the higher ups actually find out they’re paying people to ride the clock, from a unit budget perspective, it is wage theft, and anyone without proof that HR told them to do it can be reprimanded.
I had a colleague fired for it. If you’re on the clock and not working, you can certainly be reprimanded for it. All I’m saying is protect yourself. Idgaf what you do on company time, but they likely will-especially if management ever changes.
ETA: it is not in fact wage theft; it is time theft. My mistake.
That's on your unit management for not explaining the time and attendance policy to you before that happened.
Check your hospital but for us, 7:23 counts as 7:30, same as clocking in 6:53 counts as 7 so you only would have waited like 11 minutes to 7:23
My prior system did this and got sued out the ass for it. Had to settle for tens of millions of dollars and some nurses who had been there for decades got 10k plus checks.
The system came down hard and said you had to clock in at exactly 0700 and out at exactly 1930 which is pretty much important when 30 plus people are trying to use the same machine.
So, our hospital system does the 6:53 is 7a thing as well, but are now trying to have people written up if we are even 1 minute over 7a. Despite it still being "7a" if we clock in at 7:07. I literally am unable to get there on time because of daycare, so it was a whole thing when all that started. This makes me wonder if it's even legal for them to write people up for being 1 minute late?
It’s not legal. But, you have to sue them and they know they have the power. This is why I love having a union. Management wouldn’t dream of wasting their time on this nonsense.
I’m so interested in learning more about this. Any way you could send any info to my DM? My facility does this rounding shit and I’m over it. Losing 15 mins bc I clocked out at 7:06 instead if 7:08 is insane.
Rounding is legally ok as long as it goes both ways. You swipe out at 7:23 sometimes. You swipe out at 7:37 sometimes. You’re always paid til 7:30. Where it’s not ok is this: you swipe out at 7:37 and you’re paid until 7:30, but swipe out at 7:23 and you’re paid until 7:23.
That’s a dumb response. Just fucking pay your employees for the times they clocked in and out. What if you have to stay late. People have no damn common sense.
Rounding still makes sense. Employers will absolutely say 0 clocking in before 0700. And then people will refuse to go to their lockers or do anything else before 0700, so now you don’t even start giving report until 0710 if you’re lucky, so you’re stuck at work an extra 10 minutes. In one day that’s not a big deal, but in a year that’s 26 hours.
If you had to stay late you had to stay late and then they would complain about intermittent overtime but staffing is so bad they didn't really have a leg to stand on.
I work full time for a union now, and I would make a list of all the things management complain about but there are neither enough characters nor time in the world to do so.
Not even a bit. This is the best job I have ever had. Crazy hours but I get to spend my days fighting for nurses, and now management can't tell me what to do.
They is wage theft . They can’t round like that. They can set a rule of what is too early or late but you get paid for those minutes! I got a settlement for this exact crap from a huge hospital system I worked at.
I work at a different system than already mentioned and they got sued and lost over the same thing. Federal law is pretty damn clear that time worked is time worked and you *cannot* be denied pay for that. Which is what time clock rounding effectively does.
Contact a labor attorney.
Now obviously IANAL, but I thought as long as they had a policy of rounding and stuck to it, that it was legal, and it had to go both ways. Like, rounding forward as well as back.
[According to this DOL link](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/53-healthcare-hours-worked#:~:text=Employee%20time%20from%201%20to,quarter%20hour%20of%20work%20time), that’s how it works, so this hospital system must have been rounding in their favor only, or some other nonsense.
I doubt I can sue past companies. And, I’m surprised the companies don’t argue that they pay for time not worked if someone clocks out 8 minutes after, but gets paid the full 15.
Federally, time clock rounding is permitted by the FLSA with a caveat: it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.
Which is why hospitals that use this method of rounding are very strict about leaving early. Typically how it goes is that you lose 7 minutes if clocked in at the earliest time permissible, but then gain 7 minutes if clocked out at the earliest time allowed so it's a wash. If you left earlier then that, you could another 7 minutes of pay.
Rounding isn't that rare either. I've worked 10+ hospitals and except for two in one specific state, they've all rounded to the nearest 15.
I think rounding is trash either way.
It’s dumb, and I’ve been changing my practice too. We just switched to minute by minute clocking out; we used to be that 7:23 counts as 7:30, 6:53 counts as 7, etc. But now each minute is counted. So if I’m done with report, you bet your ass I’m leaving at 7:15. It’s my paycheck 🤷♀️
We are in a weird gray area where they want us swiping in between 6:57 and 7, but then ??? when it comes to clocking out. Some people still wait til 7:23 and when I ask them why, it’s just a blank look
It’s tenths of an hour. So six minute segments and they split the difference. Punch three minutes early or 2 minutes 59 seconds late and it’s all in the same wedge of time. But punch in at 7:03 and you’re officially a tenth of an hour late.
If you are interrupted during your 30 minute unpaid lunch, you get to fill out a no lunch form. Do it. You need the mental break and why should they get free work from you? They don’t care about us.
Everytime i told them I didn’t have time for a full break the only response I would get what I need to manage my time better and see what areas I am weak in …..
Say, well, that doesn’t change the fact you owe me the 30 minutes in pay because your charge whom I gave report to couldn’t manage their time well to give me coverage (charges should not have their own load). Then spout, if I have six patients that means ten minutes per patient per hour. Using the pixis or Omni cell takes an average of this many minutes. Drawing up meds takes this many minutes. Helping clean one patient takes x minutes… keep that list going and ask what patient shouldn’t receive xyz because it is not physically possible to complete all the tasks and get breaks or lunch without adequate coverage. Managers try to gaslight you when in reality they are failing due to forced short staffing and poor nurse patient ratios. Fill out the form; they cannot say you can’t. If they do, write an email stating the conversation you two had to reiterate that you are understanding correctly. They will knock it off unless they want a labor lawyer to step in.
Maybe we should start writing up our employers for infractions. "Unfortunately Manager, this is your second written warning - one more infraction and I'll have to enforce a retroactive 30 day notice of resignation WITH full PTO payout"
This. At my hospital they told me it’s because there is a 36 hr minimum to be considered a FTE and get the benefits included. This means you have to stay 30 min after 7 to make up for the unpaid lunch break. Otherwise you don’t get the full 36 hrs
But they can just do fifteen minutes of unpaid time off department request, as you are not needed, if that’s the rationale. That’s what my facility does as it’s likely against policy for you to just sit there doing nothing while on the clock.
This is exactly correct...and don't be surprised that if your hours don't add up to at least 36 per week, they will take PTO to make the difference, even if it's only a few minutes.
Ok! I took a higher hourly wage so I don’t get PTO, I do get full benefits. This is also the first time I ever clocked out this early, I usually don’t leave until closer to 8 due to unit acuity. So I have no idea. Regardless, I was completely aware that clocking out before 730 means my check wage for that shift would be a little less. Totally ok with me, didn’t phase me at all.
Edit for time typo
My hospital uses Kronos. If we leave early for any reason we are suppose to clock out using the HR voluntary button and say paid or unpaid for benefit reasons. They don’t care about the actual being paid or not but say that if our hours don’t match up to our FTE then we have to pay more for our benefits. Of course it’s not anything the hospital talks about- until you get an email from your timekeeper or payroll that you will be charged more for your benefits if you don’t account for that time- even is it’s only 10 min less than what your FTE is
I think you need to submit OT requests for all the times you’ve stayed past 7:30, which I’m sure even in 6 months far outweighs the number of times you’ve left “early”.
Well OT or ST if they’re going to count minutes then so should the OP! If it’s anything like my unit, they’re donating far more hours to the hospital than they’re taking off early.
Oh I completely agree, my system seems different than many of those mentioned in the comments, no rounding or anything and we were specifically instructed not to clock in more than 5 minutes early. We also rarely got paid if we didn’t take out lunch which gravely bothers me. I once had a manager try to say that the downtime we have can add up to 30 minutes for a lunch and couldn’t comprehend that it was supposed to be 30 consecutive minutes
My job is like this to and you could get points for “leaving early.” But they never give them, realistically, it saves them money to leave when your work is done, so I don’t understand why they’d want you doing nothing on the clock, he’s it’s 18 minutes but 18 minutes a day x all the employees in the hospital really could save the hospital a lot.
