I'm on the Employee Retention and Recruitment Commitee at work and I am looking for ideas and advice on....

How to get more nurses recruited into LTC. What would bring you in?

and

How to keep our nurses we have? What would make you want to stay?

Thanks for any and all ideas!

Julie :)

You need to be economically competitive with other areas of Nursing. This includes not only salary but retirement and other benefits. If you don't at least do this then nurses won't even begin to explore working in LTC. Then look for value added perks and employer paid perks like self scheduling, repetitive schedules, no mandatory OT, maid service, laundry pick up, day care reimbursements, no weekends or weekends only, no shift rotation.

Remember it is always cheaper to retain your existing staff, even at a significant increase in cost, then to pay for recruitment on top of increased costs.

We already have the no mandatory OT and the week work or weekends only in place. I'm trying to work on the day care thing, also to have a "sort of" day care in house....

As someone who worked a very short time in LTC, I know what drove me out of it...staffing levels! Often I was expected to have 50+ patients with 4 CNA's and maybe 1 QMA if I was lucky and that was too much for me. So adequate staffing levels are crucial.

Also...you might want to consider quarterly or bi-annual bonuses if this is possible...and make them tied into attendance levels as well...this might not only help with absenteeism, but motivate people to stay.

Doing occasional special things for the staff...such as parties, outings, etc. really helps to increase staff happiness and make the staff into more of a close 'family.'

Last but not least, it is great to work somewhere where your boss really supports you...hopefully your ADON and DON are supportive of staff.

I know in my own experience, my coworkers and the atmosphere at work can make or break me. If it is bad, I will probably leave. Yes, money's important too, but maybe not as important as being happy when I go into work. JMO! :)