HJBR Nov/Dec 2021

54 NOV / DEC 2021 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE COLUMN NURSING One of the things they have learned is that hospitals have been willing to pay premium dollars both to travel nurses and to their own staff for working addition- al shifts in order to meet the critical need for nurses. Someone said to me recently that we will never be able to “put that ge- nie back in the bottle” referring to nurses’ refusal to accept salaries that don’t reflect their education, experience and expertise. I have been asked more times than I can remember if I believe it is risky for nurs- es to ask for more money. Because nurs- ing is a female-dominated profession, I usually interpret this question as, “Do you believe it is too risky for women to ask for more money?” That question would never be asked of men, and I doubt if it would be asked of male nurses. The remainder of this month’s column will attempt to address my personal assessment of this proving profits. Women need to be more assertive and less humble. They need to learn to sell themselves. They must promote their own abilities. Most importantly, they need to be willing to walk away from a position if they lose the negotiation for more money for which their education, experience, ex- pertise and skills support their demand. If an employer knows you will never leave, whether you get that raise or not, then they have you over a barrel, and they never have to acquiesce to your demands. You have lost the negotiation before it ever began. As a nurse, and a woman, how would I overcome the potential backlash to de- manding a higher salary? I would approach it from the perspective of presenting a case that higher compensation would lead to greater retention as well as increased pro- ductivity gains and less absenteeism. question, informed by evidence gathered over a long career in nursing. I do not believe it is ever too risky to ask for more money. No risk, no reward. If a woman or group of women are willing to work for less money and never commu- nicate their value to an organization, they will remain undervalued and underpaid. No organization is going to pay you more money if you are willing to work for less, no matter what skills you bring to the job. Senior executives and hospital admin- istrators are charged with creating finan- cial margins and producing wealth for the business and its investors. Especially in healthcare, where profit margins are small, the easiest way to do that is through con- trolling costs of personnel. Since nurses make up the largest percentage of per- sonnel in a hospital, keeping pay down for nurses means controlling costs and im- Power Dynamics of Negotiation: Paying Nurses for Their Worth NURSES ACROSS LOUISIANA, AS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES, HAVE COME TO APPRECIATE THEIR FINANCIAL VALUE DURING THIS PANDEMIC AS THEY HAVE MAINTAINED STAFFING FOR HOSPITALS UNDER THE MOST DEMANDING CIRCUMSTANCES.