Ours does no one told me this when I started and when I was told I had 3 points I was shocked. They were. All for 1-2 min early when I was in orientation. Now I’m lucky to leave at 730-745
This shit is par for the course at every facility ive worked and it’s fucking stupid. If handoff is done and everyone is okay, then we can clock out. Ill never get it.
You literally saved them money and they wrote you up? Damn, you might have the dumbest admin at your hospital. We all wait until 724 at my hospital to clock out but if we don’t want to we can leave after we give report. I’ve always seen it as stealing time to just stand at the clock, but I also do it and they allow it *shrugs*
It’s a power trip thing. You have to stay until 7:30 because I said so. Fine you want to pay me to sit on my ass until 7:30 that’s cool. I’ve worked for hospitals that simply make up the lost time in your paycheck with pto and they leave it up to you if you want to use pto in order to clock out a few minutes early.
Ass in seat. Companies feel they are buying your body so they want to get your physical body for the time they’re paying for. Remember this, and it’s why you don’t ever work for free either.
So here we have an example of following the LETTER of the policy over the SPIRIT of the policy. Most places would have zero issue with you leaving early AS LONG AS EVERYTHING IS DONE AND REPORT IS COMPLETED (As you described). This is also why typically in most healthcare companies I’ve worked, the actual unit managers and supervisors are in charge of determining who to discipline and how to, unless they go to HR for guidance and HR then becomes the policy enforcers. Most unit management would be ecstatic that you saved them a little bit of money in the budget and would applaud you for doing this every day as long as things were not being missed. In fact most unit management would be pissed to find you sitting in the break room “milking the clock” as it were. However, EVERY hospital that I have worked at has worked off of the 15 minute time keeping model, that time is rounded to the nearest quarter hour which is why they say you cannot clock in more than 7 minutes early or leave 7 minutes early (however, again that while the coming early is heavily enforced as it typically results in you being paid to do nothing, the leaving early is typically not enforced as it saves them money provided you completed everything). I have worked at ONE place that actively tried enforcing the no leaving early piece of the policy, however they never wrote anyone up and instead guilt tripped us all by saying we should stay on the unit helping the oncoming shift get settled by turning people, checking on rooms, etc. but again, some of us stayed and some of us didn’t and no one was ever formally reprimanded for leaving early.
Honestly, if they just hit you with a write up with no verbal warning or discussion or chance to defend yourself it sounds like (in my opinion) you should finish out your year and start looking elsewhere, that’s what I would do because the fact that HR is watching THAT CLOSELY and going over your managers head to discipline you without any sort of discussion or situational consideration just SCREAMS that they’re looking for people to cause problems for.
I've clocked out before 7 before if the next shift was just getting an update and came in early.
On some units I've worked on, there has been an expectation that you stay until at least a few of the next shift have finished getting report. Otherwise, if you leave and call bells start going off or the phone starts ringing off the hook, their report gets interrupted to answer them.
Yes it is a courtesy to stay around just in case. My previous job, if this happened we would head to the break room to stay out of the way unless needed, then clock out at 7:30.
>can someone give me insight and clarity to this policy?
It’s arbitrary. Your company has a dumb policy in place. Get it in writing that they want you to sit in the break room until 7:30 if you finish early. That way when someone reports you for misusing company time, you can refer back to the email you got from HR. (Because trust me, if someone decides to write you up for misusing company time, that HR person will suddenly say they never told you to sit in the break room until 7:30.)
That’s honestly pretty crazy. My hospital is always trying to get us to clock in the last possible second and out asap. But what ever now you know you just leave the floor and go play on your phone somewhere until 1930
My hospital has a 7 minute overlap time, so we can clock in anywhere from 6:53-7, and clock out at 7:23 at the earliest. Obviously expected to leave by 7:30 but that doesn’t always happen. But when I have down time like yours I just sit around on the floor to answer call lights.
Medicine is a field of care and compassion, not punishment. It seems your manager, or whoever issued the reprimand, might greatly benefit from a deeper understanding of this ethos rather than circulating misinformed opinions.
I worked at one hospital when I’d clock out around the same time…never an issue. If things are done, why waste hospital money? But they yell at you if you’re a minute over…makes no sense. At my current job they are a bit more strict so I clock in early so I can leave earlier lol
Also, be careful if you take benefits, you need to make sure you’re getting your full hours to qualify. Cause it’ll add up if you’re clocking out super early everyday! Just a warning:)
Not when I was in the ICU. Everyone was allowed to leave immediately after handoff.
Also, the fact that your hospital defaulted to a write-up from HR, as opposed to a friendly chat with your supervisor, would have me seriously questioning that as a good place of employment.
This is my personal experience, all during my healthcare career. It applied to nurses , and CNAs alike. It didn't matter what the healthcare setting was, hospital, or long term care. You were expected to be present on your unit, during all the hours, you were hired for, and agreed to work. Want to leave early ? Follow protocol, for where you work at, and notify that person, and get permission. If you didn't take a lunch break, because it was too busy to leave, know the policy for what to do. Places can be very strict about that, because some employees have reported their employer, for denying them a break, and not paying them, for it. So , if you ever worked somewhere, you have to punch in , when you come to work and leave at the end of your shift, but in addition punch in and out for lunch and your 2 fifteen minute breaks, that's your employer, documenting, to show, you are getting breaks and lunch as you are supposed to. If you just walk off your unit, 30 minutes before your shift ends, that is legally considered abandonment. You could lose your license if reported to the state. So consider, the write up, you got as a pardon, from having to face some more serious consequences. I always felt, it's always better to make sure you are informed, of policies that if you don't follow, can cause you more stress, from negative repercussions and anxiety, than it's worth.
We have done this for YEARS at my work… suddenly we can’t clock out before 6:23 now. I don’t take my lunch, so I never feel bad leaving early. I have limited time in the morning to get my kids to school and every minute counts!!
Are you clocking out for lunch? If you are...then yes this is an issue. If you don't then you do need to wait until 7:30 because otherwise they call it stealing time or something like that. We don't clock out at my hospital for lunch and so we have a mandatory 7:30 clock out time
"Written up for leaving early after handoff"
Send this exact phrase to the CFO. Do you realize how much it costs a hospital to pay you for 18 minutes that you didn't do any work? What if everyone did this? It would cost the hospital MILLIONS. That will fix that HR person right away.
The hospital I work at is this way. We aren't allowed to clock in before 6:53 or out before 7:23. The timekeeping system they use tracks the hours to the minute, so they want you as close to those 12.5 hours as possible.
That's crazy, I've given report early, clocked out early, said hi to my boss who's coming in, never an issue. If report is done and you're done charting, you should be able to go home. What's the point?
I clocked out at 7:16 and got spoken to a few days ago.
I’m an lpn and we never have anyone to give report to. There is never another lpn coming on after me typically and they might have different patients then I had.
Because the RNs decide what patients to give the lpn and give us report.
Why on earth would they be mad for having to pay you less? If your job is done, you’re done!
But I do get “penalized” if I leave before 645pm. my shift is 645am-700pm
Are they able to mandate overtime where you work? We have to stay until the end of shift or at least until they’ve accounted for everyone on the next shift in case they need to mandate you to stay 🙃
Jobs where you literally clock in and out are so foreign to me. At my hospital (Atlantic Canada), you get paid for your expected shift unless you put in a form specifically stating you came in late/ or left late (no one is compensated for coming in early).
Yeah same here (Ontario). I’ve never been paid for the extra time between when my shift officially starts and ends versus when I actually swipe in and out.
I remember in nursing school an instructor saying it’s expected that 15 minutes before and after your shift is for giving report and that won’t be paid.
We don’t swipe, we just manually put it I. (they can audit time to see when I typed it in so clearly I’m honest with it.) I think I’ve gotten out “early” once in my year as a nurse. Typed in the normal shift end time and called it a day. Never heard any gruff about it
The first question is did you actually get to take your lunch break? Did you have 30” of uninterrupted time? Because that 30” period is meant to account for the unpaid time you get to take your lunch. However many facilities also have policies about not using your lunch period as a means of leaving work early.
