When a nine-year night charge nurse leaves a composite surgical ICU, this NU514 Unit 3 estimate prices two replacement paths week by week against her budgeted cost: about $68,700 for an experienced hire and $99,100 for a new graduate fellow. Searches like "nu 514 unit 3 assignment example", "nu514 unit 3 sample" and "nu514 unit 3 example" land here.
Two Ways to Replace a Night Charge Nurse: A Week-by-Week Turnover Cost Estimate for an Experienced Hire and a New Graduate Fellow
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
NU514: Human Resources Management
Unit 3 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
All rates, durations and splits are composite and bracketed; the approach adapts Jones's turnover cost methodology to a phase timeline.
Inputs
1. Departing nurse: base rate [$52.40] an hour, [30] percent benefit load, [36] hours a week. Budgeted cost of the position: $2,452.32 a week.
2. Vacancy coverage: [60] percent overtime at time and a half plus payroll tax, $84.61 an hour; [40] percent agency at [$118] an hour. Weekly coverage cost: $3,526.84.
3. Experienced hire: same base rate; [$3,000] recruiting and a [$12,000] sign-on bonus.
4. New graduate fellow: base rate [$36.80], $1,722.24 a week loaded; [$1,500] recruiting.
5. Preceptor: while precepting, roughly one hour in four of her time goes to teaching rather than care, valued at $613 a week.
Method
Time organizes the estimate, because an intensive care departure unfolds in phases that last months. Each week is priced the same way: what the unit spent on the position minus the $2,452 it was budgeted to cost, so wages that would have been paid anyway never enter the total. Jones's methodology treats lost productivity as a cost alongside money spent (Jones, 2005), and this estimate applies that logic phase by phase.
Path A: Experienced Hire, 37 Weeks
1. Vacancy, 14 weeks: coverage $3,526.84 minus budget $2,452.32 equals $1,074.52 a week above budget; 14 weeks equals $15,043.
2. Recruiting and sign-on: $15,000.
3. Orientation, 8 weeks: the new nurse is paid $2,452 a week, her slot is still covered at $3,527 because an orientee paired with a preceptor does not fill the schedule, and the preceptor's lost time costs $613; spending of $6,592 less the $2,452 budget is $4,140 a week above budget; 8 weeks equals $33,119.
4. Partial productivity, 15 weeks at about 85 percent: 15 percent of $2,452 is $368 a week; 15 weeks equals $5,518.
Total: $68,680.
Path B: New Graduate Fellow, 66 Weeks
1. Vacancy until the next fellowship cohort, 12 weeks: $1,074.52 a week above budget; $12,894.
2. Recruiting: $1,500.
3. Fellowship, 24 weeks: the fellow's $1,722 a week, full slot coverage at $3,527, preceptor time at $613 and [$150] a week of educator and simulation cost, less the $2,452 budget, is $3,560 a week above budget; 24 weeks equals $85,436.
4. Partial productivity, 30 weeks at about 80 percent: the fellow's $1,722 plus 20 percent of slot coverage, $705, is $2,427 a week, $25 below budget; 30 weeks equals a saving of $741.
Total: $99,089.
The Comparison
Replacing the charge nurse with a new graduate costs about $30,400 more to bring to independent practice than hiring an experienced nurse, almost entirely because of the long fellowship during which her slot must still be covered.
That is not the whole comparison. Once independent, the fellow costs about $730 a week less than the budgeted position, roughly $37,960 a year. If she stays, the extra $30,400 is recovered in about ten months of independent practice. If she leaves in her first year, as six of the unit's last fourteen new graduates did, the unit pays the fellowship cost and gets little of the saving back.
The comparison therefore turns on first-year retention, not on wage rates. With the unit's recent first-year retention of about 57 percent, the expected cost of Path B is higher than its total suggests, because some fellows will need to be replaced, repeating the vacancy and fellowship phases.
What the Estimate Leaves Out
Neither path prices the loss of a charge nurse's judgment on nights. For nine years she made staffing, escalation and bed decisions on nights with no manager in the building, and the replacement, of either kind, will take far longer than 37 weeks to learn that role. The estimate also omits effects on the remaining night staff, who absorb overtime during the vacancy and precept the replacement. Published estimates can be adjusted to current dollars when a unit lacks its own data (Jones, 2008), but a unit-level estimate like this one is more persuasive to finance because every input can be checked against the unit's own records.
Using the Estimate
The estimate supports two decisions. For this vacancy, the experienced hire is cheaper and faster, and the sign-on bonus pays for itself if it shortens the vacancy by about eleven weeks, since each week of vacancy costs about $1,075 above budget. The unit should also ask whether an internal transfer from another intensive care unit is possible, which would cut both the vacancy and the orientation phases. For the unit's longer-term strategy, new graduate hiring is only economical if first-year retention rises, which is why later units focus on how new graduates are placed on nights. A turnover literature review found that turnover has both organizational and individual costs and that estimates vary widely with method (Hayes et al., 2012), so the unit should present this figure as its own estimate with its assumptions shown.
References
Hayes, L. J., O'Brien-Pallas, L., Duffield, C., Shamian, J., Buchan, J., Hughes, F., Laschinger, H. K. S., & North, N. (2012). Nurse turnover: A literature review, an update. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 49(7), 887-905. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2011.10.001
Jones, C. B. (2005). The costs of nurse turnover, part 2: Application of the Nursing Turnover Cost Calculation Methodology. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 35(1), 41-49. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005110-200501000-00014
Jones, C. B. (2008). Revisiting nurse turnover costs: Adjusting for inflation. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 38(1), 11-18. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NNA.0000295636.03216.6f
How this NU514 Unit 3 example is structured
Time organizes the estimate rather than cost categories, because an intensive care departure unfolds in phases lasting months: vacancy, orientation, partial productivity. Every phase is priced the same way, as the difference between what the unit spent on the position and what the budget expected, so wages that would have been paid anyway never enter the total. Coverage during orientation is counted because an orientee paired with a preceptor does not yet fill the schedule slot. Two replacement paths run side by side, and that comparison is the analytic center: the new graduate costs about $30,400 more to bring to independent practice, recovers it in about ten months only if she stays, and so turns the choice into a question of first-year retention.
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Is there a departure you can picture? The role, a rough wage, how long vacancies last and how long orientation runs are enough to price it. With the Unit 3 prompt and rubric attached, the desk returns a phase-by-phase model estimate in 24-48h, and a first request carries no fee. Which departure to price, and how to defend it, remains yours. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
NU514 Unit 3 questions, answered
Why price the replacement two ways?
Because the hiring decision changes the cost more than almost any other input. An experienced hire costs more in recruiting and wages; a new graduate costs more in orientation and time to independence. The sample shows both, then computes how long the lower wage takes to repay the longer orientation. That comparison is what makes the estimate useful to a manager deciding how to fill the next vacancy.
What does pricing against the position's budget mean?
Each week, the estimate compares actual spending on the vacant position, whether overtime, agency hours or an orientee's wage, with what the budget expected the departed nurse to cost. Only the difference counts. That keeps wages that would have been paid anyway out of the total and avoids the double counting that inflates many turnover figures. The sample states its budgeted weekly figure, $2,452, before any calculation.
Should a national turnover cost figure be included?
It can serve as a reference point, cited with its source and year, but most sections want the estimate built from the unit's own conditions. The sample leaves national averages aside and explains why: they blend medical-surgical and critical care departures, and an ICU orientation runs far longer than the typical one in those surveys. If a figure is cited, say what it includes.