Healthcare is a stressful working environment for nurses and other professionals. Currently, the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases in the population and the aging population is pushing people to seek primary care. As a result, the demand for health care services is increasing significantly in most countries in the world. The pressure falls on the shoulder of healthcare workers, mostly the nurses in the healthcare environment. The rising demand to deliver quality care for the patients, coupled with the high demand for healthcare services by the population, is piling a lot of pressure on nurses to the extent that nurses' turnover is becoming a common theme in healthcare. Most nurses are no longer able to cope up with tension and stress in the hospital and chose to quit. Notably, Nurse Turnover also comes due to other personal issues such as promotion or relocation; however, burnout due to stress is a significant reason for nurse turnover. In this article, the aim is to discuss the challenges that come with nurse turnover and also unveil the leadership techniques and standard practices to limit this issue.
A nurse turnover describes a situation where a nurse chose to quit or leave the hospital. Nurse turnover can be voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary turnover is where a nurse decides to leave the hospital due to promotion, stress, relocation, or personal issues. Involuntary is where the hospital management regards a nurse as redundant( Kim & Han, 2018). Voluntary turnout comes with a lot of pressure in the hospital. It cost a lot of money to replace a professional nurse. Other than the monitory cost, nurse turnover hurts the quality of care delivery. It leads to low morale and, thus, low productivity among the remaining nurses. Furthermore, it increases strain that leads to burn out that links to low-quality care. Nurse turnover is a significant risk factor for patient safety( Fallatah, Laschinger& Read, 2017). It reduces the nurse-patient ratio, and this leads to burnout among nurses. Burnout is a risk factor for patient safety issues in the healthcare organization. It is, therefore, necessary for the hospital management to place strategies to retain its nurses.
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Demonstrating Professional Standard to Low Nurse Turnover
Professional standard practices are the best tool to reduce nurse turnover rates in the hospital. It all begins by placing a professional standard recruitment system for nurses. Demonstrating conventional professional recruitment means adhering to the American Nurses Association (ANA) staffing principles ( Kim & Han, 2018). The ANA Principe dictates the human resource department looks for professionalism in nurses during the recruitment process. They need to concentrate on matching the nurses’ skills with the intensity of work in the hospital. Also, creating a culture of recognition and rewarding hardworking nurses is an excellent way to demonstrate standard professional practice to reduce turnover ( Coladonato& Manning, 2017). Encouraging the use of Evidence-Based Practices to boost the quality of nurse practice and outcome is also an excellent way to demonstrate professionalism and reduce turnover ( Kim & Han, 2018). Enhancing policies that reduce discrimination based on culture, better conflict resolution policies, and increasing interdisciplinary teams’ commitment are also other professional standard practices in the hospital that can lower nurses' turnover rate.
The Role of Nurse Leaders and Manager in Reducing Nurse Turnover
The role of the hospital managers and leaders is to ensure that the hospital gets the best nurses and retains them. Managers, therefore, must ensure that they hire the right nurses with the best skills for the job. Besides, it is the role of managers to implement requirements that are necessary for the nurses to deliver without straining ( Kim & Han, 2018). The manager should also understand the Abraham Maslow hierarchy needs theory and ensure that they have a benefits package for the nurse to cater to their financial needs. Lastly, they have the role of developing nurses by organizing training for them to sharpen their skills to improve quality and safety for the patients.
Leaders must be visionary by creating a uniform vision and bind nurses by the same goals and objectives that are clear, definable, and achievable for the nurses. They also need to be inspirational and motivators. They need to motivate the nurse and inspire them as they work together on uniform goals to deliver quality care and reducing injuries to the patients ( Fallatah, Laschinger&Read, 2017). The leaders must also be culturally sensitive. They must build the hospital around a culture that is cohesive, non-discriminative, and friendly to all nurses and patients.
Work-Life Balance
Stress that comes with the nursing profession is a significant reason that leads to nurse turnover. The additional initiative to reduce turnover that leaders and managers must address is work-life balance. The hospital leaders and managers must find ways of allowing nurses some quality time with their families ( Kim & Han, 2018). For instance, they can increase the number of nurses and introduce regular shifts to allow nurses time to be with their families. Organizing vacations, and also training and creating awareness among nurses on work-life balance can reduce stress, strain, and burnout, and this can have a positive impact on turnover.
Appropriate Leadership Style
The transformational leadership style is the best to solve the turnover issues in the hospital. A transformational leader is likely to succeed because they are visionary, risk-takers, and inspirational. It implies that they will be able to come up with a vision of reducing turnover by defining strategies and inspiring the entire organization to follow those paths toward the vision and set goals.
Conclusion
Generally, the nurse turnover rate in the hospital is a pressing issue due to its impact on the quality of care and the patients' safety. In this sense, it is the role of hospital leaders and managers to work together to come up with strategies to reduce turnover. These could range from adhering to standard professional practice in the hospital to creating a new vision for the hospital that allows nurses to thrive than quit.
References
Coladonato, A. R., & Manning, M. L. (2017). Nurse leader emotional intelligence: How does it affect clinical nurse job satisfaction?. Nursing Management , 48 (9), 26-32.
Fallatah, F., Laschinger, H. K., & Read, E. A. (2017). The effects of authentic leadership, organizational identification, and occupational coping self-efficacy on new graduate nurses' job turnover intentions in Canada. Nursing Outlook , 65 (2), 172-183.
Kim, Y., & Han, K. (2018). Longitudinal associations of nursing staff turnover with patient outcomes in long ‐ term care hospitals in Korea. Journal of nursing management , 26 (5), 518-524.