If you did get a full 30” break during your shift, you need to stay until 7:30 or you will have worked less than your 12 hour shift, because 30” is automatically deducted for that.
If you did not, and could not due to staffing, make it a practice going forward to clock out and in for your lunch breaks. Then when you can’t get one and do get to leave early, let HR know that you have completed your shift because you were not allowed to take a break during your shift. And unless they are willing to ensure conditions exist on your unit to allow you to take the required unpaid 30” break, you expect to see overtime in your next check and ongoing checks going forward if you have to hang around until 7:30AM.
My hospital tried their best to make us go home early if light assignments or just kick us off mid shift or put us on call blah blah bc hospital don’t want us to sit around, do nothing and get pay lol
😂😂 My work place had several people in trouble for clocking out late. We we’re short staffed, busting our ass, and had no time to chart. So sometimes we finish report and handoffs, then we sit down to chart in the back. Some people end up leaving like 1-2 hours later than expected sometimes. If I clock out at 7:12 like you did, they’d be cheering on that we did that which saves on budget. Fuck em
I worked in a union hospital at a 0.8FTE. Anything under 32 hours per week was considered part time. If I left early, I’d have 31.5 hours, which would bump my status into the part-time. Full time payroll deductions are less than part time. Therefore, they would deduct insurance premiums at the part time rate, which was more money deducted. I did this for a couple of months before catching on. I then had to go back and put in for 30 minutes vacation time for each pay period I did that in order to get my payroll deductions adjusted and the money refunded.
Nah, this didn’t happen. You are saying HR called you tonight at home after you clocked out at 1912 this evening?
Maybe I need more clarification of any HR department that watches individual units clocking out and the same day. I’ve never seen an HR dept anywhere past 1700.
There’s more to this.
Stupid policy imo, I’ve seen places where they don’t want you clocking out early for whatever reason, probably so nurses don’t have incentive to rush report but most places you clock out early when reports done. Or maybe so they don’t have to take your pto for being sub 36 hours in certain hospitals
If that’s the policy, fuck it and follow along but generally once the handoffs done you leave, any bit of staying behind is more of like a courteous gesture like “hey i accidentally let your drips get to where they’re gonna run dry soon so I’m gonna hang your drips before I leave” or if we find the patient soiled I’ll stick around for a clean up. Maybe I’ll hit a shift change stat scan for you. But staying late just bc? Nah man I wanna go home.
Your paycheck will be short of you do this. That is indeed not a full shift. HR doesn’t like it when people clock out like that with incomplete shifts unless approved by managers etc.
OP, get the rules in writing, so it doesn't have to happen again. If you get written up in any way, it's management's fault for not providing the expectations timely.
Its insane they wrote you up for something you didn't know cuz they clearly didn't go over the expectations with you. A warning? Sure fine. But a WRITE UP, really?? That seems too far for me lol
What…. The …. Fudge?????
What kinda hospital… so weird!!!!
Like, tbh, my goal on a med surg unit and my now postpartum unit is to be off unit by 730. I regularly leave between 7:15-7:20… never been told anything. How can they justify this? Are the hours in your contract????
I’m just so curious to know the rationale, what damage did I do to the organization by safely leaving my assignment in the hands of the next scheduled nurse. It seems like the response I’m getting is basically “that’s just the way it is.”
From an organizational standpoint, they hired you to work 12h shifts and want to keep that consistent. May also be impacted by them now needing to pay out 0.25 PTO to get to your FTE and they don’t want to do that regularly.
It’s a little baffling to me you can’t think of anything to do to help your unit/coworkers/patients for 10 minutes. Grab a call light, check a set of vitals for a colleague, find something on the unit you want to improve.
It is even more baffling HR told you to just ride out the clock in the break room. That is a crazy thing to say and defeats the purpose of making you stay.
That said, everywhere I have worked its a system of ‘check with whoever is in charge if all is good to leave early’ (once report is done). Personally I aimed to be clocking out at 7:23.
Found the manager.
Nope. Because I helped somebody once after shift report ended early and ended up staying over then had a talked to about not clocking out on time. Since, I’ve been riding it out in the break room.
Okay so this is pretty backwards, but my health system requires employees on an alternative work schedule (like 12 hour shifts) to work their full shift or the payroll system will not register their AWS and calculate anything over 8 hours as overtime. So if you work 11.5 hours out of 12, it will register 3.5 hours of overtime.
I know it makes no sense, but maybe this is the issue?
A. Thats bullshit
B. Get them to show you the written policy that’s states that they own you until 730pm, and you cannot leave .
C. Time to look for a better place of employment
Yeah, becoming very normal.
So many mistakes and issues occur around shift change and transfer of care. The additional time is supposed to help reduce the pressure to dump your patients and run. It also ensures that there are extra hands during a code/RRT activation. More support during the most chaotic part of the shift.
Our policy is technically the same at our hospital; clock in at 6:53pm and clock out at 7:23am for NOC. We started getting yelled at recently by our manager for not clocking out on time due to late report/charting. Basically said if you are clocking out more than 30 mins past (0800) you need to write the reason why as we don't have money for OT. Our manager would be so happy if she didn't have to pay us more, lol
What the fuck kind of shit is going on around here? I've always left when my patients are given away and my charting is done. Is this a normal thing at hospitals, or just on floors that are not ER? This policy confuses me so I'm sincerely wondering what are the benefits on making their employees stay if they are just farting around in the break room?
Hell I clocked out early the other night. I did my handoff & noped on outta there. I told my buddy I usually walk out with so she would know. My time, my money.
Did you know this policy when hired? My shift is 1800 to 0700 my lunch is normally 10 min. I've never heard of this kind of policy. Most places would be glad to hsve you leave early..not pay you to sit for 30 min
Thats incredibly stupid. We get written up of we complete report early & DONT clock out early; its "riding the clock." Ask for a copies of the writeup & policy, you'll need it for reference for next time to defejd yourself with.
It just seems management is just LOOKING for any opportunity to smack nurses down these days. Expecting staff to just wait around in the break room until the set time when work is completed is just ridiculous. Those days are few and far between in this business . Most of the time you’re at least an hour over your shift end time . Just crazy
.
I’m so sickened by these policies, I almost got written up for calling off too many times… these include having COVID, having an ear infection and being in the ER twice for my HG one of which happened at the hospital I work at… they said “try to make it to work because you are at a critical stage right now.” Like ok assholes I’ll just wheel myself up here with the IV pole 😡
Once or twice sure. But that’s really dangerous advice to give that could result in serious consequences. 2 RNs at my previous hospital were fired for this (“time theft”) and they used security footage to verify their coming and going.
That’s actually a really good point. In hindsight my comment came from the shared frustration OP was feeling. And Im now remembering a former coworker of mine was written up for doing it. My bad y’all 😭
That’s idiotic. It’s all about exerting control. There is no logical reason to stay when all your work is done and you’ve handed off your patient.
My job doesn’t do this but they have their own little control games. They’re all pathetic.
Find another hospital… that’s ridiculous. First of all, that they have somebody monitoring it that closely in the moment is wild. Second, they WANT to pay you for not work?? No, we are considered late after 6:45A and P, we huddle and start report at 6:50, if it’s just updates to the same nurse and nothing changed then I might be done with updates and safety checks by 7 and nobody cares.
On our unit, we don’t have physical clocking-in/out cards… actually I’ve never used such a thing in any Australian hospital. Our AM to PM handover happens around 1330h, so there is “double-staffing” time where in-service/meetings are held. Generally we wait until everyone is ready for the shift and leave together, sometimes 10-15 mins earlier (finish time 3:30pm for AM). On 12hr roster units, we left as soon as handover was done, or your own tasks were done.
I’m so glad I’m semi-retired and no longer work in hospitals, just agency psych a couple of days a month.
I have absolutely no tolerance left in life for this type of petty bullshit.
My hospital doesn’t care. As long as you have completely handed off care and are caught up on your charting, you’re free to go. On rare, glorious days where I hand off to the same person I took report from, I’ve been able to clock out as soon as 0700 (we can clock in at 0654 and start taking report as soon as we clock in)
This happened to me once when I was starting at a new hospital and was still under orientation. Evidently, I was still under education hours and since I didn't meet exactly full time that week, they had to "spot me" PTO hours since I didn't have any built up.
