Nursing has one of the highest levels of employee turnover out of any profession in the United States. There are several reasons for this, some of which are simply baked into the job description.
It’s hard work, it’s an emotionally draining environment, and even people who are fully committed to the cause may eventually decide that they’d be better off with a different lifestyle.
But many of the problems occur at the organizational level. Nursing hours are long and harder than they need to be. Mental health resources are often scant. Career advancement options can be non-existent.
These are all factors that inform employee turnover rates, at least just as much as the work that’s getting done itself.
Fortunately, there are also factors that strong leadership can modify. In this article, we take a look at how nursing leaders and healthcare administrators shape work environments in a way that will inform the entire future of the profession.
What Is the Value of Leadership in Healthcare?
It does seem like an overstatement at face value to say that leadership can change the entire trajectory of healthcare in the United States.
When you dig into the issue a little deeper, though, the truth of it becomes more apparent. There are several factors that inform us how likely a person is to stay in their job. These factors are:
- Employee autonomy: Employees are more likely to stay in a job when they feel like they have the freedom to make choices and have a certain level of control over the work they do.
- Workplace relationships: When people feel comfortable around and supported by their coworkers, they’re much more likely to stay at their job.
- Advancement opportunities: When hard work is clearly rewarded within an organization, employers are more likely to stick around, go through the steps, and seek promotions. The clearer these promotion opportunities are laid out, the more effective they are.
- Compensation: Though not nearly as impactful a consideration as many people assume it would be, jobs with high compensation are naturally valued.
Nursing, at its most basic level, meets very few of these qualifications.
Compensation is admittedly somewhat competitive, but there are definitely easier ways to make an upper five-figure salary.
Healthcare jobs do have the benefit of being meaningful, another important retention factor, but this alone doesn’t get people to stay in a challenging position.
The other factors, at least, are achievable, even if doing so would require system-wide adjustments.
And who is in a position to make these adjustments?
Healthcare leaders, by recalibrating employee culture within healthcare, managers, administrators, consultants, and other people in a position of authority within the healthcare industry can make a tremendous difference in how the job is done going forward.
Emphasize the Benefits of Nursing While Improving Its Shortcomings
At the most fundamental level, administrators, managers, and other people in positions of authority within the healthcare system can make a point of emphasizing the benefits of being a nurse while limiting the position’s shortcomings.
It just sounds basic, at least to understand, that in many cases, this relatively simple criteria are not even being attempted.
The benefits of nursing are straightforward enough and include:
- Meaningful work
- Adequate compensation
- Endless opportunity for responsibility diversification
But even these factors are not always adequately emphasized.
Are nurses being informed of their additional certification opportunities? Are hospitals adequately promoting a tuition assistance program and other factors that help people with credentialing?
These are all factors that could increase retention if they were given a higher level of organizational priority.
It’s also reasonably simple to modify at least some of the healthcare industry’s shortcomings.
Challenging factors of being a nurse include:
- Emotionally draining work: Nurses see sad things every day. That can catch up with you over time.
- Long, unpredictable hours: Nursing shifts are typically 12 hours and many nurses never have the same schedule two weeks in a row.
- A lack of autonomy or control: Even though nurses have high-level credentials, they rarely have the freedom to make choices on their own.
Many healthcare systems are making a point of modifying policies to address these concerns.
For example, some hospitals are connecting nurses with mental health resources that make it easier to address stress, anxiety, and depression symptoms that come up naturally over the course of the job.
Others are developing flexible scheduling frameworks that give nurses more control over when and how long they work.
Developing higher levels of autonomy can be tricky in that there are regulatory elements that come into play, but often even this can be modified when nurses are given the chance to increase their credentials.
These are not necessarily easy changes to make, but they are all doable.
And when hospitals take the time to make these modifications, it can have a substantial impact on employee retention.
Conclusion
If you’re interested in addressing healthcare issues at a systemic level, consider a career in healthcare leadership or administration.
On the administrative end, you generally need a master’s degree in healthcare administration.
If you’re interested in making a difference in healthcare as a nurse, there are various leadership positions to consider.
The highest of these is the CNO, or Chief Nursing Officer, which, as the name suggests, is a C-suite level position that allows you to make truly impactful and ongoing changes within the healthcare system where you work.
To become a CNO, you generally need a combination of skill, experience, and advanced credentials, typically in the form of a doctorate degree, but it’s an impactful way to make a difference.
Despite the many challenges that healthcare is facing, the future can still be bright.
It will take a combination of talented doctors and nurses coming from a new generation, combined with technology, leadership, and human-centric policies. If you want to be part of that change, consider a career in healthcare leadership.
