Reward and Recognition in Nursing

Abstract

In almost every occupation, reward and recognition has been identified as having positive results towards the motivation of workers towards achieving its numerous objectives. In this regard, nursing has been identified as one of the most industrious occupations in the world. As a result, nurses are prone to experience burnout in their respective fields. Failure to recognize the work done by these important clinical professionals is a major contributing factor to work related stress and burnout. The action of meaningful recognition and reward has been identified as an essential need in the healthcare industry where the employees receive promotions, wage bonus or even a simple “thank you” as an appreciation for job well done.

Numerous articles in the recent times have sought to focus on the issue of healthcare management. This is a result of the high level of dedication and industry that these medical practitioners incorporate as a means of ensuring appropriate care and treatment is provided to the public. It is evident that the management of these professionals has been poor based on the fact that many medical institutions continue to struggle to reward and recognize them. As a result, many of the health practitioners particularly nurses will suffer from work related stress and burnout. Upon the occurrence of burnout, medical practitioners are unable to provide services that the customers value. Furthermore, the practitioners themselves may resort to harming themselves due to work related stress.

Through the recognition and reward programs an institution is able to prompt its medical practitioners to continue in providing the highest level of excellent service. This is action is not only beneficial to the institution but also to the medical practitioner, other employee, the workplace environment and the patient who receives the care provided. Rewards are essential in any organization as they motivate, attract and retain the highest qualified employees and these include nurses. There are various benefits associated with reward and recognition of nurses at a healthcare institution. However, for the purpose of this paper, the main focus will be how reward and recognizing nurses lead to the improvement of quality of care. The close relation between the two will be clearly highlighted throughout the paper to emphasize on the need in the healthcare industry.

Quality Improvement in Healthcare

Since the turn of the century, rewards and recognition have been common terms used at the workplace across almost all industries. In this regard, the rewards indicate that an employee is valued and their activities on behalf of the institution are greatly appreciated. This in turn will ensure that the employees keep up with their good work and maintain their loyalty to the organization. Therefore, the rewards and recognition practices are usually incorporated as a means of motivating workers and identifying talent within the organization such that they ensure the employee remains happy. However, many will usually mistake rewards and recognition as having a financial connotation which is false as there are numerous non-financial rewards that can be provided to employees and still have similar effects. This may be evident where the nurse is celebrated for his or her participation in saving the life of a patient served in the institution. This has the effect of creating a spotlight on the actions of the nurse and prompting them to continue on with their hard work (Van Bogaert, Kowalski, Weeks, Van heusden & Clarke, 2013). 

This is a clear indication that rewards and recognition play important roles in the organization as they influence numerous work related behavior. Their use in a medical institution as in any other organization is guiding behavior and the performance of the workers in question. This way, the institution will be able to attract and maintain the most qualified personnel and ensure they remain satisfied and motivated to continue providing their services (Barnes & Lefton, 2013). The nurses in hospitals and other healthcare institutions are identified as some of the laborers that require these rewards and recognition. As they account for more than half of the staff in a hospital for instance, it is necessary that the organization focuses on rewarding and recognizing their performance (Lefton, 2012). Their input will greatly affect the performance of the organization as a whole.

According to an article by Lefton (2012) the public honoring of work that has been conducted by nurses is a significant factor that reinforces the positive actions and behaviors that the patients, families and colleagues alike truly value. This is a crucial factor in ensuring the improvement of quality in the healthcare industry. This is where nurses in their different capacities work hard in ensuring the care received by the patients is of high quality. However, as has been indicated by numerous studies, achieving an effective practice for nursing reward and recognition is quite difficult. This is influenced mainly by the high number of nurses who are employed in a single institution (Lefton, 2014). It is important that the management seeks numerous ways that will lead to effective recognition and appreciation of the workers. 

Numerous studies have sought to identify the various factors associated with low quality of care provided to the patient will usually identify the workplace as a major contributor. This is where either the environment created by relationships between low level nurses and the management is poor or the workload provided to the nurses is too much resulting in a burnout. You, Aiken, Sloane… et. al (2013) have conducted a survey of 9688 nurses and 5786 patients all respondents from Chinese hospitals amounting to 181. In this survey, the researchers sought to identify the characteristics of the nurses and outcomes observed from nurse and patient interaction. The study findings indicated that at least 38% of nurses in China were experiencing burnout whereas another 45% confessed their dissatisfaction with their jobs. These nurses would also describe their working environment and the quality of care offered by the hospital as poor accounting for 61% and 29% respectively (You et al., 2013).

