Hey there, travel nurses! Have you ever found yourself in a new location, ready to start a new assignment, only to find that your housing isn't quite what you expected? Maybe the accommodations are subpar or don't meet your needs, or maybe there are safety concerns that you didn't anticipate. Whatever the case may be, it's important for us as travel nurses to understand the housing regulations and standards that apply to your assignments.
In this blog post, we're going to dive into the complexities of travel nurse housing regulations and standards. We'll cover everything from federal regulations to state-specific standards and what responsibilities fall on both employers and travel nurses. We'll also provide some helpful resources that you can use to navigate these regulations and ensure that you have safe and comfortable housing during your assignments. So buckle up, grab a cup of coffee, and let's get started!
This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.
Federal Regulations and Standards
It's time to talk about federal regulations and standards for travel nurse housing! We all know that the federal government has a say in just about everything, and housing for travel nurses is no exception. So, what are some of these regulations and standards that you need to be aware of? Well, for starters, we've got the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA sets standards for worker safety and health, including those in the healthcare industry. This means that travel nurse housing must meet certain safety standards to protect us from hazards such as electrical issues or mold. Then there's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC has guidelines for infection control that apply to healthcare facilities, including housing for healthcare workers. These guidelines help to ensure that your living spaces are clean and free from infection risks. But why do these regulations and standards matter? Compliance with these guidelines is crucial for your safety and well-being as a travel nurse. Non-compliance can result in hazards that could put us at risk for illness or injury. It's important to know what regulations and standards apply to your housing and to advocate for safe and healthy living conditions. So, let's all make a commitment to comply with federal regulations and standards for travel nurse housing. Your health and safety depend on it!
State Regulations and Standards
Now, let's delve into the regulations and standards that apply to travel nurse housing at the state level. Did you know that regulations and standards can vary by state? That's right! It's important to research and understand the regulations and standards that apply to housing in each state before accepting a job. So, what are some things to look for when researching state regulations and standards? Well, for starters, some states have specific regulations for temporary housing, which may differ from permanent housing regulations. Additionally, some states have specific licensing or registration requirements for temporary housing providers. It's important to know if your housing provider is licensed or registered with the state to ensure that they are meeting all necessary regulations and standards. Another factor to consider is how state regulations and standards impact the cost and availability of travel nurse housing. Some states may have strict regulations that make it more difficult to find affordable housing, while others may have more lenient regulations that allow for more options. So, why is all of this important? Understanding state regulations and standards can help you to make informed decisions about the housing options you choose. You want to ensure that you are living in safe, comfortable, and affordable accommodations during your assignments. Researching and understanding state regulations and standards can also help us to advocate for your rights and ensure that your housing providers are meeting their obligations. In conclusion, state regulations and standards for travel nurse housing can be complex and varied. It's important to do your research and understand the regulations and standards that apply to your housing before accepting a job. Let's all make sure you're informed and advocating for your rights as travel nurses!
Employer Responsibilities
We've covered federal and state regulations and standards for travel nurse housing, but what about the responsibilities of your employers? Let's dive into it! First and foremost, travel nurse employers have a responsibility to provide safe and healthy housing that meets all applicable regulations and standards. This means that they should be aware of federal and state guidelines and ensure that the housing options they provide meet or exceed these standards. Employers should also ensure that housing providers are licensed or registered, if necessary. But how do employers ensure compliance with regulations and standards? Well, they should have processes in place to monitor and inspect housing options before and during travel nurse assignments. This could include regular inspections and assessments of housing providers, as well as ongoing communication with travel nurses to address any concerns or issues with housing. Of course, as travel nurses, you also have a responsibility to communicate your expectations and concerns about housing to your employers. This could include things like preferences for location or amenities, as well as any safety or health concerns. By working together with your employers, you can ensure that your housing needs are met and that you feel comfortable and safe during your assignments. Travel nurse employers have a big responsibility when it comes to housing regulations and standards. They need to be aware of and comply with federal and state guidelines, as well as ensure that housing options meet your needs as travel nurses. Let's all communicate your expectations and concerns with your employers to ensure that you have safe and comfortable housing during your assignments.
