Updated June 10, 2024
The healthcare industry is facing a serious nurse shortage. Despite the nursing job growth rate being one of the highest at 9%—and expected to remain so until 2026— fewer nurses are available. The need for nurses is higher than ever, too, with people in the baby boom generation growing older and requiring more assistance.
In order to attract more nurses to your facility, it helps to understand what the current batch of nursing candidates want from their employers.
Tuition remission or reimbursement
Nurses are more likely to accept a position when they know it comes with opportunities for career growth. Offering tuition remission or reimbursement lets the nurse expand his or her knowledge and obtain new skills. You can add a stipulation that the nursing professional must work at your facility for a certain period of time to pay off the tuition costs if you’re worried about nurses jumping ship. By encouraging continued learning, your facility benefits from higher levels of skills while you gain a greater reputation for helping the nurses you hire.
HELP offers tuition reimbursement to qualified nurses working in Hawaii. Click here to learn more.
A healthy amount of staff
One of the reasons nurses appear to be leaving the field in droves is burnout. Almost two-thirds of nurses experience burnout, which affects not only their mental health but patient care as well.
Nurses want the healthcare facilities they work for to hire enough staff to distribute workloads evenly. Studies show that nurses that have to care for more than four patients at a time are at greater risk of burnout. More staff to even out the nurse-to-patient ratio would alleviate this problem.
Career advancement
In addition to greater knowledge, nurses want to know that they can move up in the organization with enough hard work. This doesn’t necessarily have to involve nurses moving up to leadership or managerial positions. It could also mean nurses moving to different departments, allowing them to pursue new interests while giving their potentially stagnant career a necessary jolt.
Safe and comfortable working conditions
Everyone likes to feel comfortable at work, nurses especially. With the high-stress environment, they’re forced to work in, it helps nurses to know that their co-workers are there for them and management can lend a supportive hand (or a friendly ear) when necessary.
It’s essential to offer an environment where nurses feel safe to communicate concerns and where the atmosphere is one of support.
Having clear rules in place to prevent bullying and any kind of abuse can go a long way toward making nurses feel more comfortable. They’ll know you have their best interests in mind and that you’re on their side.
An important part of creating comfortable working conditions is focusing on equity and diversity, which create a sense of belonging for all nurses. With these tenets in place, nurses will be more likely to want to stay in the position for longer.
If nurses feel comfortable and happy as part of a team, they will also offer better care to patients. This results in your facility having a better reputation, which can attract more top talent.
Easy-to-understand scheduling
Nurses want to know that they’ll have enough hours on their paychecks to enable them to pay the bills. Some nurses want overtime so they can earn higher levels of compensation. Work with your nurses to give them the schedules they want most, if possible. Schedules should also be predictable so that nurses can plan around their shifts and attain some semblance of a work-life balance.
Incentive programs
Your nursing staff will be more willing to come to work when they are supported and paid well. Incentives like medical and retirement packages also help to retain top nursing talent. Find out what benefits your nursing staff is most interested and surprise them with the incentives they want.
Once you’ve made your facility a joy to work at, with plenty of rewards, you can further entice your nurses to spread the word about working there by offering a referral bonus. Having your nurses do the medical recruiting for you is a great idea, as friends always like to work with friends.
Family support such as child care
Nurses want to focus on their jobs and patients while at work. This is difficult when they constantly have to worry about hiring and relieving the babysitter or being to the daycare on time to pick up their little one before it closes.
A good incentive you can offer to your nurses is to offer child and family care support. When torn between two facilities, one that offers family care and one that doesn’t, a nurse with kids might always choose the former. Family care can also provide home care for adults or nursing home services, depending on the terms of the program.
Mental health resources
The nursing profession is a stressful one that poses many challenges and could lead to mental health struggles. Nurses actually have a higher risk of developing conditions like anxiety and depression.
Your nurses may appreciate programs that help with mental health issues. With nursing being such a high-pressure job, nurses may want access to mental health professionals and services. Be aware that some nurses may be hesitant to use on-site mental health services. They may feel being labeled with a stigma that could be detrimental to their long-term careers.
If this is the case, you can also consider a program that offers reimbursement for mental health visits the nurses attend on their own time.
Administrative support
Tackling tasks like patient tracking, drug safety checks, and more can take significant time from a nurse’s day. You want to consider automation tools that can help make administrative tasks less time-consuming.
Automation assists with both preventing errors and minimizing the number of manual entries nurses have to make. This translates into higher job satisfaction for nurses and better care for patients.
Flexible work
Nurses want to be able to better manage their lives so that they don’t experience burnout or miss out on family activities. By providing flexible work options, from part-time to shared shifts and beyond, you can entice top nursing talent to your facilities.
Attract and retain top-tier talent
Prolink has the expertise, capability, and strategic know-how to guide health systems through staff shortages. If your facility is struggling with attracting and retaining the talent you need, let us help. We're known for creating effective workforce solutions to solve unique challenges.
At Prolink, we get to know your organization inside and out. We can help you identify areas where nurses would love to work at your facility, and areas where changes might help to attract higher-quality talent. We can pair you with matches from around the country, helping you find nurses that qualify for the positions you have open. Ready to get started? Click below to get in touch.
