I've read a lot of threads on this board. The collective wisdom of nurses here is amazing. However, there seems to be a common theme that I have been trying to figure out. Every time there is a job/career/management/interview related thread, people mention asking about staff turnover, implying that it is across-the-board bad.
See, I work in what I consider to be a stagnant environment. There is glacially low turnover. There are some staff who have been here a loooooong time, and interactions with them leave me with the impression that a lot of them dislike working here, but that it is just kind of comfortable and mediocrity is tolerated and oh, well. You know, lots of sick calls, management making excuses for chronic poor performance (when management is there at all), things like that.
One day an email came out that we should congratulate so-and-so for having worked there for 20 years. I thought, so shouldn't that mean she would be really super good at what she does by now? Know it inside and out, really own it.
I mean, people move on in normal workplaces, right? Fresh opportunities? Promotions, transfers, growth? What's wrong with working in a place two years and moving on?
It costs a ton of money to take on a new employee, but it costs nothing to carry an unproductive employee, even counting salary, benefits, and overhead? Was that a non sequitur?
Ideally, all facilities would give employees learning opportunities and growth potential, so swapping experienced employees would be a zero-sum event, other than becoming oriented to a new facility's processes and procedures. The gain would be bringing in new perspectives and ideas — a beneficial cross-fertilization.
If you change departments within a hospital (e.g., from peds to ICU), isn't there a big retraining cost there? Does that mean that people should simply grow old working in the department they started in when they were 25?
Yes, this is what I was getting at. Thanks, Wet Noodle, for stating it more elegantly than I did. I would only add that the strain of the unproductive person then stresses the others that then "carry" him or her.
Maybe I can give a different perspective. I left my first job after 8 months. It was pretty bad in the beginning, but got better as time progressed. A friend working there told me to leave. He convinced be that this other hospital would better. After 2 yrs, I'm regretting the fact that I left. The other place was worse. I just knew after the first day there it was going to horrible. I don't know how I last a year there, but I eventually left.
If you're not happy you could make the change and start the turnover? Let it begin with you!
I don't know if you are new to nursing and this is your first job or if you are a job hopper, but excess turnover is expensive, usually a sign of a bad worplace, low morale and leads to short staffing and/or mandation. Job hopping is fine if you want to do it, though the ones I talk to who have worked other places aren't necessarily happier, many find the grass isn't greener elsewhere. Nursing is stressful in general and that probably has something to do with people calling in sick and of course all the germs we're exposed to.
Job hopping can be a quick way to get a raise, but you lose out on pension benefits and increased vacation etc with seniority. If you work in a union hospital, seniority protects you from layoffs.
I think a moderate amount of turnover is to be expected. People switch jobs for lots of different reasons, not all of them having to do with poor working conditions. What is a red flag for me is the "mass exodus" that occurs on a regular basis for any particular unit. To me, that signifies that there is something wrong with the leadership on that unit, that people leave in droves.
I've read a lot of threads on this board. The collective wisdom of nurses here is amazing. However, there seems to be a common theme that I have been trying to figure out. Every time there is a job/career/management/interview related thread, people mention asking about staff turnover, implying that it is across-the-board bad.
See, I work in what I consider to be a stagnant environment. There is glacially low turnover. There are some staff who have been here a loooooong time, and interactions with them leave me with the impression that a lot of them dislike working here, but that it is just kind of comfortable and mediocrity is tolerated and oh, well. You know, lots of sick calls, management making excuses for chronic poor performance (when management is there at all), things like that.
One day an email came out that we should congratulate so-and-so for having worked there for 20 years. I thought, so shouldn't that mean she would be really super good at what she does by now? Know it inside and out, really own it.
I mean, people move on in normal workplaces, right? Fresh opportunities? Promotions, transfers, growth? What's wrong with working in a place two years and moving on?
There are times when it may not be a bad thing. What is a problem is when this is occurring a lot. It's a big red flag that something is very wrong on the unit or in the hospital or agency.
You are looking at the issue, like too many folks do about many things IMHO, that is, in terms of spectrum extremes.
Stagnant is the end that you are seeing.
What you may not be understanding is that forever since I have been a nurse--quite some time--decades--frequent turnover causes frequent instability AND is also a sign of serious problems within the place. What you see are NMs or HR people blow it off as people going back to school, moving away, blah, blah, blah, rather than looking at and dealing with the real problems for the phenomenon.
Nurse's aren't disposable objects, but too often I have seen them treated as such--and not merely by admins--but by other nurses that have the most influence in a unit, on a floor, or wherever.
Places can give all the lip service they want to give to "investing in their nursing staff," but at the end of the day, they show their cards--and often the truth is about treating nurses as disposable entities rather than investing in them as valuable professionals.
