Advocacy for employees is one of the key responsibilities of nurses within a healthcare organization. Advocating on behalf of nursing professionals allows leaders to ensure recognition and respect, fair reimbursement, access to educations, as well an overall safer environment (Blackburn, Johnson & Chaveleh, 2020). Nurse leaders can use advocacy in various ways, but it is paramount to care about employees’ “work conditions, safety, and welfare while they provide care under difficult conditions” (Stamps et al., 2021, p. 162). In this way, leaders can serve as advocates for staff in situations where it is necessary to provide conditions for safe activities, as well as professional growth. Specifically, a leader needs to advocate for improved work environments and nursing education in order to achieve employees’ educational goals. Additionally, the leader needs to support for improved communication within the nursing team, which will help foster teamwork.
Advocacy is an important tool for nurse leaders as it influences medical staff performance and patient outcomes. In particular, the leader can advocate professional growth and evidence-based practice in his team and fight for the achievement of educational goals, which will improve the professionalism of the staff (Blackburn et al., 2020). Moreover, leaders can advocate for effective staffing and innovative care delivery methods to ensure higher levels of clinical productivity without the added expense and hiring. The leader needs to constantly measure the needs and results of the nursing team using various metrics and tools. Moreover, the nursing leader must understand how to advocate for the observations in order to improve the decision-making process regarding the staff management process. Thus, advocacy not only serves to strengthen the working environment for nurses but to increase the level of professionalism and effectiveness of staffing management, which positively affects patient outcomes.
References
Blackburn, R., Johnson, K., & Chaveleh, S. (2020). Advocacy: The pivotal role of oncology nurses. Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing, 24(1), 103-106. Web.
Stamps, D. C., Foley, S. M., Gales, J., Lovetro, C., Alley, R., Opett, K., Glessner, T., & Faggiano, S. (2021). Nurse leaders advocate for nurses across a health care system. Nurse Leader, 19(2), 159-164.