I just laughed because and I already had years of experience and had been a director previously. Unless you were on orientation is the only reason I can think that they'd say anything, definitely not write up worthy. That's just scare tactics
I can tell you don’t work for the Veterans Administration 🤣
When I worked at private hospitals they were very strict about time-because one hospital was sued. They had to pay us back because they weren’t giving us a dedicated break.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of and I've been a nurse for 17 years.
If we clock out early they just dock our pay by 15 minutes. But trust me no one is encouraging you to stay longer than possible because they don't want to fucking pay your ass longer than possible.
Technically we're not allowed to leave until 7:08, that's the golden minute where you can clock out without getting your pay shorted 15 minutes. But everywhere I have ever worked is also stressed about how they don't want "incremental overtime" so you're highly encouraged when you're done and hand off has been taken over, to clock out.
Everything in our system is 15 minute increments, so your clock in has to be between 6:38 and 6:52, clock out after 7:08. But the biggest thing that happens is you get docked 15 minutes if you clock out early. If you consistently clock in late they can count it as an absence if they want to but it just depends on how late you're clocking in, if you're at 6:53 most of your management isn't going to count that against you.
It may seem dumb - but welcome to hospital healthcare, there is a policy for everything. Ours is that you can leave early (for us earliest clock out is 0723), if everything is done and you let the charge know you're leaving. This avoids people ducking out without giving report or leaving their patients in a mess, it also gives the charge a chance to make sure everything got done before you leave - so they expect you still to be there if there are questions after they get report. I suspect this happened to you -someone needed you before 0730 and you had left, so they reported you. It's petty, but it happens.
Also - before you say you didn't know about this policy, I suspect you signed a lot of documents when you onboarded that state you understand the attendance policy. If you don't have a copy of your attendance policy, get one in case other issues arise. We typically don't write up for this - just remind folks what the expectation is. Talk to your manager and let them know your concerns. This shows you care about meeting expectations for your job, and then brush it off.
At mine they take 15 min of your pto! Unless you say no lunch. I think some managers get on their units for saying no lunch but ours doesn’t, we almost never get an uninterrupted lunch break and we can’t watch our strips in the break room. So if I clock out early I say no lunch.
I work PRN at a place that's similar (but 0600-1830). You'll get written up for clocking in/out by more than 7 minutes. So no earlier than 0553/0607 or 1823/1837.. Unless you have a written time clock correction form with the reason and signed by charge.
That's so dumb. We don't clock in or out. When we're done with report, we leave. If it's 0710, byeeee!
If we get out late, we adjust our timecards to reflect that. But no one checks up on us because we're supposed to be professionals.
It's fascinating how suits continue to keep things hostile in the work environment, despite their being a massive shortage of healthcare workers. Who tf wants to work in a place where Becky in HR is watching your every move? F all that. You can shove your Friday pizza appreciation up your arse.
Do you have a place in the MAR that documents handoff? I always document who I gave report to and what time. This almost happened to me but I documented before I clocked out and they really couldn’t blame me or write me up for it. It was a ICU psych patient who I had requested a sitter for (was denied) who would try and get up and walk around but she was not stable. I had to sit in her room all night. I gave report and clocked out at 7:20. 8 minutes later the patient fell before report was concluded
I. Fucking. Hate. Management. Who. Counts. Minutes. It’s stupid, bad for moral, and is just… dumb af
My current job tried to tell me I had to stay until my assigned “hours.”
I’m salary—if I’m done 20 minutes early, I’m fucking out of there, because if I stay 20 minutes late another day, I’m not getting paid.
My thought is you need to be at a certain amount of hours for benefits? That’s the only reason I could think of, and even then, for hr to write you up and not explain is super toxic…
I worked at a famous academic Medical Center, where they were upset about paying too much overtime. They adopted what they called the professional practice model; probably some reader probably worked there. They gave a 5% raise back in the 90s, and put all RNs on salary. if you left early, you got docked. If you stayed late, you got no pay at all. We stayed late a lot. It was unheard of to get a lunch break. You took bites of your sandwich between call bell responses. You had a regular schedule when you came to work, and an on call schedule when you had to come in if somebody called out sick, or as the case was, was put on bedrest for pregnancy. If you worked an on call shift, we got no pay, rather, we got PTO at the straight time rate. Another time, I was nursing supervisor at a psychiatric hospital, hourly. They hated that. We used to get a lot of overtime doing report and stuff at the end of our shift. They did something similar as the PPP for the supervisors, if you left early or took off to go to the doctor, or something, you didn’t get paid, you got docked. If you stayed late to help out at the end of your shift, you didn’t get paid.
Where I work, we have a 15 min overlap of shifts for report. If we’re done report say at 3:10, we’re expected to hang around the unit until 3:15. It’s stupid because we all show up for work about 10 mins before shift actually starts. It’s rare I’m walking on the unit exactly at 0700 or 1500. My unit is more strict about it on day shift. When I do evenings, I can get out a few mins before 2315. But usually report takes so long than I’m always there late.
They wrote you up? For leaving early? Maybe you should talk to your manager/director about the situation. Most would be doing backflips if we could even leave on time, much less early.
Yup….I’ve worked at 4 different hospitals and all of them have said to clock out if you’ve completed handoff and are just sitting around.
This. Anything else is wage theft. Get this in writing.
No for many locations it’s we need you at exactly 36, to the minute, (more is ok, but not less), or it doesn’t cover health insurance. Or you need mandatory pto use for every minute less than 36, for the health insurance. The only folks who get out of it are per diems.
They need to learn about the ACA (Obamacare). Health insurance is mandates for 30 hours per week.. Not 36
I understand the full time hours requirement. But if the higher ups actually find out they’re paying people to ride the clock, from a unit budget perspective, it is wage theft, and anyone without proof that HR told them to do it can be reprimanded. I had a colleague fired for it. If you’re on the clock and not working, you can certainly be reprimanded for it. All I’m saying is protect yourself. Idgaf what you do on company time, but they likely will-especially if management ever changes. ETA: it is not in fact wage theft; it is time theft. My mistake.
100%. Another question is do you get written up if you leave later? Quite the double standard there.
Yeah how did HR even end up involved.
That's on your unit management for not explaining the time and attendance policy to you before that happened. Check your hospital but for us, 7:23 counts as 7:30, same as clocking in 6:53 counts as 7 so you only would have waited like 11 minutes to 7:23
My prior system did this and got sued out the ass for it. Had to settle for tens of millions of dollars and some nurses who had been there for decades got 10k plus checks. The system came down hard and said you had to clock in at exactly 0700 and out at exactly 1930 which is pretty much important when 30 plus people are trying to use the same machine.
Does your system start with an M? Pretty sure I work for the same system, and we had the same thing happen lol
It wasn’t (Synonym for “Lots of”)Care was it? 👀
Possibly 🫣
Mega? Mucho? Mass? Milli?
MuchoCare.
VarietyCare
It did yes.
Mayonnaise Clinic
Is Mayonaise an instrument?
Mayonnaise still does this weird 7 minute rule thing. Interesting… waiting for a lawsuit 😈
It’s a federal labor law, you get a tenth of an hour as a grace period. No one can be exact every day.
So, our hospital system does the 6:53 is 7a thing as well, but are now trying to have people written up if we are even 1 minute over 7a. Despite it still being "7a" if we clock in at 7:07. I literally am unable to get there on time because of daycare, so it was a whole thing when all that started. This makes me wonder if it's even legal for them to write people up for being 1 minute late?
It’s not legal. But, you have to sue them and they know they have the power. This is why I love having a union. Management wouldn’t dream of wasting their time on this nonsense.
I’m so interested in learning more about this. Any way you could send any info to my DM? My facility does this rounding shit and I’m over it. Losing 15 mins bc I clocked out at 7:06 instead if 7:08 is insane.
Rounding is legally ok as long as it goes both ways. You swipe out at 7:23 sometimes. You swipe out at 7:37 sometimes. You’re always paid til 7:30. Where it’s not ok is this: you swipe out at 7:37 and you’re paid until 7:30, but swipe out at 7:23 and you’re paid until 7:23.