Travel Nurse Responsibilities
Now, it's time to discuss what you, as travel nurses, are responsible for when it comes to housing regulations and standards. As travel nurses, you have the right to safe, comfortable, and affordable housing during your assignments. But how do you advocate for these rights? First and foremost, it's important to research and understand housing regulations and standards at the federal and state level. This knowledge can help us to identify any potential issues with your housing options and advocate for necessary changes. You should also communicate your housing needs and preferences with your employers to ensure that they are meeting your needs. In addition, as travel nurses, you have a responsibility to be aware of and comply with any housing regulations and standards that apply to us. This could include things like reporting any safety or health concerns to your employers, complying with any licensing or registration requirements for temporary housing providers, and taking care of the housing options you are provided with. Of course, if you feel that your rights are being violated or that you are not being provided with safe and comfortable housing, it's important to speak up and advocate for yourself. This could include speaking with your employers or reaching out to regulatory agencies if necessary. As travel nurses, you have a responsibility to advocate for safe and comfortable housing during your assignments. By researching and understanding housing regulations and standards, communicating your needs with your employers, and advocating for your rights, you can ensure that you have the best possible housing options during your travel nurse assignments. It's time to take responsibility for your housing needs and ensure that we're living comfortably and safely during your travels!
Resources for Navigating Housing Regulations and Standards
It's important to be aware of your responsibilities when it comes to housing regulations and standards. However, it can be confusing and overwhelming to navigate the many different regulations and standards that apply to temporary housing. Thankfully, there are many resources available to help you out. For instance, organizations like the National Association of Travel Healthcare Organizations (NATHO) provide guidance on best practices for travel nurse housing. Additionally, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offer information on health and safety regulations that apply to housing providers. By utilizing these resources, you can better understand housing regulations and standards that may apply to you during your assignments. You'll be able to advocate for yourself more effectively and communicate your housing needs to your employer. It's essential to stay informed about housing regulations and standards as a travel nurse. By utilizing the available resources and staying aware of your responsibilities, you can ensure that you have safe and comfortable housing during your assignments. Stay proactive and informed, and you'll be sure to have a successful travel nursing career!
Recap on Travel Nurse Housing
It's been a lot of information to take in, but let's do a quick recap of what we've learned.
Understanding housing regulations and standards is crucial for ensuring that you have safe and comfortable housing during your assignments. By researching federal and state regulations and utilizing the available resources, you can better advocate for yourself and communicate your needs to your employer. It's also important to keep in mind your own responsibilities as a travel nurse when it comes to housing. You should take an active role in advocating for safe and comfortable housing and understanding your personal rights and responsibilities. As you navigate the complexities of housing regulations and standards, don't be afraid to reach out for help. There are many organizations and websites available to provide guidance and support. Understanding housing regulations and standards may seem overwhelming, but it's a crucial aspect of being a successful travel nurse. By staying informed, advocating for yourself, and utilizing available resources, you can ensure that you have safe and comfortable housing during your assignments. Keep these tips in mind, and you'll be well on your way to a successful travel nursing career!
0 Comments
I have a friend who is a flight attendant, and every time I see her amazing destination Facebook posts, I’m in awe that she is being paid to travel the world! Now, while being a flight attendant is a fascinating way to earn money while traveling, this will not be what we will talk about today. Today is about an untapped and underutilized market – travel blogging. Wait! Before you start thinking of a million and one reasons why you could never be a travel blogger, take five minutes to read what I’m about to share with you. Allow me to be presumptuous for a moment and say that I already know two things about you. 1) You like to travel 2) You want to make more money How do I know this about you? If these two things weren’t important, you would have stopped reading. So why is the career of travel blogging virtually untouched? Simply stated, people wrongly assume it is too complicated and don’t fully understand how business expenses and tax write-offs work. Talk on taxes As a travel blogger, you can write off your travel expenses such as hotels, transportation, food, excursions, and more, but only if they are genuinely business expenses and directly tied to your travel blog. Please note, I am not an accountant, and cannot and will not be giving you tax advice, but I will tell you that a qualified accountant can easily explain what you can and cannot deduct. Let me give you a quick rundown though to help give you a better understanding of travel blogging and taxes. The primary determinant of whether you can deduct travel expenses is whether your endeavor is currently operating as a business or a hobby — regardless of how you hope it will function in the coming years. Business vs. Hobby Do you conduct your travel blog in a professional manner and keep complete and precise books and records? Do the time and effort you put into your travel blog indicate you intend to make it profitable? Do you depend on income from your travel blog for your livelihood Are your losses due to circumstances beyond your control (or are normal in the startup phase of your type of business) Is your travel blog profitable now? Another factor to think about when it comes to travel blogging is the IRS requirement that business expenses be "ordinary and necessary." Ordinary expense – “common and accepted in your trade or business” Necessary expense – “one that is helpful and appropriate for your trade or business” For instance, it may be ordinary and necessary to book a flight from New York to Paris to blog about the Eiffel Tower for your travel article, but is flying first class necessary for a trip to write about money-saving travel tips? Most likely not. If you have met the requirements that make your blog a "business" rather than