a lot has been written mental health epidemic and long-term staffing issues This is currently plaguing the nursing industry, and for good reason. The industry is faltering after a brutal two-year battle with Covid-19. Still, another crisis is brewing, but with far less attention. As older nurses retire and others leave the profession due to burnout, there is a very real threat of leadership vacancies in nursing at both the facility and industry level.
According to recent figures from Trusted Health, only 1 in 10 nurses said their thoughts on a successful nursing career included promotion to nurse management and leadership roles. This raises the specter of a high-level vacuum precisely when such leadership is most needed.
Like many issues facing the healthcare industry right now, it actually predates the pandemic, although the events of the past few years have exacerbated it. Generational divides mean that many young nurses find the profession’s culture and general rigidity at odds with their lifestyles and career aspirations.
According to NSI Nursing Solutions’ 2021 Retention and Staffing, first-year turnover accounted for nearly a quarter of RN departures, and this trend has continued over the years. While many of these nurses are simply looking for new opportunities, some will leave the field altogether, exacerbating clinician shortages and draining the leadership pipeline.
The good news is that the same actions that help retain nurses will develop a new generation of leaders. Here are three steps the industry must take now to address nursing’s leadership pipeline.
Address bullying and incivility
The generation gap that plagues many workplaces where millennials and baby boomers work together is especially thorny in the field of care. The persistence of the “nurses eat their young” mantra has led to an ingrained cultural practice of bullying. Of course, there are also older nurses who reject this. But in my experience, many still see it as a ritual and continue to do so.
The number of nurses who said they didn’t want to enter nursing leadership because of “nursing politics/culture” was staggering — dwarfing all other responses at 66%.
Hospitals need a multi-faceted approach to addressing bullying: educating all parties about what bullying looks like, providing training for new managers, building relationships between the nursing unit and its HR partners, and holding employees accountable for their actions. Facilities and systems that don’t directly address this problem are doomed to lose the nurses who have the greatest potential to help the profession grow in new, healthier ways.
Reshaping Nursing Career Paths
Like peers in other industriesMillennial nurses are less inclined to stay in an organization or two and work up the clinical ladder, one of the traditional glide paths to leadership roles.
In the Trusted survey, 21% of nurses said they were not interested in being associated with a single hospital or health system, and 35% said a successful career involves moving between hospitals, clinics and units to gain different experiences.
With this in mind, hospitals need to create easier, less risky pathways for nurses to find diversity, explore, and be challenged and motivated in new ways. This could include reimagining floating pools or creating structured rotation programs that allow nurses to develop their skills across specialties, nursing settings and geographies. In addition to accepting and mentoring nurses interested in leadership but looking for it in nontraditional roles.
Rethink staffing and scheduling
Nurse managers regularly report spending at least half their time on schedules. Given this, it’s not surprising that 14% of respondents said the time leaders spend on staffing and scheduling hinders them from becoming leaders themselves.
Hospitals are trying a variety of different approaches to address the problem.
Bon Secours has recruited a team of workforce professionals specially trained in staffing and scheduling, and rolled out a new scheduling system that allows nurses to book additional shifts in advance. Mercy, one of the largest health systems in the U.S., is undergoing a multi-year overhaul of its nursing staff and is working with Trusted’s team to use data and artificial intelligence to predict and determine the right mix of staffing, staff, travel and daily nurses . Both approaches reduce the burden on front-line managers and leaders, freeing them up to focus on patient care and other things that initially attracted them to the industry.
Nursing desperately needs a new vision. Before Covid-19 hit, a lot of things in the industry were untenable, and the past few years have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back in many ways.
Nurses still on site Pandemic horror Meaningful, wide-ranging changes are worthwhile to help the field realize its potential. They should express and elevate their voices through positions of power so they can transform care into something healthier and more sustainable.
Photo: Fly View Productions, Getty Images
