By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
The story is the same across the country. Nurse managers are perplexed at the number of younger staff who come to them asking to move from a full-time position to a part-time one. For some, it is essential because of childcare but many describe the scenario that a nurse manager recently shared with me.
I am shocked by the number of my younger staff who only want to work one or two days per week. When I began nursing two decades ago, I took all the overtime I could get to pay down my bills and save for a home down payment. It was the same with almost all my friends. Many of us even had second jobs. We fought for overtime, and our managers monitored it closely—what a change I see today. My youngest staff now come out of their residency program and ask to work fewer hours. When I ask why – they tell me that they can’t do this job more than two days each week. It is hard on their mental health. They are so open about that. Getting a staff member to work overtime today is like pulling teeth. There is so much overtime available, but no one wants it. I believe part of the reason is that my young staff don’t care about the benefits package. Many are still on their parent’s health plans. The challenge for me is that I want to retain everyone, so I am very accommodating about scheduling, but it is hard for me. With so many part-time staff, my span of control has expanded, and my workload has increased.
When the National Council of State Boards of Nursing published their workforce study conducted in 2020, 64.9% of nurses worked full-time (in all settings). New research suggests that the number of nurses working full-time, especially in acute care is declining. In a study published earlier this month in Health Affairs, workforce researchers Auerbach, Buerhaus, Donelan, and Staiger report a worrisome drop in the number of nurses under 35 working. The supply of nurses during 2021 dropped by 100,000 despite an increase in graduations. This drop is far more significant than noted in the past four decades.
While your assumption might be that the supply of nurses dropped because of an increased number of retirements, the researchers found something strikingly different. There was a 4% reduction in the number of nurses under 35 who are working full-time compared to a 1% reduction in nurses over 50. They also noted a shift in employment to settings outside hospitals. While these are early warning signs in the workforce data, they are consistent with what leaders see in real-time, especially in acute care settings. It is especially noteworthy when you look at this data and other nursing surveys that indicate that nurses under 35 have been the most impacted by the COVID experience. Many are struggling to maintain their emotional well-being and avoid re-traumatization. While leaving the profession for good has never been a significant problem in nursing, we may be entering a new era.
When I talk with nurse leaders today, many ask where all the applicants have gone as they wait for 2022 graduates to enter the job market. Today’s leadership reality is that we have fewer nurses, and these nurses are working fewer hours. Even with this year’s graduates, this situation is unlikely to change anytime soon.
© emergingrnleader.com 2022
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