a "hobby," you should be able to deduct portions of your business-related travel expenses. If you spent 60% of your trip on business-related activities and 40% on personal activities, you could expect to deduct a prorated 60% of your costs. However, things become even more complicated when it comes to deducting business materials and equipment from your taxes as a travel blogger. Undoubtedly, you will need to pay for certain items, such as luggage or camera equipment, to carry out your work, but will those items be used solely for professional purposes? If you use something for both personal and business purposes, such as your camera or phone, you must only deduct a portion of the cost as a business expense. Another common travel expense that is frequently misclassified as a business expense is food. You must eat, but not all the food you consume is directly related to your travels — even if you are on a business trip. Simply mentioning a location as a point of interest does not qualify your meal as a business expense. You can deduct a portion of your bill as a prorated travel expense, but you must be truthful and reasonable when doing so. Clothing and accessories, on the other hand, are rarely deductible as a business expenses. It all comes down to one question: Are you prepared to defend and substantiate all your expenses against your income (assuming you have any) in the event of an audit? Find an accountant that you trust and go through the expenses that you would like to deduct together and determine which are reasonable and which are reaching. Now that we’ve gotten through the tax stuff, let’s get to the FUN part of why you are here! TRAVEL & MONEY! This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link found on this site. 7 Steps on how to make money traveling Step 1: Get to know your competitors Earlier I mentioned that the travel blogging space, as a career, is virtually untapped. This doesn’t mean that it’s empty though. A large percentage of travel bloggers are hobbyists and not blogging to earn an income, they prefer to just share their experiences and not go any further. Then some want to take their travel, share, and take it to the next level. Google search: Travel Bloggers Then try to find out… The who, what, where when, and why of your competitors Who are they? What are they writing about? Where are they advertising and promoting on social media? When are they posting (frequency)? How are they earning their money? (Affiliate links, course sales, mentorships, ads, sponsorships) Step 2: Find your area of focus While you may feel like you want to travel everywhere and do everything, this is going to be too broad and will not allow you to target a specific audience. Decide whom you want to target with your travel blog. Some ideas are families, couples, solo travelers, and people traveling with pets. No matter what you choose, make sure that you are passionate about it and that it fits the way that you travel. If you are a single woman, choosing to write a travel blog about families traveling together is not going to be the right fit. Step 3: Start your Travel Blog website Select your niche Chose a domain name Sign up for hosting Pick a theme or template to structure your website Install your theme Step 4: Find your keywords (SEO) Want to get traffic to your website? Of course, you do! The best way that I have found to do this is to find out what people are already searching for on Google. What do people want to know? Once you know this, you can tailor your writing to give them the answers to the questions that they are already wondering about. There are SEVERAL paid tools to assist you in your keyword research. One free tool that I like is MOZ, which allows you 10 free queries per month. Say, for example, I wanted to go to Paris, France. I need to be purposeful about this trip to write this off on my taxes, so I used Moz to see what I could write about when I go to Paris. Using the keyword tool, I put in, “things to do in Paris” and I quickly found out that with a score of 56/100, it is going to be difficult for me to rank on the first page of Google. The search volume was decent, 11.5k-30.3k per month, so not surprising it is a bit more challenging to rank. Ideally, I’m looking for something easy to rank on, that isn’t oversaturated by other bloggers on Google. Trying to find a score of 30/100 or lower. Keep searching for different variations of your keywords. To do this go to the main page of the Google search. When you type in “things to do in Paris,” Google will populate other terms that people are searching for. Now plug these in and see how they rank on difficulty until you find a score of 30 or lower, with an acceptable monthly search volume of 1000 or more. After keyword research, I set out to plan a trip to Paris with a focus being – Things to do in Paris with teenagers. Step 5: Making money from your blog article The easiest way for you to earn money from your writing is going to be through something called affiliate marketing. What is affiliate marketing? This is a system in which you refer/recommend a product or service using an affiliate (referral) link. If someone clicks your link, makes a purchase, or signs up for a service, you earn a commission. Step 6: Affiliate-friendly programs to get you started 1) To get started on your first affiliate link, you are going to want to sign-up for TravelPayouts. I'm going to link where to sign up here for you. Travelpayouts is a virtual partnership system devoted to everything related to travel. Over 100 well-known trusted brands, including Booking.com, TripAdvisor, and Kiwi.com, collaborate with over 300,000 bloggers and content creators worldwide to provide travelers with the best offers. After you sign up, you will be able to apply to all the affiliate programs in the Travelpayouts network. You will then receive a unique affiliate link for each program that you join. You will get a commission if someone clicks on one of these links and books a tour or activity. So, if someone is searching for things to do in Paris with teenagers, and they click on your affiliate link, chances are high that they will book a tour or activity and you will earn a commission for referring them to the company providing the service. 2) FLIGHTS - WayAway WayAway is a flight information source that offers travelers the best airline ticket prices. Users can also buy the WayAway Plus membership plan, which provides cashback on flights, hotels, car rentals, tours, and other services. You will be rewarded as a partner for sales of flight tickets via the WayAway metasearch and purchases of the WayAway Plus membership plan, which is also accessible to users via the WayAway app and website. 3) CAR RENTALS – EconomyBookings Car rentals in 150 countries with both international brands and local providers. You earn commissions from all purchases users make on the desktop and mobile versions of the website. The goal is to write creative and interesting articles that can rank high on Google and then monetize them through affiliate marketing. See how easy that is?
