Motivating the staff

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Recently we have had a large turnover of our staff, which is discouraging me! Not only do we spend dollars but also time to orient them only for them to put their two years in and move on, but it brings morale down! It causes cancer in our unit by those who are happy with their job to defend why they would want to stay working here. I have been thinking recently however, that it always seems like people are searching for "the better job". I guess it feels like we as nurses have missed the purpose of being a nurse. We get caught up in how many discharges we have on any given day and god forbid we get an admit back in, but don't really stop to think why are we doing this?? The focus doesn't seem to be on our patient, who did not wake up this morning and say how can I make nancy the nurses day crappy!? In that bed is a patient who is most likely in pain, scared, and unsure what is all going to happen to them. and yet they hear us ***** about getting yet another patient. I'm not sure how to, but I think we need to get the motivation spun around in a different direction so that we remember to love what we do, and love doing it.

Does anyone have the magic potion to make this happen or had experience with this on your floor?

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Specializes in NICU, Public Health.

First and foremost, I work to support myself and gain experience for the future. I am not a missionary or a volunteer. Nursing is a career, not a "calling" for me. While I care about my patients, my reason for working is myself. You cannot expect your staff to neglect their needs and goals. Your staff are probably leaving in order to have better working conditions and opportunities. Staff need to feel supported, involved in unit decisions, and have advancement opportunities in order to increase retention not just the "love of the job".

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Times have changed. When I was in nursing school, when my fellow students talked to each other about what we wanted to do in nursing, it was understood that the majority of us would be taking care of patients in a bedside nursing capacity, not as a stepping stone to something else.

You say nothing about your working conditions. There is no easy fix to retaining good nurses if the working conditions are miserable. Many have not lost the purpose of being a nurse; with bad working conditions it is almost impossible to give the care you need to be an effective nurse. Without the satisfaction of being able to give good care, I left my first job after one year.

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Specializes in ICU.

If I might ask what type of unit do you work on? Could it be that the turnover is so high because it is a stepping stone unit to a specialty? If that is the case you can't take the turn over personally, because it could be a wonderful place to work but if is not the right long term fit for the staff they are going to spread their wings eventually. I don't think going else where to work means that nurses don't care about patients. I truly care about my patients but when I worked at my previous job I felt bored and stagnate and knew i wanted to care for patients in a more challenging environment. I think people need to remember that the crappy day that we are having is nothing compared to what most of our patients are going through.

To boost morale on my unit we have unit outings to dinner or we take beach trips together go to NYC on a bus trip also we have parties monthly to celebrate our achievements weather it be 0 VAP's or CAUTI's or someone achieving their certification. I hope this helps, it sounds like you really care about your job and improving the quality on your unit which is awesome! :up:

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

People go to nursing school to become ARNP's or CRNA's these days it seems.

I guess there must be many though that still want to be the wonderful bedside nurse who truly makes a difference when patients are at their most vulnerable.

However, if they aren't supported by their employer financially and in ways that allow them to do what their hearts want them too then it is hard to motivate them. So I would think that anything that increases teamwork and feeling supported and respected and appreciated would go a long way.

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We work on a step down cardiology unit with 37 beds. Our staffing model follows a team leader structure. This means that we have two RN team leaders who support 4 nurses with 4 patients each. The team leaders do not have their own patient assignment they are solely there to support the nurses. At a higher census we have a "wingman" which is a RN who also doesn't have their own patient assignment. Responsibilities of our team leaders are problem solving (missing medications, developing a system to refill our isolation caddies, settling a new admit for the bedside nurse.

, etc). If ther is something that may take the bedside nurse away from the bedside they are to "pull the andon" aka call the team leader for the, to help with the problem then try to figure out how to not have it happen again. We have put all of our most needed supplies in our rooms, and have a replenishment system called a Kansan system. We take a supply, we pull a corresponding card and place in a basket outside of each room. Our supply chain then comes around every 2hours to replenish from the cards pulled two hours ago and take the new cards. They also swing by pharmacy and bring new ordered medications unless they are ASAP or stat. Our working conditions are the best in our hospital, no other floor has the set up that we do. We are a very busy floor, defiantly, with our patients being on cardiac drips, post open heart patients, and at times art lines. Thank you for the ideas of monthly parties to celebrate accomplishments! We so outings also, actually we have a painting party planned soon. I don't think that nurses don't care about their patients, I'm just saying at times I think we focus on the wrong part of nursing.

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We have a system in our hospital that allows the people doing the work to have a say in the decisions being made which creates a feeling of great support. The decisions are not made from the top down but the other way around. Thanks for your thoughts!!

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This sounds like a fantastic work model. In 25 years of bedside nursing , I have never had the pleasure!

Something else is sending these nurses in search of a better environment.

Could it be management, salary, or benefits?

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Specializes in Med/surg, Tele, educator, FNP.

I left bedside not completely but went exclusively per diem after management failed to let me expand myself as a nurse. Not enough opportunity to me a difference. Our opinions did not matter, we were just workers and needed to keep out heads down, favoritism by management, and poor salary advancement.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

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There is no magic potion,sorry to say.But with the way nursing is structured, the avenue to growth is a bit limited.You can only have so many managers and the like. To move up in the hierarchy, it often necessitates a move to a different place.Gone are the days people stay put in one spot for recognition and promotion. You have to be your own advocate and people are realizing that.Your hospital might be the best with the best environment and culture. but you know, sometimes that is just not enough.

You look like you have a strong retention program going on so understand it might not be your hospital but people just want different.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

It's a well known fact (decades of research starting with Herzberg in 1959) that external factors ($, benefits, location, equipment, etc) that he called "hygeine factors" will attract a person to a particular job, but retention and overall job satisfaction is mostly dependent on "motivation" factors related to internal rewards (meaningful job, sense of belonging, accomplishment, etc). In fact, hygeine factors can quickly become dissatifiers if they are the only reason that someone has taken a job... they are continually searching for greener pastures.

Nursing research has shown that satisfying nursing environments share some common characteristics. First of all, there is a sense of equity - the work is hard, but no one is slacking and there is no favoritism; everyone shares the 'dirty work'. There is mutual respect and support; we keep an eye on one another and pitch in whenever someone is starting to sink. We acknowledge the accomplishments and efforts of our coworkers - doesn't have to be fancy; just saying thank you or speaking up to let everyone know when a colleague has done a particularly good job or overcome a major challenge. Acknowledgement from respected colleagues is VERY satisfying to nurses.

So - start to live the change you want. Draw up some simple "rules of engagement" for your group and get everyone to adopt them. They may include some things like subtle "distress signals" that you can use to indicate you need help... or feel overwhelmed. Refuse to listen to or contribute to any negative gossip. Make sure that you provide new hires with positive feedback on a regular basis rather than just focusing on negative/corrective feedback.

Use part of the monthly staff meeting to acknowledge things your coworkers have done for you since the last meeting . . . The list can be long or simple. Just coming together as a group and establishing a list can help foster a sense of teamwork.

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Specializes in Rehab, Med-surg, Neuroscience.

OP, your work model sounds fantastic!!! I only wish my very first nursing job had something even remotely similar to that set up. I left that job after a year but now I'm in a new job and I'm very happy!!

What is it that the staff who leaves complains about? It seems that all the support is there for the staff to succeed... I don't see off the top of my head what they would be unhappy about.

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