The year 2017 alone saw an average of 17% of nursing staff turnover. The nursing staff of any healthcare facility plays a critical role in providing excellent care to all patients. A high turnover rate can not only disrupt patient care quality and satisfaction but also affect a healthcare organization financially. Hiring and training new nursing staff is a much more costly proposition than retaining your staff.
When trying to support the nursing staff and nurse leaders and reduce turnover, it is important to understand the causes of staff turnover.
Causes of Nursing Staff Turnover
Understaffing
Understaffing is one of the leading causes of nursing staff turnovers. While all hospitals and healthcare organizations go through staffing issues, it is important for organizations to address any understaffing issue. Nursing often involves long hours and can be emotionally wrenching. An understaffed nursing force for extended periods of time can cause occupational burnout leading to greater employee attrition.
Low levels of leadership engagement
It is not uncommon for executive leadership in a healthcare facility to not originally belong to the healthcare industry. Thus leaders can sometimes be oblivious to the industry-related pain points and employee concerns, leading to ineffective communication. Even the best self-reliant nurses need support and regular communication to perform at their optimum efficiency.
Personal concerns
The executive leadership and nurse leaders should establish clear and open channels of communication with their employees. This way they can get acquainted with any challenges they might be facing or other personal concerns. It is also important for the nursing staff to have a clear view of their career path and growth opportunities for them to stay motivated and avoid burnout.
Once you are familiar with the primary causes and concerns leading to high levels of employee attrition at your healthcare facility, here’s how you can support them to overcome their concerns.
Maintain Open Channels of Communication
Leaders should communicate work expectations, a shared goal for your staff to work towards as well as performances. When the leadership takes time to establish open channels of communication with their employees and gets to know the members of their nursing staff, the staff members tend to be more engaged and motivated in the healthcare facility. It is a great idea to schedule a short conversation on a monthly or quarterly basis with each member of your staff and speak about any concerns they might have or provide them with career guidance.
Request Feedback
Instead of waiting for your nursing staff to reach out to you, take the lead and reach out to them. Organize feedback sessions where your staff can voice concerns, feel heard and witness changes. This will help them feel more involved and engaged in the decision-making process and feel more valued at their organization.
Efficient Hiring and Staffing
As mentioned above, understaffing is the primary cause of turnovers in the nursing staff. Therefore, having an efficient solution for staffing your healthcare facility and hiring trained nursing staff is very important. Prolink attempts to provide healthcare organizations with staffing solutions to support the nursing staff and help with employee satisfaction as well as provide good nursing care to patients.
At Prolink, we are passionate about empowering healthcare organizations and nursing staff to provide the best patient care possible. We can help organizations with temporary staffing solutions or longer-term solutions for different skill levels according to the requirements of the healthcare facility. When facilities are adequately staffed, they don’t overwork their nurses and help reduce nursing staff turnover. Contact us today for a customized staffing solution to best suit the needs of your organization.
