Fringe Benefits for Nurses: 5 Ideas for Your Team

The ongoing nursing shortage is detrimental to patient safety and staff wellness. As healthcare facilities struggle to fill open positions, attracting and retaining high quality nurses has become a top priority for administrators. While there are a number of ways to approach the problem, offering the right mix of fringe benefits for nurses is one way for your facility to stand out from other employers.

According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), fringe benefits are forms of work compensation that go beyond an employee’s normal rate of pay. Fair pay, career development opportunities, and strong company culture are some key competitive factors that influence nurse recruitment; but as healthcare systems grow and adjust, additional incentives are needed. Fringe benefits play a key role in captivating the interest of potential nurse candidates and maintaining a high level of satisfaction among current staff.

It’s important to understand the needs and preferences of healthcare staff when building a benefits package that appeals to everyone. Learn how to grow and maintain a sustainable, tenacious workforce by incorporating the five unique fringe benefits examples below.

1. Scheduling Flexibility

Enhancing your nursing scheduling policy to allow for flexibility correlates strongly with employee satisfaction. Here are two different methods for managing schedules that provide enticing fringe benefits for nurses:

Self Scheduling

Changing schedules every week and shifting between night shift and day shift disrupts the circadian rhythm and increases fatigue. When nurses have limited input into how their shifts are scheduled, they often feel as if the process is unfair or only satisfies certain team members.

Incorporating an online self-scheduling platform can help meet staff needs and accommodate individual requests. Allowing nurses to choose their shift start time and regularity of work days provides them with the equity and autonomy needed to help prevent burnout.

Seasonal Shifting Between Full- and Part-Time Employment

Ensuring safety in the healthcare setting requires work-life balance for staff members. Holding staff members to a strict part-time or full-time title may be a barrier to retaining nurses on your team.

Allowing seasonal flexibility for nurses to shift between working two and three 12-hour shifts a week (or three and five 8-hour shifts a week in applicable settings) can help attract the staff required to provide high-quality care in your facility. Employees with children may need to cut back on work hours during the summer to accommodate for school holidays and family vacations. During the school year, these same employees are often happy to work full-time hours.

Supporting nurses through career and familial developments is important for building a healthy working environment. Distancing your facility from outdated, ridgid methods of scheduling and incorporating newer, staff-centered techniques helps to push your facility’s benefit offerings above the rest. Scheduling flexibility is also one of the best types of de minimis fringe benefits for nurses that don’t contribute to the tax burden.

2. Subsidized Child Care

Paying for high-quality child care can be difficult for many working families in the U.S. Families spend over 25% of their total combined income on child care, and professionals often base big career decisions on whether their potential salary can cover the expense.

Healthcare facilities that offer subsidized child care as one of their fringe benefits for nurses experience fewer absences and lower rates of staff turnover. Over 80% of both men and women state that child care benefits would play a major role in deciding whether to stay or leave their current place of employment. Incorporating this incentive into your employee benefits package could be the key to maintaining and growing an incredible team.

There are also financial benefits to offering subsidized child care for your employees. The Employer-Provided Child Care Facilities and Services federal tax credit helps companies claim up to 25% of their child care expenses and 10% of their resources and referral expenses up to a total of $150,000. Child care assistance is one of the most valuable family-friendly benefits on the market; and by retaining staff and saving your organization money, it can be an incredible addition to the benefits that set your company apart.

3. Commuting Incentives

The average commuter spends $8,466 a year commuting, with 236 hours spent getting to and from the workplace. Some companies offer transportation benefits to help cover these costs. The IRS allows companies to provide certain commuting benefits with pre-tax dollars. These include $300 per month to cover the cost of transit passes for buses, trains, and ferries, and an additional $300 per month for parking expenses for each employee.

Additionally, facilities can offer the following taxable fringe benefits for nurses to help employees offset the rising costs of getting to and from work:

• Ride sharing (Uber, Lyft) expenses
• Toll reimbursement
• Use of a company vehicle
• Vehicle maintenance allowance
• Fuel cost reimbursement

By offering commuting incentives for your facility’s nurses, you can help to boost the morale of staff coming in to care for your patients. Expanding the number of staff interested in your posted positions and enticing those who may live further away helps your facility build a large, diverse pool of qualified staff.

4. Clinical Cross-Training

Nurses who are encouraged to explore different areas of practice are adaptable and flexible, and have higher rates of satisfaction in the workplace. Thus, you should also consider offering clinical cross-training as part of your fringe benefits for registered nurses (RNs) and licensed practical nurses (LPNs). This may excite employees looking for a long-term career trajectory within a health system.

Building a versatile team gives staff members flexibility while reducing the need for expensive, outsourced travel nurses to fill gaps in the staffing matrix. For example, a neonatal intensive care unit position could offer cross training and floating options to the pediatric newborn clinic. Embedding inter-departmental mobility into a benefit package may help give nurses the broad expertise and sense of teamwork they desire, while cutting hospital costs.

Creating an adaptable workforce with clinical flexibility is important for facilities, as the healthcare field requires creative and complex solutions to solve daily challenges. Careers offering opportunities for personal and professional development empower nurses to reach their full potential, improve patient outcomes, and decrease facility spending.

5. Periodic Retention Bonuses

Many facilities advertise hefty sign-on bonuses for staff accepting new positions within the health system. While this addresses the nursing shortage from the recruitment side, it doesn’t help to retain the trained nurses that are already employed.

It costs each facility an average of $52,350 every time a nurse leaves the bedside. In an effort to save themselves from a $6-10 million expense annually, health systems could offer periodic retention bonuses to staff members.

This could manifest in multiple smaller payments every few months, or could look like one large deposit once the employee reaches a benchmark year after 5, 10, or 15 years of employment. Focusing on hiring and keeping high-quality professionals — not just bulking up the size of your staff — is a more cost effective method of maintaining safe staffing levels.

Want More Nurse Hiring and Retention Resources for Your Facility?

Discovering ways to excite potential candidates and retain current employees can be a challenge. Unique fringe benefits for nurses can help attract and keep the high quality caregivers you need, but there’s more you can do. Get the latest hiring and nursing management insights with our free IntelyCare newsletter.