Nurse Shortage and Turnover
The problem of the shortage and turnover of nurses can negatively affect the ability of an organization to provide quality care to the patients and meet all their needs. The success of healthcare organizations depends on the availability of highly trained, fully engaged and stable nursing staff in order to provide quality patient care. Some of the causes of nursing shortage and turnover include overworking, unclear work roles, lack of control over their work, failure to recognize their capabilities and contributions through rewards, poor communication between the nurses and management, insufficient career development support, lack of collaboration between coworkers, inappropriate work schedules, and retirement of older nurses (Duffield & O’Brien-Pallas, 2003). Nursing shortage and turnover leads to decreased patient care quality, loss of patients to other hospitals, increased costs due to reliance on contract nurses, increased turnover resulting from excess workload, and increased costs of recruitment of new nurses (Anthony et al., 2005).
Nurse leaders and managers would adopt different approaches in solving the problem of nurse shortage and turnover. There is a difference between the skills and roles of nursing managers and leaders and this determines the approach they would take in solving the problem. A nurse leader can be a great manager; conversely, a nurse manager cannot necessarily be a good leader. A nurse manager is expected to fulfill the tasks, duties, and projects that are assigned and manage the subordinates while delegating duties to them. On the other hand, a nurse leader is not expected to adhere to a particular framework but rather, inspire, motivate, and empower others. The functions of managers in organizations include controlling, coordinating, organizing, planning and adhering to set guidelines. On the other hand, leaders are concerned with inspiring and guiding their followers towards the realization of the organization’s vision (MacLeod, 2012).
An effective nurse leader has great interpersonal and communication skills. Nurse leaders also take risks and do beyond what is expected of them in order to achieve the set goals. Nurse leaders do not give up on the achievement of their goals and they are dedicated to their work. Nurse leadership involves the motivation and inspiration of workers in order to facilitate the effective achievement of the organization’s vision and mission. They are also involved in the design and implementation of the procedures and policies and challenge ineffective health policies that have been imposed by the government or institution. Nurse management is concerned with controlling and directing patients and nurses. Effective nurse managers use the allocated resources to perform the assigned roles within the given timelines in order to achieve the goals of the organization (Anthony et al., 2005). Effective nurse managers ensure that the available resources and workforce are streamlined. A nurse manager’s role involves ensuring that the environment is responsive to both the providers of care and the users.
In order to solve the problem of nurse shortage and turnover a nurse manager would be concerned with short-term strategies in order to get the operations of the organization back to normal while a leader would be concerned with long-term strategies that would ensure the continued operation of the hospital even into the future (MacLeod, 2012). One of the short-term strategies that a nurse manager would use is hiring temporary staff to meet the immediate staffing needs of the organization because of staff shortage. This is only a temporary strategy as overreliance on temporary staff is very expensive. The nurse manager would also approach the issue by increasing the staff wages and benefits in order to retain the nurses and reduce staff turnover (May, Bazzoli, & Gerland, 2006). Salary increment can also attract new recruits to the organization. This is also a short-term strategy, as money may not successfully solve all the underlying problems causing staff shortage and turnover.
On the other hand, the nurse leader will focus on long-term solutions to the problem of nursing shortage and turnover. One of the strategies is nurse education. Training will increase the number of nurses in hospitals and solve the problem of staff shortage (May et al., 2006). A nurse leader can also advocate for more funding for nursing education. This will increase the number of students studying nursing. A nurse leader can become a nursing profession advocate by organizing nurse managers and nurses to go out to the community and create awareness as well as draw people to the profession. A nurse leader can also collaborate with nursing colleges to identify and recruit the talented students. A nurse leader will also organize internship programs to attract nurses who will assist in patient care and learn practical skills (May et al., 2006). These nurses can seek employment in the hospital after graduating. A leader can also open the hospital’s own nursing school where their staff can be trained. The hospital can pay for the training of the nurses in exchange for a work commitment. Another training strategy is implementation of orientation programs for new employees.
Another long-term strategy that nurse leaders can focus on is improving the work environment. Implementing changes in the workplace such as hiring more staff to reduce the nurses’ workload can reduce staff turnover (Tomey, 2009). Changes can also be made in the nurses’ roles. Physical changes include introducing electronic records management and redesigning the workstations (May et al., 2006). Increasing the flexibility in the work environment can help in retaining nurses. Moreover, implementing work redesign to enable old nurses to continue working can solve the problem of staff shortage. These changes will increase the satisfaction of the nurses and reduce staff turnover.
The manager’s and leader’s roles in solving the problem of staff shortage and turnover often overlap. Both roles will involve guiding and directing the nurses in performing their functions. Moreover, both the leader and manager have the same goal of ensuring the success of the organization by reducing staff shortage and turnover. The nurse leader and manager will be involved in performing different functions during the implementation of the short-term and long-term solutions to the problem of staff shortage and turnover. The nurse leader will focus on creating the appropriate environment while the manager will focus on ensuring the effective utilization of the available resources (Anthony et al., 2005).
A combination of both the nurse leader’s and manager’s approaches is the most appropriate in solving the problem of staff shortage and turnover. The short-term solutions require proper management while leadership is required to implement the long-term strategies. Nurse readers require management skills while an effective nurse manager needs to have certain leadership skills. My preferred leadership style is a combination of transformational and transactional leadership. Transformational leaders inspire their followers to achieve their goals while transactional leadership is a management style in which the responsibilities and roles are clear and people are rewarded according to their performance. A combination of the two contains aspects of both leadership and management, which are essential for the proper running of an organization. The combination of these two approaches is suited to my leadership style because as a nurse leader, I require both leadership and management skills.
References
Anthony, M. K., Standing, T. S., Glick, J., Duffy, M., Paschall, F., Sauer, M. R., … & Dumpe, M. L. (2005). Leadership and nurse retention: the pivotal role of nurse managers. Journal of Nursing Administration, 35(3), 146-155.
Duffield, C., & O’Brien-Pallas, L. (2003). The causes and consequences of nursing shortages: a helicopter view of the research. Australian Health Review, 26(1), 186-193.
MacLeod, L. (2012). A broader view of nursing leadership: Rethinking manager-leader functions. Nurse Leader, 10(3), 57-61.
May, J. H., Bazzoli, G. J., & Gerland, A. M. (2006). Hospitals’ responses to nurse staffing shortages. Health Affairs, 25(4), W316-W323.
Tomey, A. (2009). Nursing leadership and management effects work environments. Journal of Nursing Management, 17(1), 15-25.
Use the order calculator below and get started! Contact our live support team for any assistance or inquiry.
[order_calculator]