What would help you love your job?

[rlerich]

This is a question for all nurses - both new and old: What would motivate you to keep working for the same healthcare organization?

I am an analyst for a multi-hospital system and my job is to help reduce employee turnover.

Nearly 1 in 5 nurses leave their job in the first year. Because hiring a new employee can cost almost an entire year's salary (and training takes a significant amount of time), it is in the best interest of hospitals, communities, and patients to have nurses stay around longer.

Of course, many people leave their job within a year because of a lack of connection with the company culture, a dislike for their boss, or another life change. Some of this will never change. However, I believe that many things can change - and I would like to figure out what exactly it is that should be changed.

What are things that you wish your organization, managers, and peers did to help you enjoy your workplace? What makes your job challenging, and what would make it more enjoyable for you?

If you have left a job (particularly after less than 2 years), what was your reason for leaving? Is there anything that could have been done differently that would have motivated you to stay?

Again, thank you for your time and responses! Maybe together we can make the workplace more enjoyable for nurses.

[eaus]

Don'give families entitlements and give me prorated health insurance for part time work.

[Bezoars]

Simple: 1. adequate staffing at all times 2. management that knows how to lead people, be fair, and hold everyone accountable to the same standards as well as promoting and atmosphere of teamwork.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Thank you all for your responses thus far. From the impression I'm getting, it's a feeling of being over worked with a focus on financials, instead of making a difference in people's lives.

What changes would you recommend? It is true that hospitals are trying to save money - there is a lot of uncertainty with new healthcare regulations. However, the focus should still be on serving people. Do you feel that the focus is on making money instead of serving people?

Thanks for the feedback and keep it comming!

I sorely wish I had never responded to this so called "poll" in the first place.

What did you want to hear? That nurses only want to "serve" and "make a difference in people's lives" ?

I work to make money. I want respect and to not be worked like a mule.

We ALL know who we are serving... the corporate masters and you are working for them.

BTW... what did you do today to serve mankind?

[RNperdiem, RN]

A little more attention paid to the need and quality of our assistive personnel.

A good, CNA will make or break your day in certain departments. In my first job, I was very dependent on them to get my frail, dependent elderly patients their care. In that same job, some were outstanding, more were OK to fine, and then there were the absentee aides who were seldom to be found anywhere. CNAs are more than underpaid warm bodies, they are the backbone of long term care and med-surg. Yet they are pulled to sitter cases, not replaced when absent.

My hospital (which I have few complaints about) stopped hiring unit clerks with the rationale that now that computers have taken on many of their previous tasks, a cross-trained CNA can do CNA tasks, transport patients while somehow managing to answer phones and answer the door in our locked unit. The CNAs seldom get the chance to sit long at the nurses station, and often we have only one CNA. The phones ring a long time before someone (nurse) answers the phone.

[greenerpastures]

Honestly, one thing that would make turnover less is if it was "acceptable" to tell patients that we can't meet their every demand immediately. The patient asking for a new pain medication expects to have it delivered immediately. I've explained to patients the timing and process of contacting the doc, letting the pharmacy add it to the system, and having to pull it from Pyxis before it can be administered. They say "ok, I understand" but then those HCHAPS say pain wasn't addressed in a timely manner. We've created our own monster by making healthcare so customer service oriented. I need more water, I need more crackers, can you get me a magazine, visitors for nonemergent illness patients asking for trays when they are perfectly capable of going to the cafeteria. All of these petty things add up to frustration on a nursing shift.

As far as how to reduce turnover, nurses need to be recognized for their every day hard work once in a while. I saw a post a few days ago about the upper management coming around to check with people when things went wrong. I agree with the OP that management should round weekly/monthly just to say "Hi", ON ALL SHIFTS, regardless of right/wrong on the floor. Getting emails about "this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong", is not helpful when you never receive an email saying "THIS IS GREAT! GOOD JOB" Sitting in your office or only interacting with floor managers and above does not help you get to know your in the trenches staff. The best way to help reduce turnover is to talk with the peon staff regularly to make sure they aren't feeling like they are getting dumped on all the time. The second thing I think would be more effective is to create a mentor/mentee buddy system. New nurses should have to meet once a month to discuss their struggles/successes with a seasoned nurse/clinical educator. New nurses go through residencies but then get "thrown to the wind" to figure it out once the four months is over. They get overwhelmed and feel lost without someone to guide them.

Also, if you are going to continue to cut back on benefits and expect more with less, it would be nice to see the upper management take a pay cut/cut back as well. Somehow, that never seems to happen.

[Caffeine_IV]

-Better staffing

-More assistance

-better pay for such things as being charge nurse. When I did charge, I was paid 80-90 cents extra. That's a slap in the face considering the responsibility

Nurses are the most visible yet low on the totem pole.