Again, part of this is nurse perpetuated, but admins know about that too, and they allow it.
Yes, there are definitely times you need some new blood. But really both extremes are often about the same thing. That is, the "influentials" controlling hiring and firing rather than more objective and supportive systems, which can and must be consistently used in nursing.
As long as nursing doesn't see the importance and power of using consistent, objective, and supportive systems of measurement, you will have a stagnant bunch, or you will have a stagnant bunch that will constantly be pushing others out--adding to the cycle of ridiculous or needless turnover of nurses.
My unit has a high turn over and some mass exoduses. It is bad because in my unit for the most part. (95%) of times a nurse is replaced by a new grad. So every few months, most of the staff is a brand new nurse. This creates a pretty stressful enviornment. There are shifts where there isn't anyone an expereinced (6months- 1year or more ) nurse can count on for much, if any ,help because he/she is the one doing the helping. Which when you have only been a nurse for 1 year, that is frightening!!! Not everyone who is knew is bright and filled with great ideas. Most of the time they can barely do their job without significant assistance.
Or even worse the staff leaving is not being replaced. Which leads to working short with mostly new grads. I guess it would depend on why there is high turnover. Rarely is it because of a good thing or something that has NOTHING to do with the unit. As a new employee or an interviewee you will probably never get an accurate answer so there isn't much point in asking why or even if it exists.
My unit has a high turn over and some mass exoduses. It is bad because in my unit for the most part. (95%) of times a nurse is replaced by a new grad. So every few months, most of the staff is a brand new nurse. This creates a pretty stressful enviornment. There are shifts where there isn't anyone an expereinced (6months- 1year or more ) nurse can count on for much, if any ,help because he/she is the one doing the helping. Which when you have only been a nurse for 1 year, that is frightening!!! Not everyone who is knew is bright and filled with great ideas. Most of the time they can barely do their job without significant assistance.
Or even worse the staff leaving is not being replaced. Which leads to working short with mostly new grads. I guess it would depend on why there is high turnover. Rarely is it because of a good thing or something that has NOTHING to do with the unit. As a new employee or an interviewee you will probably never get an accurate answer so there isn't much point in asking why or even if it exists.
Wow. I have never worked in an area with that high of turnover though I know of units with similar situations. This was stressful just to read!! I actually am very happy with my workplace but when I get into a negative mood and keep ruminating on the (often petty) things that bother me, it just spirals into...more complaining and lost sleep. In reality, I have it pretty darn good.
A high turnover usually means a bad working environment or unhappy staff. But you have to consider other factors, as well. I live by a military post, so part of our high turnover is due to employees PCSing. There is a large teaching hospital nearby that has internships....a lot of their critical care interns will leave after 2 years to pursue their CRNA.
Since I started working, 5 of our nurses have left, all at different times. A couple of them just found a job they liked better; but everyone else was due to PCSing with the military. I spoke with another RN and in the almost 2 years she has been there, everyone has been new.
I just contributed somewhat to the turnover in our unit. I'm still there per diem, but I only work the bare minimum to stay on the books. I'm in L&D, and we used to have the lowest rate of turnover in the hospital. When I started there, the newest nurse on dayshift had over 20 years in the unit. And our old nurses were great nurses, not stagnant and just biding their time. People only left if they retired or had to move. Then the new manager came. We've lost over 20 people just this year, and we are not a huge unit. On night shift, the most experienced nurse has 2 years under her belt, and that is NOT a good think in L&D. Because the nurses are expected to have so much autonomy and use their own judgment, we need nurses who have seen and done a lot. The doctors are moaning about the loss of nurses, the nurses are moaning about the loss, the only people who don't seem to see it are our manager, who is the absolute root cause, her superiors, and HR. When I turned in my notice dropping from full time to per diem, my manager just said "Ok." Several doctors asked what it would take to keep me, told me how much of a void I was going to leave in the unit, and really let me know that I would be missed and they cared that I was going. Our work environment has become absolutely untenable, though, and I can't take it anymore. Our manager is the absolute worst thing that ever happened to our unit, and she's not just hurting us, but she's hurting the doctors (they are nervous about leaving laboring women with brand new nurses) and the patients (depriving them of experienced nurses, and subjecting them to nurses who are absolutely miserable and overworkded).
my job has the worst of both worlds - high turnover in the new people perhaps caused at least in part by the miserable attitudes of the other half who have been here 20-30+ years, which is perhaps caused in part by the fact that half their coworkers are always trainees... it's hard to get anything done when everyone is unhappy.
DSkelton711
312 Posts
This was probably related to the poor economy rather than job satisfaction.