I've noticed many hospitals paying out bonuses up to five thousand for new hires/grads in an attempt to increase nurse retention. Let's say your hospital came to you and said "Nurse Smith" we empower you to implement one initiative to increase job satisfaction, and hopefully nurse retention. Cost is always an issue, but we will give you maximum leeway espeicially if you can make a strong argument.
Here are some things I might suggest:
1. Locker rooms where nurses could shower after their shifts. Seriously, who likes to drive home in need of a shower.
2. Twenty-four hour on site/ or almost onsite childcare that would be subsidized in part by the hospital.
3. A "meal card" which would entitle you to a certain number of free meals. Food is cheap and buys loyalty.
4. Free cosmetic procedures if the facility offered that service to the public. You would have to schedule during less busy times and be willing to let a resident do the procedure.
5. An onsite beauty shop that offered free hair/nail care for full time nurses.
6. I would try to offer a variety of MSN/NP programs and make them available free to full time nurses.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
If you want to retain people, quit spending big bucks (upwards of 5-10K) to attract/recruit newbies and invest that same money back into your experienced and senior staff. New grads should not make anywhere NEAR what 10 or 20-year nurses make, ever. Yet they do in many places. It's an insult.
Treat your long-term employees like gold. Thank them once in a while for what they do and pay them well. Listen to them when they express concerns; they ARE your eyes and ears as to what is really going on the hospital, after all.
People will stay if they feel appreciated. Beauty salons, well, neato concept, but it's its a gimick. Put that money and respect where your mouth is. What will keep me around is if you treat me like the valued, educated, experienced professional I AM. It's real simple from where I sit.
If you want to retain people, quit spending big bucks (upwards of 5-10K) to attract/recruit newbies and invest that same money back into your experienced and senior staff. New grads should not make anywhere NEAR what 10 or 20-year nurses make, ever. Yet they do in many places. It's an insult.
Treat your long-term employees like gold. Thank them once in a while for what they do and pay them well. Listen to them when they express concerns; they ARE your eyes and ears as to what is really going on the hospital, after all.
People will stay if they feel appreciated. Beauty salons, well, neato concept, but it's its a gimick. Put that money and respect where your mouth is. What will keep me around is if you treat me like the valued, educated, experienced professional I AM. It's real simple from where I sit.
I agree. And as to recruitment, I think that one of the biggest tools would be a pay scale that jumps enormously/appropriately with experience. The new grad wants to feel that through hard work, he/she can reach a much larger salary. There needs to be some kind of incentive & reward system for experience. Additionally, the experienced nurse is worth MUCH MORE to the floor than the newbie -- as a new nurse myself, I rely on the more experienced nurses daily, especially through a crisis. It would be frightening if everyone on my floor had only 1-3 years experience!
If you want to retain people, quit spending big bucks (upwards of 5-10K) to attract/recruit newbies and invest that same money back into your experienced and senior staff. New grads should not make anywhere NEAR what 10 or 20-year nurses make, ever. Yet they do in many places. It's an insult.
Absolutely!! The above "strategy" just encourages nurses to bounce between hospitals like superballs. We should be rewarded, rather than slapped in the face, for loyalty.
I'd like to see our hospital pay for nurses who drive so many miles or more to work. Gas is $$$$$. We are in a rural Atlanta area. What makes nurses drive to a hospital away from home when they can leave to work closer. 25 miles? 30 miles? What would you think would be fair to reimburse someone for miles driven to work when your hospital has to recruit nurses from out of the area?
I drive 37. I bought a small car but it's still a big bite from my check.
I would like to see our hospital stop floating people to units that they have little experience in, then insisting that they take a full pt load. We have had a lot of nurses say No Thanks to a job when they find out the hospital floating policy. We have also had nurses leave because they felt their license at risk because of this policy.
I would like to see our hospital stop floating people to units that they have little experience in, then insisting that they take a full pt load. We have had a lot of nurses say No Thanks to a job when they find out the hospital floating policy. We have also had nurses leave because they felt their license at risk because of this policy.
How would the hospital even begin to defend such a policy? If they ask me to float to a floor in which I had no experience I would immediately request that the architech of such a policy to explain why he/she shouldn't resign immediately for being a complete idiot. If for no other reason than it also places the facility at enormous liability risk if a client is injured, killed or neglected due to an undertrained nurse being floated to a floor where he/she does not have experience.
How would the hospital even begin to defend such a policy?
Same way they defend everything else they do that is stupid - they use management speak. "We can't have one unit drowning while another is overstaffed/sending nurses home because of low census. We are all working toward the same goal of excellent patient care...nurses should pitch in and help each other...blah, blah, blah".
Evidently they think we are a bunch of idiots and that we don't know better. They don't give a rat's backside about our licenses or the patients either, for that matter. They just know that if the numbers don't look right, then they don't look good to upper management.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
If you want to know how a hospital could pass ANY policy that defies good practice and common sense and puts our patients and our licensure in danger, read up on it. It's not new, the dismantling of the nursing profession in the name of big $ in health care. One such book I can recommend is
Code Green by Suzanne Gordon and Dana Weinberg. a link to the book at amazon follows:
It will have you seeing "red" when you read it. You will see why so many nurses have walked away from nursing forever, when you read that book or do some searching around in these very threads at this site.
I admit, I'm into the goodies. I would love to find a place that offered on site pet care, maid services or anything like that:D I would also love a shower and a sleeping room for use on short turnarounds.
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SmilingBluEyes
20,964 Posts
If you want to retain people, quit spending big bucks (upwards of 5-10K) to attract/recruit newbies and invest that same money back into your experienced and senior staff. New grads should not make anywhere NEAR what 10 or 20-year nurses make, ever. Yet they do in many places. It's an insult.
Treat your long-term employees like gold. Thank them once in a while for what they do and pay them well. Listen to them when they express concerns; they ARE your eyes and ears as to what is really going on the hospital, after all.
People will stay if they feel appreciated. Beauty salons, well, neato concept, but it's its a gimick. Put that money and respect where your mouth is. What will keep me around is if you treat me like the valued, educated, experienced professional I AM. It's real simple from where I sit.