[SubSippi]

I love my job. I am lucky enough to work in a unit where staffing ratios are taken seriously, although this does mean occasionally nurses are asked to come in on a day off to help cover when a patient needs to be 1:1.

I plan on staying at this job as long as the rest of my life allows me to. I've had another nursing job that I did NOT love, so I'm definitely able to appreciate this one.

I've seen many comments about staffing ratios, but I think an even more important aspect, in regards to retention, involves pay, and more specifically, annual raises.

The reason nurses are so quick to leave is because there is really no reason NOT to leave. Sure, it might be a little bit of "grass is greener" syndrome, but I know that if I start to feel burnt out, I would be much more likely to push through it if I knew there was more money at the other end.

As it stands now, I know nurses who have been where I'm at 8-10 years, and don't even make a full $2/hr more than I do. For that reason, if I do ever want to leave, I WILL, and I will feel no guilt for having done so.

There is no cost-free way to keep good nurses around for the long haul.

[PG2018]

I left the hospital because I hated that environment. It wasn't for me (too many people wanting too much all at one time and much of it was more than I cared to give). I left my admin/clinic job because I relocated for academic purposes. I'll leave this job, although in a hospital again I'm in an office, when I graduate with my MSN/PMHNP May 2015. However, I might leave sooner if I find a unit nursing type of job I want that works less than five days per week. That would better accomodate my scholatic requirements.

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

Enough support staff, esp CNA's and a no lift policy complete with ceiling lifts! Safe and fair patient ratio's based on acuity not simply number!

We really need a no lift environment for our safety; but i think it will take an act of congress, like it did for safe needles to come about!

Other things that annoy me are the endless alarms, the unfriendly computer system, being turned into a secretary HUC on top of my job, without adequate training the blind leading the blind and the obvious mistakes that come with this stupid idea! The foley free movement that leaves patient incontinent. I don't understand this because we have silver foleys that are antimicrobial and could be changed on a regular basis. If I were ever incontinent I can tell you I would want to be clean and dry with a foley, rather than acidic urine on my skin! Sitters to keep all the altered mental status patients safe and free from falling, instead of just putting alarms on over half the patients, adding to the endless alarms! Lastly, the demoralizing corporate rules that punish you for being one minute late or take your vacation away if you don't have enough PTO months in advance at the time of the schedule! Don't forget the ridiculous clinical ladders with their insulting tiny raise followed by the threat of demotion and pay cut if you don't maintain all their every changing requirements for that one time piddly raise!!!

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

One of the poll options should have been 'other.' I am the type of person who will never be truly happy with any job in existence due to personality issues.

I describe myself as a creative, daydreaming, lazy person with an artistic flair who has never enjoyed working or following a rigid schedule, whether on my own timetable or an employer's timetable. The one thing I crave the most is unlimited, unstructured free time.

Employment cuts into my unstructured free time, and for that reason alone, I will never have the 'heart' for any type of work in existence. Furthermore, I do not particularly like interacting with people who don't know what they don't know.

If I had it my way, I'd receive a multimillion dollar lottery jackpot and spend unstructured free time traveling abroad, writing the next great American novel, attending college as a professional student, critiquing food at upscale restaurants, learning how to play new musical instruments, or just sleeping in everyday. However, my chances of receiving huge lottery winnings are minimal, so I keep a job to stay afloat while pretending to have my 'heart' in this.

For someone like me, the world of work is a difficult pill to swallow. I have never liked any job I've ever had, but I remain employed because I enjoy having a roof over my head and living in a neighborhood where I can walk around without getting shot, mugged or raped.

By the way, I became a nurse due to the relatively easy entry, steady income, flexible scheduling, and other practical reasons unrelated to some higher calling from above.

I vote for sleeping in, followed by travel and gardening with lots of flowers!

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

1) The ability to actually take a real, honest-to-goodness BREAK at least once during my 12.5 hour shift. And by 'break' I mean go somewhere off the unit and relax/ eat/pee in solitude - WITHOUT a phone in my pocket or worrying about getting back to clock in within two minutes of the 'acceptable' time frame for said 'break'.

2) The ability to truthfully, without fear of disciplinary action, tell a family member to clean up after themselves and not treat their loved one's hospital stay as a day with maid and waitress (read that- nurse) service for themselves.

3) Visiting hours and someone to enforce them.

4) For our CEO and a couple of the numbers crunchers to follow me around for a night shift- and THEN tell me why they cut nght shift differential and no one else's pay but ours.

That's what I want!

[cassie77775]

I would like to see better working conditions, following ratio guidelines, offering more workplace incentives(raises, better insurance, better retirement, etc). The hospital here is the only hospital around and they don't improve things bc they know they don't have to as it's the only option for nurses and the schools are cranking more out that can just take your place.