The Phenomena of Resignation Contagion

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

The following story is told by many nurse managers across the country today:

One of my best nurses resigned last week to take a travel position. I was very depressed by this but what happened next was even more concerning. The following week, three more of my nurses resigned. I am now frantic about the number of resignations and what this does to care and staffing. I know about YOLO but is this happening everywhere?

Unknowingly, this manager has described a phenomenon that HR experts have tagged Resignation or Turnover Contagion. New York Times writer Emma Goldberg notes that “when workers weigh whether to jump jobs, they don’t just assess their own pay, benefits, and career development. They look around and note how friends feel about the team culture. When one employee leaves, the departure signals to others that it might be time to take stock of their options, what researchers call “turnover contagion.” The peer effects of behavior can be potent. As with much of human behavior, turnover is socially influenced.

Just as we often pass up restaurants with no customers, nurses question their jobs as they look at the behaviors of their friends. It can feel scary to leave a job but less so when you see others do it. There is a significant psychological effect of seeing your peers go, which can motivate you to start wondering if the grass is greener on their side. Furthermore, when colleagues leave their jobs, you can track their careers on social media, so FOMO also becomes part of the picture. Watching others go becomes “social proof” that resigning is the right thing to do. Losing one critical nurse can undermine team-building efforts that were years in the making.

Current research (Incredible Health, Press Gainey, Wolters Kluwer) on nurses’ sentiments about their jobs are remarkably consistent in their findings that up to 30% of nurses express an intent to leave their organizations in 2022. We know that this Pied Piper trail does not always lead to better options or greater satisfaction. New research on Generation Z and Millennial job transitions indicates that 72% regret making a job change. The new job often does not turn out to be what was expected. Many young nurses don’t know how or fail to do due diligence on their new employer.

This is where I would begin the conversation as a frontline leader – be transparent about the losses and pragmatic with staff about how essential it is to make career choices based on what is best for the individual rather than social behavior. Some good coaching questions include the following:

How long have you felt this way? The value of this question is that it gets to the issue of whether the decision is resignation contagion or whether the nurse is genuinely unhappy.
Are there things we can do to improve the job for you? There may be some minor changes you can make to the role that might convince a nurse to stay.
Are you in the wrong job or the wrong specialty? With limited experience, some young nurses may assume all nursing work is the same when they are in a specialty that does not play to their strengths.
Do you know what type of job you want next? It could be that you might be able to do an internal transfer to a different position.
Have you done enough due diligence to know that you are making a good choice to leave? Sometimes nurses go without doing their homework about what to expect in the next role. I would let nurses know that up to 3/4 of employees who switch later regret it.

And if the nurses still leave, do strategic offboarding. Stay in touch and find out how they are doing. At the very least, you want them to be positive net promoters of your organization. Over time, you will find that many of these nurses will come back.

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