All Entries in the "Retention" Category
Can you head off nurse burnout by hosting a nursing salon?
Communication is a key part of the nursing profession, and successful nurses must effectively communicate and collaborate with colleagues to ensure a high level of quality and patient care. While much has been written about the necessity of communication between nurses on the job, there is not an abundance of information or research regarding the frequency and the potential benefits of nurse socialization outside of the workplace.
A recent poll on StrategiesForNurseManagers.com asked nurses how often they spent time with fellow nurses outside of working hours. Of the respondents, 46% reported that they rarely spent time with their colleagues, and 23% said they never spent time with other nurses from their unit when not working. Most of the remaining respondents (29%) indicated that they occasionally spent time with fellow nurses, while only 2% spent non-working hours with other nurses on a weekly basis.
Meeting with other nurses outside of the hospital could provide opportunities for nurses to talk about issues and concerns regarding their profession and potentially relieve feelings of burnout. It might give nurses a chance to vent about work-related frustrations or help them rediscover the reasons they chose to become nurses. This is the theory behind nursing salons, which have been gaining popularity in many areas; these events provide a casual atmosphere in which nurses can connect with one another and share their thoughts.
While it does not need to be an official or mandatory event, inviting the nurses in your unit to come together outside of their shifts could promote conversation and foster improved relationships among colleagues. It would also let nurses connect with you and express themselves in an informal, non-threatening environment.
Would you consider hosting a nursing salon or a get-together for the members of your unit? Do you think such an event could be beneficial? Share your thoughts in the comment section!
How to retain nurses by focusing on the reasons they entered the profession
Recognizing and building upon nurses’ dedication to their line of work could be essential to improving nurse retention rates. A survey of 900 nurses revealed that the single common variable reported by nurses from all age groups regarding why they chose nursing was a commitment to healing and an attachment to the nursing profession. As a nurse leader, it is important to acknowledge the reasons your staff chose to pursue a career in nursing and reinforce those choices.
Nurses in the 29 to 43 age range (Generation X) also indicated that the quality of their relationships with their supervisors was a factor in considering whether or not to continue nursing. Nurse leaders can address these reasons by working on good relationships with nursing staff. These efforts could include monthly or quarterly check-ins rather than annual reviews, open and frequent communication with all members of the staff, and encouraging all staff to share thoughts and ideas to address issues or concerns.
Additional variables identified by the oldest group of nurses (Baby Boomers) surveyed included work-family conflict, the quality of relationships with colleagues, and being allowed to decide how and when to carry out tasks. Try reviewing policies and obtaining feedback from staff about potential changes to improve work-family balance. Encourage nurses to alert you to any issues between colleagues and address those concerns promptly. Improving the quality of the work environment and fostering positive relationships between nurses could lead to better retention rates and a rewarding career for staff.
Medical News Today recently reported on the findings of the study, in which Australian researchers gathered data from 900 anonymous surveys completed by nurses at seven private hospitals. Though researchers noted a need for additional research, they emphasized the importance of identifying the variables that inspire individuals to continue nursing and addressing each of those variables to improve retention rates.
How do you address the variables discussed here? Have your nurses indicated any additional factors that influence them to continue nursing? Share your thoughts in the comments section!
Are you a bully?
Do you have favorite nurses on your unit? Are there a couple of nurses who make you want to roll your eyes and sigh every time you interact with them?
While it’s to be expected you will have high and low performing employees on your unit, as well as personalities that you bond with more easily than others, nurse managers need to be careful how they deal with their feelings about their staff.
Nurse-to-nurse hostility is a well-recognized problem in the profession. Also known as bullying, lateral violence, horizontal hostility, or toxic behavior, the problem contributes to nurse burnout, high turnover, and poor patient safety.
Victims of horizontal hostility often report the behavior was ignored or condoned by managers, and in the worst cases, managers are the perpetrators. To ensure they are cultivating a healthy work environment, nurse managers must examine their own behavior and ask themselves whether they are doing enough to prevent toxic behavior. [more]
How to get started with a nurse residency program
Want to build a nurse residency program for new graduates but not sure where to start? Kendra Varner, MSN, RN, nurse residency program coordinator for the Kettering Health Network in Dayton, OH, and contributing author to Nurse Residency Program Builder: Tools for a Successful New Graduate Program, offers the following steps to get your started.
What’s the first step?
The first step is support. You need support from above if you want to start a successful program, so make sure you have someone who understands the return on investment who can champion the cause.
Organizational culture is also important. The culture has to support nursing, education, etc. A culture that features low morale, quality, and job dissatisfaction are significant challenges as they tend to perpetuate themselves from one generation to the next (e.g., preceptors demonstrating poor attitudes and low quality care will result in new graduate nurses with the same behaviors). These issues must be addressed by nursing leadership.
If your organization struggles with low patient satisfaction and high nurse vacancy rates, then employee morale may be poor. It’s important to have a positive culture. A good clinical working environment and a nurse residency program will make employment at your organization highly desirable among new graduate nurses in the area. It takes a village to raise a child. The residency program belongs to the entire organization and its success or failure cannot lie with the program leader alone. [more]
Helping new graduate nurses over transition shock: Part 2: The “being” stage
Kendra Varner, MSN, RN, nurse residency program coordinator for the Kettering Health Network in Dayton, OH, wrote in the book Nurse Residency Program Builder, that new nurses go through many experiences as they transition to become competent nurses. In the second part of a three part series, Varner describes the second stage.