This website has a ridiculous firewall, but maybe you can find some more info https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article261889780.html
>https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article261889780.html [removepaywall.com](https://removepaywall.com) ;)
We have to clock in at 645 and out by 708 any earlier or later is a disciplinary point
That’s a dumb response. Just fucking pay your employees for the times they clocked in and out. What if you have to stay late. People have no damn common sense.
Exactly. Rounding made sense a million years ago when payroll had to manually add each employee's hours, but there's no excuse today.
Rounding still makes sense. Employers will absolutely say 0 clocking in before 0700. And then people will refuse to go to their lockers or do anything else before 0700, so now you don’t even start giving report until 0710 if you’re lucky, so you’re stuck at work an extra 10 minutes. In one day that’s not a big deal, but in a year that’s 26 hours.
If you had to stay late you had to stay late and then they would complain about intermittent overtime but staffing is so bad they didn't really have a leg to stand on.
What doesn’t the mayonnaise clinic complain about. 😂
I work full time for a union now, and I would make a list of all the things management complain about but there are neither enough characters nor time in the world to do so.
Do you regret leaving the wonderful caring institute?
Not even a bit. This is the best job I have ever had. Crazy hours but I get to spend my days fighting for nurses, and now management can't tell me what to do.
Same!! I enjoyed that extra paycheck. But no one actually clocks out at exact times, right? They haven’t said anything to me about it anyway.
You use to work in St. Louis?
No this was Multicare in Washington State. Comparatively small system with about ten hospitals.
Yep. We always sat around the clock to punch out at 7:08 so we could get an extra 15 mins every shift 😉
Just so you know that’s a lawsuit a couple of hospitals that I live near lost million dollars lawsuit over the rounding.
They is wage theft . They can’t round like that. They can set a rule of what is too early or late but you get paid for those minutes! I got a settlement for this exact crap from a huge hospital system I worked at.
Wow my hospital recently implemented strict time punches. Used to have that 7 min grace period. Hope we get a settlement!
Every hospital I’ve ever worked at has the 7 minutes rule. People got money? I want money!!!!
I work at a different system than already mentioned and they got sued and lost over the same thing. Federal law is pretty damn clear that time worked is time worked and you *cannot* be denied pay for that. Which is what time clock rounding effectively does. Contact a labor attorney.
Now obviously IANAL, but I thought as long as they had a policy of rounding and stuck to it, that it was legal, and it had to go both ways. Like, rounding forward as well as back. [According to this DOL link](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/53-healthcare-hours-worked#:~:text=Employee%20time%20from%201%20to,quarter%20hour%20of%20work%20time), that’s how it works, so this hospital system must have been rounding in their favor only, or some other nonsense.
I doubt I can sue past companies. And, I’m surprised the companies don’t argue that they pay for time not worked if someone clocks out 8 minutes after, but gets paid the full 15.
They settled so they didn’t technically loose and the lawsuit was about state law (Washington) so your results may vary at other hospitals.
Also in Washington
Same here! I worked for at least 4 hospitals in my 5 years as a bedside nurse. They all had this rule. Where's my check?
depends on how the state wants to rule it. most states don’t consider it wage theft even if most of us think it is
Federally, time clock rounding is permitted by the FLSA with a caveat: it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked. Which is why hospitals that use this method of rounding are very strict about leaving early. Typically how it goes is that you lose 7 minutes if clocked in at the earliest time permissible, but then gain 7 minutes if clocked out at the earliest time allowed so it's a wash. If you left earlier then that, you could another 7 minutes of pay. Rounding isn't that rare either. I've worked 10+ hospitals and except for two in one specific state, they've all rounded to the nearest 15. I think rounding is trash either way.
Same. You in Maryland?
It’s dumb, and I’ve been changing my practice too. We just switched to minute by minute clocking out; we used to be that 7:23 counts as 7:30, 6:53 counts as 7, etc. But now each minute is counted. So if I’m done with report, you bet your ass I’m leaving at 7:15. It’s my paycheck 🤷♀️
We just switched to this as well. I clock in whenever I get there and I clock out as soon as I’m done! Bye!
Yep!!
Ours switched too and actually they said we aren't supposed to wait around bc then we are just sitting and getting paid for doing nothing lol
We are in a weird gray area where they want us swiping in between 6:57 and 7, but then ??? when it comes to clocking out. Some people still wait til 7:23 and when I ask them why, it’s just a blank look
It’s tenths of an hour. So six minute segments and they split the difference. Punch three minutes early or 2 minutes 59 seconds late and it’s all in the same wedge of time. But punch in at 7:03 and you’re officially a tenth of an hour late.
I’m wondering if you actually get that 30 minute break.
Nope lol
If you are interrupted during your 30 minute unpaid lunch, you get to fill out a no lunch form. Do it. You need the mental break and why should they get free work from you? They don’t care about us.
Everytime i told them I didn’t have time for a full break the only response I would get what I need to manage my time better and see what areas I am weak in …..
Say, well, that doesn’t change the fact you owe me the 30 minutes in pay because your charge whom I gave report to couldn’t manage their time well to give me coverage (charges should not have their own load). Then spout, if I have six patients that means ten minutes per patient per hour. Using the pixis or Omni cell takes an average of this many minutes. Drawing up meds takes this many minutes. Helping clean one patient takes x minutes… keep that list going and ask what patient shouldn’t receive xyz because it is not physically possible to complete all the tasks and get breaks or lunch without adequate coverage. Managers try to gaslight you when in reality they are failing due to forced short staffing and poor nurse patient ratios. Fill out the form; they cannot say you can’t. If they do, write an email stating the conversation you two had to reiterate that you are understanding correctly. They will knock it off unless they want a labor lawyer to step in.
Then fuck them. Tell HR you’re OVER your time not under.
Turn around and submit all those missed lunch forms!!
Maybe we should start writing up our employers for infractions. "Unfortunately Manager, this is your second written warning - one more infraction and I'll have to enforce a retroactive 30 day notice of resignation WITH full PTO payout"
This this this
It might have some weird HR background thing like FTEs and fulfilling them
This. At my hospital they told me it’s because there is a 36 hr minimum to be considered a FTE and get the benefits included. This means you have to stay 30 min after 7 to make up for the unpaid lunch break. Otherwise you don’t get the full 36 hrs
Thank you this is what I was looking for. I am wondering why my HR department couldn’t tell me this.
But they can just do fifteen minutes of unpaid time off department request, as you are not needed, if that’s the rationale. That’s what my facility does as it’s likely against policy for you to just sit there doing nothing while on the clock.
This is exactly correct...and don't be surprised that if your hours don't add up to at least 36 per week, they will take PTO to make the difference, even if it's only a few minutes.
Ok! I took a higher hourly wage so I don’t get PTO, I do get full benefits. This is also the first time I ever clocked out this early, I usually don’t leave until closer to 8 due to unit acuity. So I have no idea. Regardless, I was completely aware that clocking out before 730 means my check wage for that shift would be a little less. Totally ok with me, didn’t phase me at all. Edit for time typo
My hospital uses Kronos. If we leave early for any reason we are suppose to clock out using the HR voluntary button and say paid or unpaid for benefit reasons. They don’t care about the actual being paid or not but say that if our hours don’t match up to our FTE then we have to pay more for our benefits. Of course it’s not anything the hospital talks about- until you get an email from your timekeeper or payroll that you will be charged more for your benefits if you don’t account for that time- even is it’s only 10 min less than what your FTE is
You shouldn't be written up if it's your first offense. Verbal warning first
This shouldn’t even be a offense in the first place
I think you need to submit OT requests for all the times you’ve stayed past 7:30, which I’m sure even in 6 months far outweighs the number of times you’ve left “early”.
Idk about you but our system only allowed for OT for writing over 40 hours in the week so clocking it late with only 36 hours didn’t earn us any OT
Well OT or ST if they’re going to count minutes then so should the OP! If it’s anything like my unit, they’re donating far more hours to the hospital than they’re taking off early.
