Nursing Morale

As a former charge nurse who used to work in a chronically short-staffed ER, I feel your pain. Aside from staffing issues, one of the biggest issues was not feeling appreciated, mainly from management. I spoke to management about this and I've found that even something as simple as recognition for hard work goes a long way...whether it's in an e-mail, in person or a card.

Management gave us a bunch of meal tickets to hand out to staff for recognition. If someone was really going above and beyond and was getting their *** handed to them, I would write a little thank you note and give them a meal ticket. One night I had a nurse who was very busy and somehow ended up admitting all of their patients. In my card I wrote, "Thanks for helping to keep the stepdown unit open tonight!" along with some other things and the nurse loved it and said it was nice to feel appreciated.

I was not the type of charge nurse to sit at the desk and watch the tracking board all day. I basically floated the ED with my little laptop so that I could still watch the tracker but also still help out the other nurses as needed. They saw this as a huge help even though they would still rather have their charge nurse visible and available instead of being stuck in a room somewhere. I would bring chocolate for my staff. I've learned that chocolate is a huge morale booster. In fact, you're pretty much safe with anything involving food :) I would also bring coffee for my staff or baked goods.

Hi All,

I am a nurse in a very busy ER with what seems (no exact numbers) to be a high turnover rate. For the loyal and commited nurses (and PCTs) that stick around, morale hangs a bit low. Patient ratios are reasonable- 1:4 or 1:2 for critical patients. Common feedback from employees is that they do not feel appricated for all of the hard work they do staying things like "no matter how fast or good you are, it is never good enough."

Regardless of what department, does anyone have tips or ways their department has worked to improve their employee morale and in turn improve retention?

Sincerely,

A Staff Nurse

The only way to positively impact the poor morale of a nursing department is to change the culture and climate of the management team. If morale is bad the likelihood is that management is bad.

The only way to positively impact the poor morale of a nursing department is to change the culture and climate of the management team. If morale is bad the likelihood is that management is bad.

Yes. This is the reason I quit the clinic job, and it was a shame. The rot started with management and spread outward. I worked with good people. They simply had nowhere to go with anything, so nothing got done.

We have "kudos" emails sent to management by staff or vice versa which are displayed on a bulletin board.

Can't quote from the mobile view, but to add to the bad management sentiment, A Gallop poll confirmed that 'people don't quit a bad job, they quit a bad boss'.

And there has to be some part that is light or funny. Team building.

To be intense and on all the time takes it toll for sure. To make sure that your staff gets their breaks, lunches, etc when you take their place is a great start.

To me, a heartfelt face-to-face or hand written thank you made a world of difference. My first job had little coffee vouchers for the café if a patient mentioned you by name or management noticed you were putting in extra effort. It was nice and my manager always signed the card with a little personalized note.

My last hospital manager used to send out a weekly e-mail which included kudos for staff. That was okay but was always sandwiched between complaints about our HCAHPS scores or noise level during night shift or incidental overtime or patient complaints that their coffee wasn't hot enough... The sentiment was lost when the compliments were used as buffers for complaints. Those emails lowered my morale way more often that they boosted it.

Same story with Nurses Week "gifts." I received more pens, water bottles, cheap lunchboxes, messenger bags and candy than I knew what to do with. When I cleaned out my locker after resigning, I had a BRAND NEW tote bag, still in the plastic, sitting at the bottom. Instead of making me feel appreciated, those items always made me wonder "Why can't they pool together all the money they spent on this useless stuff and give us a raise? Or merit-based bonuses or something? Or hiring more staff so we aren't chronically short and drowning?"

I know they probably didn't spend what it would cost to provide us with any of that stuff. But it just felt so cheap that they were willing to give us some useless consumer products and not what would REALLY make us feel appreciated.

I really don't care about being patted on the back for doing my job. What shows appreciation, to me, is approving my vacation time, not writing me up for one harmless mistake in three years, etc.

The only way to positively impact the poor morale of a nursing department is to change the culture and climate of the management team. If morale is bad the likelihood is that management is bad.

This is so simple and so accurate it always amazes me that management never gets it.

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I've noticed that I only care about being shown appreciation from management when they are coming down on us. This may be for frivolous things, or, when we are stretched super thin and they are blaming us for not doing more when we are already working like mad. The "never good enough" phrase makes it sound like management is coming down on them. The best thing to do is evaluate if management is complaining for one of the above reasons (frivolous issues or pushing them to do an absurd amount).

One thing I wish more management did is to ask the staff what their barriers to good patient care are (whether that be equipment issues, process issues like not having written standard order sheets from physicians, etc, mechanical issues like not having an outlet in a particular spot, etc), and to work with them on fixing those barriers.

Can't quote from the mobile view, but to add to the bad management sentiment, A Gallop poll confirmed that 'people don't quit a bad job, they quit a bad boss'.

You have to double tap the reply button of the response you want to quote...or something close my touch screen is so touchy it's hit or miss.

Nothing says appreciation like cash.