Judy Duchscher elaborated on the concept of new graduate nurse shock by describing the transition process as a nonlinear “Process of Becoming” a nurse (Duchscher, 2008). This process has three stages: doing, being, and knowing.
During the “being” or transition crisis phase, the real work of role transition occurs, beginning around the fourth month. During this stage, new nurses have consistent and rapid knowledge, skill, and critical thinking acquisition, but at the same time begin to experience a paradoxical loss of confidence resulting in uncertainty, confusion, and even depression. Consciously aware of competency level and significantly doubting their own abilities, new nurses seek validation of decisions from more experienced coworkers, which may be met with mixed reactions. While examining inconsistencies and inadequacies within the healthcare setting, graduate nurses struggle to reconcile their previously held view of self and the world with current reality, or they cognitively adapt to the change. Described by Bridges (2009) as a psychological wilderness state between identities and realities, this stage is profoundly frustrating, as well as irritating for nurses, impacting both personal and professional lives.
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What’s the best way to welcome new graduate nurses to the unit?
This week on StrategiesForNurseManagers.com, we asked what’s the best way to welcome new graduate nurses to your unit?
Fifty-two percent of respondents say the best way to welcome new graduate nurses is for them to have lunch with their new colleagues. This gives new nurses a chance to get to know their colleagues in a more personal way and helps them start to feel part of the team.
Twenty-nine percent said they like to hold a staff meeting and introduce everyone by name, 10% like to take new graduates off the unit for a one-on-one lunch with their manager, and 10% post information on the unit’s bulletin boards about the new staff nurse’s likes and dislikes, family, and other personal tidbits so everyone can get to know him or her.
Helping new graduate nurses over transition shock: Part 1: The “doing” stage
It’s the time of year when hospitals are welcoming new graduate nurses to their units and nurse managers are preparing to help these new nurses make the difficult transition from nursing school to nursing practice.
Kendra Varner, MSN, RN, nurse residency program coordinator for the Kettering Health Network in Dayton, OH, wrote in the book Nurse Residency Program Builder, that new nurses go through many experiences as they transition to become competent nurses. In the first part of a three part series, Varner describes the first stage.
Judy Duchscher elaborated on the concept of new graduate nurse shock by describing the transition process as a nonlinear “Process of Becoming” a nurse (Duchscher, 2008). This process has three stages: doing, being, and knowing. Graduate nurses’ transition begins with the “doing” stage and orientation to the role.
In this stage, graduate nurses can experience a wide range of emotions, including an initial elation over passing the licensure exam and acquiring a staff position, as well as an unexpected grief due to losses associated with changes, such as loss of contact with school friends, as well as familiar routines, and faculty support. Discovering the new practice environment as well as nursing culture to be different from what was experienced at school results in “transition shock,” prompting graduate nurses to learn new skills and engage in behavior adaptation by “acting like a nurse,” focusing upon nursing skill acquisition, such as successful task performance and time management.
Washington, DC, nurses strike again
After almost a year of on-again, off-again contract talks and labor disputes over wages, benefits, staffing, and patient safety, nurses at the Washington Hospital Center—the region’s largest hospital—began a 24-hour strike on the morning of Friday, March 4.
Between 200 and 250 nurses picketed outside the hospital complex, chanting slogans and wearing red scrubs, the trademark color of National Nurses United, which represents the 1,600 nurses at Washington Hospital Center and is the nation’s largest nurses union.
According to The Washington Post, the nurses were picketing over potential cuts in wages, the need for more nurses, and benefit disputes—the same topics that have been an issue for the past year. A hospital spokesperson told The Washington Post that of the 313 nurses scheduled to work the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift that day, more than 150 came in, and that replacement nurses were hired to fill in for the rest. The paper also reported that 125 hospital physicians had signed a petition requesting nurses to stay at patients’ bedsides.
The protest was supposed to last until the morning of Saturday, March 5, at 7 a.m., but hospital officials said they would lock out striking nurses for five days without pay, because the hospital is obligated to pay the replacement nurses for at least 60 hours of work.
To read more about the disputes at the Washington Hospital Center, click here.
Preceptor perspectives: Touch, look, and listen: Incorporate learning styles into orientation
How many times have you tried teaching a new skill to new orientees only for them to not “get it”? What about the hours and energy put in to this effort? If you calculated this up, you may realize just how much effort you really put in to teaching. Chances are, you are not teaching to your orientees’ learning styles.
There are three main types of learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Visual orientees learn by seeing, observing, and picturing things and events. Most people are visual learners. Auditory orientees learn by talking, hearing, and reading. They usually like to talk to themselves as they learn. Kinesthetic orientees learn by actively moving and doing. They often cannot sit still and must move around to keep their attention.
Can empathy be learned?
Of course. That’s how people become empathetic in the first place. Children are not naturally empathetic. They are largely self-centered beings whose main focus is on getting their own needs met at all costs. Much of “growing up” has to do with moving from a role of taking, to one of also giving, of learning to set our own thoughts, feelings, and needs aside sometimes, so we can make space for those of other people. This ability, of course, is the key to feeling and expressing empathy.
But what if a person did not learn these skills as they grew up? What if expressing empathy doesn’t come naturally to them? Are they then hopeless? Of course not. If they want to learn to be empathetic, more often than not, they can.
