Nurse Retention Strategies a Growing Priority

The Great Recession offers few silver linings, but the economic downturn has played a huge part in alleviating the shortage of nurses in this country.

Simply put, nurses haven’t been able to afford to retire.

If your nurse retention strategy is built around the recession, however, you may be in trouble. A 2011 survey from healthcare recruiters at AMN Healthcare found that one-quarter of the 1,002 registered nurses surveyed say they will look for a new place to work as the economy recovers – up sharply from the 15% who said they’d look for a new job in a 2010 survey.

The 2011 Survey of Registered Nurses: Job Satisfaction and Career Plans, also found that while nurse career satisfaction was high at 74%, actual satisfaction with the role RNs now hold was at 58%, down from 66% in the 2010 survey. Most alarmingly, the survey found that 32% of nurses plan to take steps in the next one to three years that would take them out of nursing, up from the 26% who said they would take those steps in the 2010 survey.

And, regardless of what the economy is doing, the simple fact is that nurses are getting older. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing cites studies that show that the average age of RNs in the United States is expected to reach 44.5 years by 2012. Nursing can be stressful, both mentally and physically, with new demands and expectations piled on almost daily.

Marcia Donlon, RN, vice president medical center/CNO at Holy Family Memorial in Manitowoc, WI, says she is not surprised by the findings.

“When it hits you in the face all at once it is like what are we going to do. All of a sudden there is going to be a huge exodus,” she says. “It just makes sense if you’ve been in nursing for any length of time and you look around the room and you see a lot of people in the same age group.”

As the role of the nurse changes to incorporate more knowledge of information technology, there is a learning curve associated with age, Donlon adds. Also, long hours and long shifts can be a turn-off for older nurses.

"The younger nurses really like [longer shifts]. They don’t get as tired. But a lot of the older nurses will tell you they can’t do them. Another thing is the number of morbidly obese patients. Nurses get hurt because you are trying to lift and turn and care for people who are over 400-500 pounds,” Donlon says.

These are significant demands that have to be overcome, but Donlon says hospital executives – and the nurses themselves – who are willing to compromise, may be able to minimize the exodus.

“It’s really a shift in our thinking about what the possibilities are,” Donlon says. “Why would I want one of my most valuable experienced nurses to retire at 60 when he or she is most valued by patients and colleagues.”

Hospital leaders can start the process by asking nurses a simple question: What is it going to take to keep you here?

“Nurses who want to work 4 hour shifts? Bring them on. Maybe I want to go to Florida for the winter but I will work all summer, so give me my three months off. Maybe I don’t want to cut down, I just want to shift things,” Donlon says. “Here’s another thing, working from home. There is resistance to that. How do I know what you are going to be doing at home? We have to get over that.”

Nurses have to be willing to explore new roles, too, and not necessarily let their past job experiences dictate their future job potential. “We as nurses trap ourselves, sometimes saying ‘I’ve worked on Med/Surg for 20 years what else can I do?’ But there are so many things we can do,” Donlon says.

Remember, however, that things like flexible schedules, shifting duties, mentoring programs, and team-care projects – no matter how well designed -- are only stop-gap measures. They cannot change the inalterable fact that America’s nursing workforce is graying along with the people for whom they provide care. At some point, they’re going to clock-off, no matter what’s going on in the economy.