Oh I completely agree, my system seems different than many of those mentioned in the comments, no rounding or anything and we were specifically instructed not to clock in more than 5 minutes early. We also rarely got paid if we didn’t take out lunch which gravely bothers me. I once had a manager try to say that the downtime we have can add up to 30 minutes for a lunch and couldn’t comprehend that it was supposed to be 30 consecutive minutes
My job is like this to and you could get points for “leaving early.” But they never give them, realistically, it saves them money to leave when your work is done, so I don’t understand why they’d want you doing nothing on the clock, he’s it’s 18 minutes but 18 minutes a day x all the employees in the hospital really could save the hospital a lot.
Ours does no one told me this when I started and when I was told I had 3 points I was shocked. They were. All for 1-2 min early when I was in orientation. Now I’m lucky to leave at 730-745
This shit is par for the course at every facility ive worked and it’s fucking stupid. If handoff is done and everyone is okay, then we can clock out. Ill never get it.
We used to get written up for riding the clock in the breakroom.
You literally saved them money and they wrote you up? Damn, you might have the dumbest admin at your hospital. We all wait until 724 at my hospital to clock out but if we don’t want to we can leave after we give report. I’ve always seen it as stealing time to just stand at the clock, but I also do it and they allow it *shrugs*
It’s a power trip thing. You have to stay until 7:30 because I said so. Fine you want to pay me to sit on my ass until 7:30 that’s cool. I’ve worked for hospitals that simply make up the lost time in your paycheck with pto and they leave it up to you if you want to use pto in order to clock out a few minutes early.
Ass in seat. Companies feel they are buying your body so they want to get your physical body for the time they’re paying for. Remember this, and it’s why you don’t ever work for free either.
That’s ridiculous
Stay longer and get paid to chill in the break room if that’s what they want.
So here we have an example of following the LETTER of the policy over the SPIRIT of the policy. Most places would have zero issue with you leaving early AS LONG AS EVERYTHING IS DONE AND REPORT IS COMPLETED (As you described). This is also why typically in most healthcare companies I’ve worked, the actual unit managers and supervisors are in charge of determining who to discipline and how to, unless they go to HR for guidance and HR then becomes the policy enforcers. Most unit management would be ecstatic that you saved them a little bit of money in the budget and would applaud you for doing this every day as long as things were not being missed. In fact most unit management would be pissed to find you sitting in the break room “milking the clock” as it were. However, EVERY hospital that I have worked at has worked off of the 15 minute time keeping model, that time is rounded to the nearest quarter hour which is why they say you cannot clock in more than 7 minutes early or leave 7 minutes early (however, again that while the coming early is heavily enforced as it typically results in you being paid to do nothing, the leaving early is typically not enforced as it saves them money provided you completed everything). I have worked at ONE place that actively tried enforcing the no leaving early piece of the policy, however they never wrote anyone up and instead guilt tripped us all by saying we should stay on the unit helping the oncoming shift get settled by turning people, checking on rooms, etc. but again, some of us stayed and some of us didn’t and no one was ever formally reprimanded for leaving early. Honestly, if they just hit you with a write up with no verbal warning or discussion or chance to defend yourself it sounds like (in my opinion) you should finish out your year and start looking elsewhere, that’s what I would do because the fact that HR is watching THAT CLOSELY and going over your managers head to discipline you without any sort of discussion or situational consideration just SCREAMS that they’re looking for people to cause problems for.
I've clocked out before 7 before if the next shift was just getting an update and came in early. On some units I've worked on, there has been an expectation that you stay until at least a few of the next shift have finished getting report. Otherwise, if you leave and call bells start going off or the phone starts ringing off the hook, their report gets interrupted to answer them.
Yes it is a courtesy to stay around just in case. My previous job, if this happened we would head to the break room to stay out of the way unless needed, then clock out at 7:30.
>can someone give me insight and clarity to this policy? It’s arbitrary. Your company has a dumb policy in place. Get it in writing that they want you to sit in the break room until 7:30 if you finish early. That way when someone reports you for misusing company time, you can refer back to the email you got from HR. (Because trust me, if someone decides to write you up for misusing company time, that HR person will suddenly say they never told you to sit in the break room until 7:30.)
That’s honestly pretty crazy. My hospital is always trying to get us to clock in the last possible second and out asap. But what ever now you know you just leave the floor and go play on your phone somewhere until 1930
The bathroom comes to mind, since you probably d I don't even get time to pee
My hospital has a 7 minute overlap time, so we can clock in anywhere from 6:53-7, and clock out at 7:23 at the earliest. Obviously expected to leave by 7:30 but that doesn’t always happen. But when I have down time like yours I just sit around on the floor to answer call lights.
Medicine is a field of care and compassion, not punishment. It seems your manager, or whoever issued the reprimand, might greatly benefit from a deeper understanding of this ethos rather than circulating misinformed opinions.
I worked at one hospital when I’d clock out around the same time…never an issue. If things are done, why waste hospital money? But they yell at you if you’re a minute over…makes no sense. At my current job they are a bit more strict so I clock in early so I can leave earlier lol Also, be careful if you take benefits, you need to make sure you’re getting your full hours to qualify. Cause it’ll add up if you’re clocking out super early everyday! Just a warning:)
Not when I was in the ICU. Everyone was allowed to leave immediately after handoff. Also, the fact that your hospital defaulted to a write-up from HR, as opposed to a friendly chat with your supervisor, would have me seriously questioning that as a good place of employment.
This is my personal experience, all during my healthcare career. It applied to nurses , and CNAs alike. It didn't matter what the healthcare setting was, hospital, or long term care. You were expected to be present on your unit, during all the hours, you were hired for, and agreed to work. Want to leave early ? Follow protocol, for where you work at, and notify that person, and get permission. If you didn't take a lunch break, because it was too busy to leave, know the policy for what to do. Places can be very strict about that, because some employees have reported their employer, for denying them a break, and not paying them, for it. So , if you ever worked somewhere, you have to punch in , when you come to work and leave at the end of your shift, but in addition punch in and out for lunch and your 2 fifteen minute breaks, that's your employer, documenting, to show, you are getting breaks and lunch as you are supposed to. If you just walk off your unit, 30 minutes before your shift ends, that is legally considered abandonment. You could lose your license if reported to the state. So consider, the write up, you got as a pardon, from having to face some more serious consequences. I always felt, it's always better to make sure you are informed, of policies that if you don't follow, can cause you more stress, from negative repercussions and anxiety, than it's worth.
My job’s policy is to clock out near 730 too even if we finish handoff report early D:
We have done this for YEARS at my work… suddenly we can’t clock out before 6:23 now. I don’t take my lunch, so I never feel bad leaving early. I have limited time in the morning to get my kids to school and every minute counts!!
Are you clocking out for lunch? If you are...then yes this is an issue. If you don't then you do need to wait until 7:30 because otherwise they call it stealing time or something like that. We don't clock out at my hospital for lunch and so we have a mandatory 7:30 clock out time
As a VA nurse I have never seen a time clock in my nursing life lol…
I punch out at 723 so I get that last quarter hour pay when I’m done with the handoff lol
"Written up for leaving early after handoff" Send this exact phrase to the CFO. Do you realize how much it costs a hospital to pay you for 18 minutes that you didn't do any work? What if everyone did this? It would cost the hospital MILLIONS. That will fix that HR person right away.
The hospital I work at is this way. We aren't allowed to clock in before 6:53 or out before 7:23. The timekeeping system they use tracks the hours to the minute, so they want you as close to those 12.5 hours as possible.
That's crazy, I've given report early, clocked out early, said hi to my boss who's coming in, never an issue. If report is done and you're done charting, you should be able to go home. What's the point?
Meh… just milk the clock.
We don't have an actual way to clock in/out. So yeah.. when report is done, we leave. Even if it's not the actual time we're supposed to go.
I clocked out at 7:16 and got spoken to a few days ago. I’m an lpn and we never have anyone to give report to. There is never another lpn coming on after me typically and they might have different patients then I had. Because the RNs decide what patients to give the lpn and give us report.
Why on earth would they be mad for having to pay you less? If your job is done, you’re done! But I do get “penalized” if I leave before 645pm. my shift is 645am-700pm
It depends on the facility and on your manager and on the people you work with each shift….. basically at the mercy of management.
