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I’m glad that you are happy to be part of the Corizon team, and you’ve certainly raised some valid points here.
I want to take this opportunity to explain a bit, on a few of these topics. The flat raise may be something that is written in to the Indiana contract. When we first bid on a book of business, we have to account for cost of living increases, and anticipated benefits trends, etc. Often times, we are bidding these 5+ years in advance, and unfortunately, these anticipated trends don’t always end up as we’ve predicted. The Affordable Care Act has had a huge impact on the cost of insurance benefits, nationwide. In order to lessen the impact, to any single employee, it’s often viewed as a best practice, to spread the increase across the board, at a flat 2% (or 3% or whatever the case may be). In terms of PTO, we know we certainly can’t compete with the state. Not just in Indy, but really, across the board. We take that in to account as well, when pricing a contract.
Typically, our base rates have a premium built in to them, to offset for government pension plans and PTO. In other words, you are most likely making more than a state employee counterpart doing the same job, but they probably have a similar total compensation plan, when you account for salary, insurance, PTO, retirement, etc. Total hours that any single employee, is expected to be at work, is also dictated by the contract with the state.
While what you’ve outlined, in terms of, limited patient movement due to government holidays, is very accurate, we are committed to have our staff there, 24/7/365… regardless of holidays. Very similar to what you’d find in any hospital setting. We’ve arranged our PTO, so that we don’t dictate if employees must use hours for vacation, sick, holidays, etc. It’s all one big bank, to be used at your discretion. If you feel like you will be less productive some days, due to government holidays, you could try to align your PTO schedule with that of the state. If you haven’t already raised this with your supervisor, I think you should. Maybe there are special projects that could be assigned on the days you know it will be slow… preparation for audits or accreditations, file clean up, etc.
So often, there aren’t enough hours in the day, so we should capitalize on the quiet time, as much as we can! Thanks for what you are doing for Corizon!
Sincerely,
Courtney Penning
Director of Talent Acquisition