One of the biggest challenges faced by nurses in the public and private health care sectors is the development of work-life balance. The main challenge in this process is that the nursing profession is a caregiving field that operates under ethical guidelines that compel the nurses to embrace the needs of other people at the expense of their personal needs. It is apparent that most nurses complain about long working hours and the constant task of upholding their emotional responsibilities. Shift work commitment is demanded from the nurses, especially in health care facilities that have an insufficient number of personnel. It is apparent that the health care facilities with the highest levels of turnover of registered nurses are involved with long shifts for the nurses (Williams, 2008).
There is a need for nurses to strike a balance between their work and the personal lifestyles. The work-life balance is important for the development of satisfaction with one’s profession (Nelson & Tarpey, 2010). However, most nurses who fail to strike the work-life balance cite the lack of sufficient time to engage in personal endeavors, especially when their role in the health care facilities requires them to show empathy to the patients.
For instance, some nurses are forced to take overtime shifts to provide care to the patients, and they are also required to show a selfless character when there are emergency cases that need to be attended even after their shift are over. Being a registered nurse has turned out to be one of the most challenging professions because the nurses need to provide care to the patients without considering their personal lifestyles. The lack of the work-life balance may lead to numerous issues that may jeopardize the performance of the nurses and their commitment to the tasks in the workflow.
Analysis of the Problem
One of the problems associated with the lack of the work-life balance is isolation for the nurses. The nurses who are always working tend to have a very small social circle because they lack the time to spend with their friends and families. It is common for such professionals to live in solitude, and this may have dire implications on their lives when they are in distress. It is important for people to have a social life away from work to ensure that they do not develop a personality based on self-sufficiency.
The nurses with such a personality are influenced by the fact that they are always trying to help other people; hence, they seldom ask for help from other people because they feel like they are being a bother. It is common to find registered nurses spending most of their free time in solitude because they rarely have any interactions with other people outside the health care setting. Additionally, while most nurses face the work-life balance issue, they seldom report the issue to the human resource function because they feel compelled to work harder to help the patients (Brooks & Anderson, 2004).
Most nurses believe that it is their duty to commit to helping other people at the expense of their social lives. While it is ethically plausible for individuals in the nursing profession to assume such a character, it is important for the nurses to be selfish with their private time because the nursing profession may harm their social skills.
The work-life balance also affects the health outcomes of the registered nurses, especially from a psychological perspective. It is clear that working throughout the day and night for a long time may result in the development of stress. Exposure to stress on a long-term basis may result in a compromise in the health of the nurses. Absenteeism among the registered nurses is a function of the health issues associated with stress. Workers in different industrial sectors require sufficient time to rest and unwind from the regular stress at the workplace, and nurses should not be an exemption from this requirement.
The nursing profession is associated with a high coefficient of stress and fatigue; hence, nurses should have sufficient time to engage in stress-relieving activities (Williams, 2008). Exercising, socializing, and having sufficient rest and sleeping time are crucial for the enhancement of the performance of the nurses. For instance, if a nurse works for two sequential shifts, he or she is likely to portray signs of fatigue on the following day because the tasks involved in the shifts are relatively tiring. It is, therefore, common for such nurses to exhibit low performance and absenteeism.
Conclusion
Most health care facilities require the nurses to develop teams that handle different tasks accurately, but when the rate of absenteeism and underperformance increase, the quality of the health care services decreases in the health care facilities. The competence level of the nurses is a vital measure of the quality of health care services in the public and private sectors because they are the primary caregivers. Work-life balance eliminates the work-related fatigue and stress, and it helps in the development of a healthy social life.
References
Brooks, B. A., & Anderson, M. A. (2004). Nursing work life in acute care. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 19(3), 269-275.
Nelson, M. F., & Tarpey, R. J. (2010). Work scheduling satisfaction and work life balance for nurses: the perception of organizational justice. Academy of Health Care Management Journal, 6(1), 25.
Williams, C. (2008). Work-life balance of shift workers. Perspectives on labour and income, 20(3), 15.