With nurse turnover now exceeding 19% nationally, staff retention is now a key priority in virtually all healthcare environments. What makes it even more challenging is that the problem is happening in a Post-COVID environment. Nurse mental health and well-being are serious issues. Emerging from this Life-Quake has led staff to question many things about their lives, such as:
- Where do I want to live geographically?
- Do I want to continue working in an acute care environment after what just happened?
- How much can I work if with my childcare issues?
- Am I fairly compensated by my employer when I work with travelers who make twice what I do?
- What are my long-term career aspirations, and can I achieve them here?
- Am I happy working on this team when many are disengaged and disconnected?
- Is my current employer the right one to work for moving into the future?
Unlike other nursing shortages, this one will not be easily remedied. A higher turnover rate and a growing patient acuity versus nurse experience gap will likely be with us for the foreseeable future. Organizations will need to be very strategic about where and how they spend resources.
An important place to start is developing our frontline leaders to confront the challenges they face with a toolkit that gives them practical strategies and tactics. All the current evidence points to the reality that frontline nurse managers are the linchpins to organizational success in achieving healthy work environments, retaining staff, and improving patient outcomes. What they do matters far more than what happens in the C-Suite. Many of our current frontline leaders are new in their roles. Staff retention strategies may not be top of mind for them, yet a failure to focus on retention can be costly. The replacement costs of a single RN now exceed $50,000 and can easily be twice that in specialty settings.
More than 60% of the current nursing workforce are now either Millennials or Generation Z. Loyalty for these generational cohorts is to leaders and teams, not organizations. The evidence is in the AACN 2018 Healthy Work Environment Research on leader impact. It is also in the Press Gainey Whitepaper on Nurse Manager Impact published in 2017. Frontline leaders are the chief retention officers for staff. Yet, in nursing today, we are more intentional with onboarding new graduates than we are with the managers expected to support them. These leaders need education around retention evidence-based strategies that work, such as:
- Recruiting to promote retention
- Effective unit onboarding
- Career coaching to promote professional growth.
- Giving feedback and recognition.
- Team culture, connectedness, and inclusivity.
- Stay interviews.
- Strategic offboarding.
Any strategic planning around staff retention should keep the need for leader development front and center. We have a responsibility to recognize the linchpin role that nurse managers play in the recruitment and retention of staff and provide them with the development and support they need.
© emergingrnleader.com 2021
BRAND NEW WEBINAR Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave: Nurse Retention in Turbulent Times – Flyer Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave Nurse Retention in Turbulent Times
Give your leadership team the gift of a highly rated webinar – Nursing Leadership in 2021: Rebooting after a Life-Quake A Nursing Leadership Reboot Workshop
Read the Nurse Leader Coach – Available at Amazon and Other Book Sellers.
Now Available to Strengthen Your Leadership in 2021 – The Nuts and Bolts of Nursing Leadership: Your Toolkit for Success
LinkedIn
Instagram