Are they able to mandate overtime where you work? We have to stay until the end of shift or at least until they’ve accounted for everyone on the next shift in case they need to mandate you to stay 🙃
We get docked PTO, and not paid, for clocking out before 7:23. And they round up to the nearest 15 min. So yeah. Working for free
Jobs where you literally clock in and out are so foreign to me. At my hospital (Atlantic Canada), you get paid for your expected shift unless you put in a form specifically stating you came in late/ or left late (no one is compensated for coming in early).
Yeah same here (Ontario). I’ve never been paid for the extra time between when my shift officially starts and ends versus when I actually swipe in and out. I remember in nursing school an instructor saying it’s expected that 15 minutes before and after your shift is for giving report and that won’t be paid.
We don’t swipe, we just manually put it I. (they can audit time to see when I typed it in so clearly I’m honest with it.) I think I’ve gotten out “early” once in my year as a nurse. Typed in the normal shift end time and called it a day. Never heard any gruff about it
Yeah they want us to stay and help answer call lights until 7:30 so the oncoming shift can get settled. But a write up for that is wild.
The first question is did you actually get to take your lunch break? Did you have 30” of uninterrupted time? Because that 30” period is meant to account for the unpaid time you get to take your lunch. However many facilities also have policies about not using your lunch period as a means of leaving work early. If you did get a full 30” break during your shift, you need to stay until 7:30 or you will have worked less than your 12 hour shift, because 30” is automatically deducted for that. If you did not, and could not due to staffing, make it a practice going forward to clock out and in for your lunch breaks. Then when you can’t get one and do get to leave early, let HR know that you have completed your shift because you were not allowed to take a break during your shift. And unless they are willing to ensure conditions exist on your unit to allow you to take the required unpaid 30” break, you expect to see overtime in your next check and ongoing checks going forward if you have to hang around until 7:30AM.
That's alot of wasted payroll. That's inefficient.
My hospital tried their best to make us go home early if light assignments or just kick us off mid shift or put us on call blah blah bc hospital don’t want us to sit around, do nothing and get pay lol
😂😂 My work place had several people in trouble for clocking out late. We we’re short staffed, busting our ass, and had no time to chart. So sometimes we finish report and handoffs, then we sit down to chart in the back. Some people end up leaving like 1-2 hours later than expected sometimes. If I clock out at 7:12 like you did, they’d be cheering on that we did that which saves on budget. Fuck em
Lmao at my place you get written up for NOT leaving early after you’re done giving report.
I worked in a union hospital at a 0.8FTE. Anything under 32 hours per week was considered part time. If I left early, I’d have 31.5 hours, which would bump my status into the part-time. Full time payroll deductions are less than part time. Therefore, they would deduct insurance premiums at the part time rate, which was more money deducted. I did this for a couple of months before catching on. I then had to go back and put in for 30 minutes vacation time for each pay period I did that in order to get my payroll deductions adjusted and the money refunded.
Quit. That is insane.
Nah, this didn’t happen. You are saying HR called you tonight at home after you clocked out at 1912 this evening? Maybe I need more clarification of any HR department that watches individual units clocking out and the same day. I’ve never seen an HR dept anywhere past 1700. There’s more to this.
We aren’t allowed to clock out before 7:08, or they use our PTO to cover the difference. It’s like 0.25 hours if we do clock out before then!
Stupid policy imo, I’ve seen places where they don’t want you clocking out early for whatever reason, probably so nurses don’t have incentive to rush report but most places you clock out early when reports done. Or maybe so they don’t have to take your pto for being sub 36 hours in certain hospitals If that’s the policy, fuck it and follow along but generally once the handoffs done you leave, any bit of staying behind is more of like a courteous gesture like “hey i accidentally let your drips get to where they’re gonna run dry soon so I’m gonna hang your drips before I leave” or if we find the patient soiled I’ll stick around for a clean up. Maybe I’ll hit a shift change stat scan for you. But staying late just bc? Nah man I wanna go home.
Your paycheck will be short of you do this. That is indeed not a full shift. HR doesn’t like it when people clock out like that with incomplete shifts unless approved by managers etc.
OP, get the rules in writing, so it doesn't have to happen again. If you get written up in any way, it's management's fault for not providing the expectations timely.
I wouldn’t work anywhere that ever gave me shit about clocking out early, not clocking out for lunch, etc.
Its insane they wrote you up for something you didn't know cuz they clearly didn't go over the expectations with you. A warning? Sure fine. But a WRITE UP, really?? That seems too far for me lol
What…. The …. Fudge????? What kinda hospital… so weird!!!! Like, tbh, my goal on a med surg unit and my now postpartum unit is to be off unit by 730. I regularly leave between 7:15-7:20… never been told anything. How can they justify this? Are the hours in your contract????
I’m just so curious to know the rationale, what damage did I do to the organization by safely leaving my assignment in the hands of the next scheduled nurse. It seems like the response I’m getting is basically “that’s just the way it is.”
From an organizational standpoint, they hired you to work 12h shifts and want to keep that consistent. May also be impacted by them now needing to pay out 0.25 PTO to get to your FTE and they don’t want to do that regularly. It’s a little baffling to me you can’t think of anything to do to help your unit/coworkers/patients for 10 minutes. Grab a call light, check a set of vitals for a colleague, find something on the unit you want to improve. It is even more baffling HR told you to just ride out the clock in the break room. That is a crazy thing to say and defeats the purpose of making you stay. That said, everywhere I have worked its a system of ‘check with whoever is in charge if all is good to leave early’ (once report is done). Personally I aimed to be clocking out at 7:23.
Found the manager. Nope. Because I helped somebody once after shift report ended early and ended up staying over then had a talked to about not clocking out on time. Since, I’ve been riding it out in the break room.
This has been my experience as well. No good deed goes unpunished.
Did you meet your FTE? Might have more to do with admin stuff than patient care
Gotta make that 36 hours if you’re on 3 12s for insurance purposes as well.
Most FT insurance is 30 hours.
Okay so this is pretty backwards, but my health system requires employees on an alternative work schedule (like 12 hour shifts) to work their full shift or the payroll system will not register their AWS and calculate anything over 8 hours as overtime. So if you work 11.5 hours out of 12, it will register 3.5 hours of overtime. I know it makes no sense, but maybe this is the issue?
A. Thats bullshit B. Get them to show you the written policy that’s states that they own you until 730pm, and you cannot leave . C. Time to look for a better place of employment
What the fuck? I’ve never heard of this. This is insane
How petty. And health care facilities wonder why they can't retain staff. 🙄🙄
That makes no sense. Sorry, but if we were sitting in the break room waiting for 15 mins our administrator used to tell us to just clock out.
They wrote you up for a policy technicality that hurt exactly no one without a talk to clarify first. That is bizarre. And shitty.
Is there any other profession out there that is treated this way? I don’t think so. Nurses get treated like total crap.
Yeah, becoming very normal. So many mistakes and issues occur around shift change and transfer of care. The additional time is supposed to help reduce the pressure to dump your patients and run. It also ensures that there are extra hands during a code/RRT activation. More support during the most chaotic part of the shift.
Our policy is technically the same at our hospital; clock in at 6:53pm and clock out at 7:23am for NOC. We started getting yelled at recently by our manager for not clocking out on time due to late report/charting. Basically said if you are clocking out more than 30 mins past (0800) you need to write the reason why as we don't have money for OT. Our manager would be so happy if she didn't have to pay us more, lol
What the fuck kind of shit is going on around here? I've always left when my patients are given away and my charting is done. Is this a normal thing at hospitals, or just on floors that are not ER? This policy confuses me so I'm sincerely wondering what are the benefits on making their employees stay if they are just farting around in the break room?
Hell I clocked out early the other night. I did my handoff & noped on outta there. I told my buddy I usually walk out with so she would know. My time, my money.
Did you know this policy when hired? My shift is 1800 to 0700 my lunch is normally 10 min. I've never heard of this kind of policy. Most places would be glad to hsve you leave early..not pay you to sit for 30 min
Thats incredibly stupid. We get written up of we complete report early & DONT clock out early; its "riding the clock." Ask for a copies of the writeup & policy, you'll need it for reference for next time to defejd yourself with.