So, before I take my trip, I would use the programs in Travelpayouts to book everything so I could write about it from my own experience. The best way to be successful in affiliate marketing is to promote things you KNOW have worked for you. We live in a world where people want things easy and done for them. They like to copycat. Have you seen all the millions of tutorials there are on YouTube and TikTok? In essence, you would be planning all the flights, hotels, and tours, then trying them all and reviewing them individually for your readers. You are taking the grunt and guesswork out of the equation. They can then use your affiliate links, to stay at the same places that you stayed, and do the same activities that you did without having all the effort of planning and researching on their own. It’s a win-win! Step 7: After the article You may have noticed ads popping up on blogs as you read, or maybe even as a sidebar. As your blog grows in reach, you can then put ads on your website and earn money on autopilot. You will still be earning money if a reader doesn’t click an affiliate link! Please be aware that ad programs will not approve you if the traffic isn’t there first, so make sure to rank in Google on several articles before applying. Ranking on Google with a new website could take 6 months to a year, so consider this as a side business until you can get steady traffic from Google. The more blog posts you write about travel, the more Google will recognize you as a travel resource, allowing your articles to rank more quickly and higher in results pages. BONUS TIPS
You can make money travel blogging in several ways, including:
Note: Building a successful travel blog takes time, effort, and a lot of hard work, so it's important to have a clear plan and strategy in place. I know that I've shared a lot of information with you, but remember to join TravelPayouts, you can click here to join for FREE. This is going to be the cornerstone of your income potential with travel blogging and not a step you want to miss.
An unorganized and cluttered workspace can leave you unproductive and unmotivated. Follow these easy tips to help you get your workspace in order.
Tip #1 - Minimize Paper
Even in a digital society, papers can still pile up quickly in an office. To conquer that pile, first gather all your papers that aren’t filed. Then go through the pile one sheet at a time. Decide if you need to shred, file, or act on each sheet. Once you are done with your stack, move onto the file cabinets. Using a similar method as above, go through each file folder, one paper at a time. Decide if you need to shred, keep in the file, or take action.
Tip #2 – Color Code and Label your Files
Filing is step-one of your paper organization mission. Step two is color-coding your files to be able to easily identify your categories. This eliminates the need to flip through every single file folder every time you are looking for a document. Choose colors that help you identify your categories. For example, green is good for financial file folders (Green = Money). Step three is using a label maker to label each folder. You may be wondering why a label maker over handwriting? Typed and printed labels are going to be easier to read, and your files will have a more uniform look to them.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through one of the links.
Tip #3 – Store Supplies in Drawers
If you have drawer space in your desk, utilize this to store your supplies in near containers and separators. Your goal is to have as little as possible on your desk or work area, and office supplies can take on a life of their own. Instead sort through the supplies that you need and use and donate the rest to a local school. If you come across 12 pairs of scissors, you likely aren’t going to ever need this many pairs, and they are taking up valuable space and causing unnecessary clutter. Once you have selected the items that you actually use and want in your desk, put them in a desk drawer organizer.
Tip #4 – Utilize your Cabinet Space
Move everything that you don’t need regular access to inside an office cabinet. If the cabinet has doors, you can “hide” a bit of the cluttered vibe, but if it’s an open face cabinet, then arranging by color and utilizing bins and baskets is a must. Pro Tip – Wireless printers can be moved off the desk and into a cabinet
Tip #5 – The Wall is for More than Pictures
Having a fashionably decorated office doesn’t mean it cannot also be functional. Shelves on the wall can open a whole new area of storage for your space. Think outside the box beyond shelves though. You can also hang dry erase boards, calendars, storage cubes, filing systems, TVs, speakers, and more. Going vertical will give you more space and help the space look less cluttered. |
Bless Myself BlogJen AmbroseCertified Life Coach, Mother of Five, Wife, Christian, Homeowner & Friend Archives
April 2023
Categories
All
|