NURSING STAFF RETENTION: HOW TO MAINTAIN HIGH MORALE
AMONG YOUR NURSING STAFF
One of the most challenging aspects of the nursing profession, particularly
during a time when the healthcare industry is experiencing strife due to
changing insurance procedures, retaining permanent staff members is
difficult, at best. Similar to the issues that come along with any profession, professional
nurses everywhere are facing problems of pay scale, increased job
responsibilities and working conditions. The issue of pay is a big one because
many would-be nurses are turning to other professions that offer more
money annually. Moreover, in many instances, a bad turn for the economy
and the subsequent budget cuts that usually follow, career registered nurses are the first to be
cut and are often replaced with nurse technicians. Oftentimes, these techs
are not trained in acute patient care and cannot work on an independent
basis. In fact, many healthcare experts attribute the nursing shortage to the
increased number of fatalities in hospitals around the country. In far too
many instances, there is no career registered nurse in place to monitor the
condition of a patient and when a condition changes for the worse rapidly,
the opportunity to intervene quickly is diminished. Nurse managers are
finding ways to come up with better retention strategies to keep their current
nursing staff content and encourage those just entering the profession to
consider their facility for a place of employment.
Improving working conditions is important as many professional nurses cite a variety of
reasons for leaving their field, including stressful workloads, administrator
apathy to their concerns, unbalanced scheduling and more. Administrators
must address these concerns if they want to limit high turnover and repair
low morale. The most effective way to tackle problems of retention is by
listening to your staff. Host town-hall style meetings and allow them air
their grievances, making sure to let them know there will no negative
repercussions as a result of expressed opinions. While there may be unrealistic expectations among some staff members, others may have some
great ideas on how to improve morale among the nursing staff. Take their top
three concerns and do what you can to implement immediate changes. You
will be pleasantly surprised at how much higher the morale of your nursing
staff is after a short time.
Some states have even mandated better working conditions through
legislation. For example, California enacted a law in 1999 that set nurse-to-patient
ratios to limit nurses from being overloaded with too many patients
at any given time. In December 2002, at least eight states implemented
bans on mandatory overtime. The overtime law is important as nurses are
more likely to make potentially deadly mistakes when they are overworked
or on a shift for more hours than are healthy. Another law enacted in 2002
is the Nurse Reinvestment Act, which addressed both recruitment and
retention. Provisions of the law include scholarships for nursing students,
established career tracks for nurses just entering the profession, training
grants and faculty loan repayment for nursing students who graduate and
agree to spend a certain amount of time teaching at a nursing school.
Contact our treaveling nurse agency to find out how NursesPro can help you retain some of the best
professional nursing talent in the industry !