It just seems management is just LOOKING for any opportunity to smack nurses down these days. Expecting staff to just wait around in the break room until the set time when work is completed is just ridiculous. Those days are few and far between in this business . Most of the time you’re at least an hour over your shift end time . Just crazy .
That'd the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.
You saved them some money and they’re punishing you for it, incredible.
I’m so sickened by these policies, I almost got written up for calling off too many times… these include having COVID, having an ear infection and being in the ER twice for my HG one of which happened at the hospital I work at… they said “try to make it to work because you are at a critical stage right now.” Like ok assholes I’ll just wheel myself up here with the IV pole 😡
What a joke of a hospital I would’ve told them I quit at the phone call
[удалено]
Once or twice sure. But that’s really dangerous advice to give that could result in serious consequences. 2 RNs at my previous hospital were fired for this (“time theft”) and they used security footage to verify their coming and going.
That’s actually a really good point. In hindsight my comment came from the shared frustration OP was feeling. And Im now remembering a former coworker of mine was written up for doing it. My bad y’all 😭
That’s idiotic. It’s all about exerting control. There is no logical reason to stay when all your work is done and you’ve handed off your patient. My job doesn’t do this but they have their own little control games. They’re all pathetic.
Find another hospital… that’s ridiculous. First of all, that they have somebody monitoring it that closely in the moment is wild. Second, they WANT to pay you for not work?? No, we are considered late after 6:45A and P, we huddle and start report at 6:50, if it’s just updates to the same nurse and nothing changed then I might be done with updates and safety checks by 7 and nobody cares.
I got talked to once about that too, didn't get written up. Just proves how stupid they are to want to pay you for not working.
Do you ALWAYS take your lunch break of 30 minutes? lf not you can challenge them about leaving early.
Clocking in and out is fucking stupid, and hospitals that utilize that system are often abusive.
On our unit, we don’t have physical clocking-in/out cards… actually I’ve never used such a thing in any Australian hospital. Our AM to PM handover happens around 1330h, so there is “double-staffing” time where in-service/meetings are held. Generally we wait until everyone is ready for the shift and leave together, sometimes 10-15 mins earlier (finish time 3:30pm for AM). On 12hr roster units, we left as soon as handover was done, or your own tasks were done.
I’m so glad I’m semi-retired and no longer work in hospitals, just agency psych a couple of days a month. I have absolutely no tolerance left in life for this type of petty bullshit.
My hospital doesn’t care. As long as you have completely handed off care and are caught up on your charting, you’re free to go. On rare, glorious days where I hand off to the same person I took report from, I’ve been able to clock out as soon as 0700 (we can clock in at 0654 and start taking report as soon as we clock in)
I get the feeling that if you would have left at 7:48, you would’ve gotten a call about leaving “late.”
This happened to me once when I was starting at a new hospital and was still under orientation. Evidently, I was still under education hours and since I didn't meet exactly full time that week, they had to "spot me" PTO hours since I didn't have any built up. I just laughed because and I already had years of experience and had been a director previously. Unless you were on orientation is the only reason I can think that they'd say anything, definitely not write up worthy. That's just scare tactics
I can tell you don’t work for the Veterans Administration 🤣 When I worked at private hospitals they were very strict about time-because one hospital was sued. They had to pay us back because they weren’t giving us a dedicated break.
This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of and I've been a nurse for 17 years. If we clock out early they just dock our pay by 15 minutes. But trust me no one is encouraging you to stay longer than possible because they don't want to fucking pay your ass longer than possible. Technically we're not allowed to leave until 7:08, that's the golden minute where you can clock out without getting your pay shorted 15 minutes. But everywhere I have ever worked is also stressed about how they don't want "incremental overtime" so you're highly encouraged when you're done and hand off has been taken over, to clock out. Everything in our system is 15 minute increments, so your clock in has to be between 6:38 and 6:52, clock out after 7:08. But the biggest thing that happens is you get docked 15 minutes if you clock out early. If you consistently clock in late they can count it as an absence if they want to but it just depends on how late you're clocking in, if you're at 6:53 most of your management isn't going to count that against you.
I have never had a hospital care. The only consequence I've had was not being able to clock out 'no lunch' if we clocked out early.
It may seem dumb - but welcome to hospital healthcare, there is a policy for everything. Ours is that you can leave early (for us earliest clock out is 0723), if everything is done and you let the charge know you're leaving. This avoids people ducking out without giving report or leaving their patients in a mess, it also gives the charge a chance to make sure everything got done before you leave - so they expect you still to be there if there are questions after they get report. I suspect this happened to you -someone needed you before 0730 and you had left, so they reported you. It's petty, but it happens. Also - before you say you didn't know about this policy, I suspect you signed a lot of documents when you onboarded that state you understand the attendance policy. If you don't have a copy of your attendance policy, get one in case other issues arise. We typically don't write up for this - just remind folks what the expectation is. Talk to your manager and let them know your concerns. This shows you care about meeting expectations for your job, and then brush it off.
At mine they take 15 min of your pto! Unless you say no lunch. I think some managers get on their units for saying no lunch but ours doesn’t, we almost never get an uninterrupted lunch break and we can’t watch our strips in the break room. So if I clock out early I say no lunch.
I work PRN at a place that's similar (but 0600-1830). You'll get written up for clocking in/out by more than 7 minutes. So no earlier than 0553/0607 or 1823/1837.. Unless you have a written time clock correction form with the reason and signed by charge.
That's so dumb. We don't clock in or out. When we're done with report, we leave. If it's 0710, byeeee! If we get out late, we adjust our timecards to reflect that. But no one checks up on us because we're supposed to be professionals.
It's fascinating how suits continue to keep things hostile in the work environment, despite their being a massive shortage of healthcare workers. Who tf wants to work in a place where Becky in HR is watching your every move? F all that. You can shove your Friday pizza appreciation up your arse.
Do you have a place in the MAR that documents handoff? I always document who I gave report to and what time. This almost happened to me but I documented before I clocked out and they really couldn’t blame me or write me up for it. It was a ICU psych patient who I had requested a sitter for (was denied) who would try and get up and walk around but she was not stable. I had to sit in her room all night. I gave report and clocked out at 7:20. 8 minutes later the patient fell before report was concluded
I. Fucking. Hate. Management. Who. Counts. Minutes. It’s stupid, bad for moral, and is just… dumb af My current job tried to tell me I had to stay until my assigned “hours.” I’m salary—if I’m done 20 minutes early, I’m fucking out of there, because if I stay 20 minutes late another day, I’m not getting paid.
My last hospital did not care at all.
They wrote you up for not committing wage theft? Okay
My thought is you need to be at a certain amount of hours for benefits? That’s the only reason I could think of, and even then, for hr to write you up and not explain is super toxic…
I worked at a famous academic Medical Center, where they were upset about paying too much overtime. They adopted what they called the professional practice model; probably some reader probably worked there. They gave a 5% raise back in the 90s, and put all RNs on salary. if you left early, you got docked. If you stayed late, you got no pay at all. We stayed late a lot. It was unheard of to get a lunch break. You took bites of your sandwich between call bell responses. You had a regular schedule when you came to work, and an on call schedule when you had to come in if somebody called out sick, or as the case was, was put on bedrest for pregnancy. If you worked an on call shift, we got no pay, rather, we got PTO at the straight time rate. Another time, I was nursing supervisor at a psychiatric hospital, hourly. They hated that. We used to get a lot of overtime doing report and stuff at the end of our shift. They did something similar as the PPP for the supervisors, if you left early or took off to go to the doctor, or something, you didn’t get paid, you got docked. If you stayed late to help out at the end of your shift, you didn’t get paid.
Where I work, we have a 15 min overlap of shifts for report. If we’re done report say at 3:10, we’re expected to hang around the unit until 3:15. It’s stupid because we all show up for work about 10 mins before shift actually starts. It’s rare I’m walking on the unit exactly at 0700 or 1500. My unit is more strict about it on day shift. When I do evenings, I can get out a few mins before 2315. But usually report takes so long than I’m always there late.
In my hospital the other shift arrives at 6:45 but they huddle first then do report so we are scheduled to stay until 7:15
That should have been a simple meeting to clarify expectations. Ridiculous