The number of nurses practicing in the United States has considerably declined over the years. It is estimated that in the next 20 years, there will be a shortage of 400000 practicing nurses in the United States due to the high nurse turnover (Halter et al., 2017). Hospital finds it hard to retain the highly skilled and experienced nurses at their service. This has grave implications for the patient, including poor quality patient care, increased financial cost, and rising malpractice claims. The high nursing turnover is especially a challenge to nurse leaders in keeping the primary care providers at their medical facilities. Therefore, this paper looks at the various ways that nurse leaders can use to attract and retain registered nurses at the organization.
Causes of Nurses Turnover
Numerous studies have been done to determine the potential causal factors for the high nurses’ turnover, retention, and desire to leave the organization. One of these factors includes job dissatisfaction to nurses due to low salaries, strict supervision, and lack of autonomy in conducting the nursing duties. Nurses feel demotivated when the organization fails to make a pertinent decision affecting their practice inpatient care. Hence, they seek other experiences where their input is valued (Dewanto & Wardhani, 2018).
Furthermore, several researchers have cited burnout secondary to high workload or longer working hours as the other factor associated with a high nurse turnover. Burnout at work has made nurses collaborate with policymakers and legislators to agitate for adopting a standard nurse to patient ratio in all hospitals. A collaborative and supportive work environment is instrumental for ensuring the retaining of expert nurses at an organization.
Strategies to Attract Nurses
Nurse leaders need to create effective plans for recruiting, retaining, and preventing the turnover of nurses. First, nurse leaders should put in place plans to attract new employees to their organization. These strategies include encouraging the student nurses at the undergraduate level to undertake nursing research. Their research interests can also be increased through a clinical placement to work with other nurse researchers. At the undergraduate level, nursing students should be guided in data collection for their dissertations. Second, proper recruitment plans provide for adequate support for new nurses in career planning.
Mentors, preceptors, or coaches should be allocated to novice nurses to help them in their career development and settling at the workplace. Highly skilled and experienced nurses can be used as coaches or mentors for the new job recruits (Moyo, 2019). Mentoring and coaching enable the new nurses to settle at their new jobs hence reducing nursing turnover. Further, these initiatives help promote a sense of collaboration and teamwork for the new nurses to improve their settling into the new institution.
Additionally, a successful recruitment plan needs to be strategic in its recruitment process. The healthcare organization needs to aspire to make an excellent first impression to their probable future employees. An ideal first impression involves captivating advertisements outlining clearly the critical interpersonal and professional requirements for working at the organization. Furthermore, the interview process should be seamless and direct-forward on the questions asked to the interviewees. The interviewing panel should practice professionalism and objectivity during the interview to recruit new nurses.
Encouraging openness in the shortlisting of qualified candidates is imperative in the creation of the recruitment plan. In addition, it is prudent to look above an individual’s academic qualifications before offering them an employment vacancy in the organization (Halter et al., 2017). The selection of individuals has to consider the behavioral traits which align with the organizational values. Some characteristics, including honesty, integrity, and hardworking nature, promote an individual’s career at the organization hence reducing chances of leaving the institution.
Nurse leaders need to make career development a top priority for junior nurses to take over new nursing profession roles. One of these areas is in nursing education. A rising number of nurse students are being turned down from several American universities due to an inadequate number of tutors. Hence, nurse leaders need to plan to encourage junior nurses to pursue higher nursing education qualifications to take over teaching jobs in nursing education. Bachelor’s level trained nurses should increase their training to masters level and then to doctorate level to take up teaching positions at the university (Halter et al., 2017).
Consequently, the number of teachers would rise, resulting in more significant students’ admissions to nursing schools. The long-term implication of this goal is to create a large pool of highly trained nurses who can be employed to care for patients.
Plans for a Continuous Market Supply of Nurses
Changes in the education curricula are needed to produce highly skilled nursing personnel to take up the retiring nurses’ vacancies. The International Institute of Medicine published a report outlining recommendations for radical changes in the nursing profession to meet the United States of America’s shifting patient demographics. After analysis, these commendations came into play that showed that most of America’s population would be majorly composed of senior personnel in the future (Halter et al., 2017).
In line with this reality check, the recommendations aim to produce highly trained nurses to meet the demands of the elderly population. An increase in the number of expert trained nurses will also meet the shortage in nurses’ supply. One way to achieve this goal by the IOM includes encouraging the advancement of nursing education by nurse practitioners. Nurse leaders should promote a framework to help those nurses unable to enhance their education by providing affordable loans.
Other aspects of the IOM report suggested the overhaul of the nursing curricula to produce positive nurses able to participate in multidisciplinary teams composed of healthcare experts. The scope of the nursing practice is to be changed to cater to the changing healthcare demands. The new hybrids of nurses are impacted by the knowledge and skills necessary to work in different settings, including nursing homes for the aged. Moreover, highly trained nurses will be able to work independently of the physician’s scrutiny, thereby catering to physicians’ shortage in the country (Halter et al., 2017). The future of nursing report also advocates for the seamless transition of nurses to higher nursing qualifications. The nurses’ workforce improvements are instrumental in improving nurses’ job satisfaction, thereby promoting their retention in work.
Legislative Roles of the Nurse Leaders
Furthermore, the caregivers’ leaders and managers have legislative roles in addressing staffing issues in the profession. A standard nurse to patient ratio is critical in reducing the burnout experienced by nurses following high workload hence reducing nurse’s turnover. Leaders can adopt the advocacy role by forming political parties to campaign for nurses’ fair hiring to meet the patient population requirements. Transformational leaders in nursing effectively mentor and support the junior nurses in the hospitals to prepare them to agitate for more staffing (Waddell, Adams, & Fawcett, 2017).
Through supportive supervision and adequate salaries, they empower nurses with the motivation and experience to ensure quality patient care. Nurse leaders and managers can influence healthcare policy changes to improve the retaining of nurses at the hospitals.
Ideas for Retaining Nurses
Nurse leaders can implement many ideas to improve the job satisfaction of junior nurses at work. First, nurses’ job satisfaction is increased when nurse leaders recognize little contributions done by individuals in inpatient care. A word of affirmation by an employer gives the nurse a sense of accomplishment as they feel valued by the management. The nurse leaders can also collaborate with their staff in the decision-making process to develop new policies affecting patient management. Collaboration also promotes the implementation of the procedures by the nurses as they own the suggested interventions (Halter et al., 2017).
Second, nurse leaders can enhance job satisfaction by practicing active listening of the employee’s concerns. An organizational culture that encourages speaking up motivates the staff as the managers get to know about the problems faced by their subordinates and plan accordingly to assist in resolving the employee’s issues. Furthermore, healthcare leaders can motivate employees through rewarding longevity. Policies should be put in place to give tokens of appreciation to highly experienced nursing staff who stay in the organization for a prolonged time.
Implementation of the Plan
Implementing the plan for recruiting and retaining the healthcare professional is an integral component to maintaining a continuous supply of human resources in nursing. Nurse leaders tend to collaborate with the other junior nurses during the implementation step for the plan’s success. The nurse leaders can institute forums and seminars to enlighten the nurses on the strategies the management is putting in place to address their welfare.
The management can also educate the workforce on the diversity in the composition of the nursing staff. Implementation strategies should result in the generation of interventions tailored according to generational differences (Halter et al., 2017). Effective communication between the unit leaders is needed during the interdisciplinary committee meetings to address staff recruitment and retention plans.
Economic Implications
The implementation of a recruitment and retaining plan in nurse staffing has several economic implications. First, funds are required to mobilize other policymakers and legislators to pass laws on standard staffing ratios. The leaders need nursing unions’ funds to advocate for the implementation of the plan to reduce nurses’ turnover. Additional funds are required in providing financial subsidies for nurses who have stayed at the workplace for a long time to discourage them from leaving the organization (Halter et al., 2017). Remuneration of the nursing staff also requires the availability of capital in the hospital. Adequate salaries and allowances of the team are vital in motivating them to achieve the organization’s goals.
High nurse turnover is due to high rates of nurses leaving the profession or the low number of qualified nurses available in the job market. The high nursing turnover has considerable negative effects on patient care and the running of the hospital. The provision of care is affected when highly qualified and experienced nurses leave the profession. Nurse leaders are instrumental in the generation of organizational policies for reducing nurses’ turnover (Squires, Jylhä, Jun, Ensio, & Kinnunen, 2017). The recruitment and retention plans aim to decrease the discomfort that the primary care providers may have during the provision of patient care. Effective collaborations of the leaders with their subordinates are required for the recruitment and retention plans’ success. Capital is needed for the implementation of the program.
References
Dewanto, A., & Wardhani, V. (2018). Nurse turnover and perceived causes and consequences: a preliminary study at private hospitals in Indonesia. BMC Nursing, 17(2), 1–7. Web.
Halter, M., Pelone, F., Boiko, O., Beighton, C., Harris, R., Gale, J., … Drennan, V. (2017). Interventions to reduce adult nursing turnover: A systematic review of systematic reviews. The Open Nursing Journal, 11, 108–123. Web.
Moyo, M. R. (2019). Adapting the nurse manager role to attract generation X and millennial nurses. The American journal of nursing, 119(3), 11. Web.
Squires, A., Jylhä, V., Jun, J., Ensio, A., & Kinnunen, J. (2017). A scoping review of nursing workforce planning and forecasting research. Journal of Nursing Management, 25(8), 587–596. Web.
Waddell, A., Adams, J. M., & Fawcett, J. (2017). Exploring nurse leaders’ policy participation within the context of a nursing conceptual framework. Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice, 18(4), 195–205. Web.