Dawson, Stasa, Roche, Homer and Duffield (2014) carried out a study that sought to identify the various factors that are associated with burnout and turnover among nurses from various Australian hospitals. The study was carried out using the responses of 362 nurses who came for 3 Australian territories. The findings of the research indicated that limited career opportunities and negative staff attitudes were a major contributor to the nursing turnover experienced in these areas. Furthermore, nurses would opt to quit due to poor support particularly from the management and lack of recognition from the same (Djukic, Kovner, Brewer, Fatehi & Cline, 2013). From this study, it is evident that continued turnover of nurses could compromise the safety of patients, increase the costs of care and prompt a negative morale among the workers (Dawson et al., 2014). As a result, rewarding and recognizing systems should be set in place as a means of avoiding such negative outcomes.

Larson (2012) in an article for AMN Healthcare identified how important recognition of nurses in a medical institution could have positive and meaningful impact. In this regard, the author sought the contribution of numerous human resource directors to provide insight in managing nurses. Through experience, the author was able to derive that many of the nursing practitioners entered their respective fields in a bid to “make a difference” (Larson, 2012). Therefore, they will usually devote themselves to their various tasks and seek the assistance of the management and co-workers where need be (Dawson et al., 2014). It is during such actions that they will require the organization or management themselves to identify their work as valuable or highly appreciated. The director of human resources at The Everett Clinic, Rochelle Crollard noted that once such individuals are recognized in the institution, they are empowered to continue making similar strides in achieving the level of quality work that they had previously reached.

However, it is important to note that reward system cannot be incorporated aimlessly as Rochelle Crollard indicates that asking the staff on how they would like to be recognized would be a significant step toward achieving the right system. In this regard, the nurses in the institution or hospital will themselves identify ways that they feel have appreciated the level of input of these workers. The organization in turn will set in place an effective system that will enable the staff to be involved in the rewarding and recognition of others. This could possibly include voting of the various staff within a unit or members of the management provide clear terms and standards of rewarding and recognizing individuals. This will motivate nurses across all units to work hard towards incorporating their skills to achieve the level of outcome that can be rewarded. Alternatively, an organization can incorporate national award programs such as the DAISY programs that have been incorporated by numerous hospitals and health institutions.

However, a program that has been built up particularly for the staff of the organization is seen to have a significant impact of developing employee morale. This is evident in the case of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles that has created two popular awards; the Going the Extra Mile (GEM) award and the Humanism Award (Larson, 2012). In the case of the latter, each category of worker in the organization is presented with the award a physician, a nurse, non-patient care support staff and a team for incorporating humanity into the different aspects of their trade. In this regard, Crollard identifies that it is not the amount of reward that is provided to the nursing staff but the meaning it carries that matters. The more meaningful the award or recognition the greater the motivation received by the nurse in question. As a result, the organization benefits as the individuals are seen to improve the quality of care provided to patients. 

One of the major ways of assessing nursing performance in an organization has been associated with the patient satisfaction rating and in some cases the quality of outcome of the patients served. This practice has usually been identified as the key factors that used in the assessment of an organization’s performance. Nursing staff and patients will usually have the highest amount of time for interaction as opposed to physicians. Therefore, patients have the opportunity to gauge the level of engagement of the nurse in providing care and ensuring the needs of the patient are met fully. For patients who are in critical care, it is their close family members or friends who will take the time to assess the performance of the nurse. Therefore, it is important that the nurse provides the patient with the highest level of quality service. 

In response to this, the organization may seek to provide its nursing staff with the appropriate support and recognition that they seek. This could be evident particularly in staffing where numerous nursing practitioners will usually complain that the workload is too much while they are understaffed. As aforementioned, heavy workload could lead to burnout and work related stress. A research by Pearson, Wyte-Lake, Bowman, Needleman and Dobalian (2014) observed the partnership between practicing nurses and enrolled nurses at a Veterans Affairs Nursing Academy (VANA). It was noted that through this partnership staff nurses at VA health facilities were satisfied with the incorporation of the students in their various activities. The incorporation of these students was seen as positive efforts by the organization to lessen the workload and not make it more difficult as seen by nearly 80% of respondents. This is a clear indication that the organization identifies the contribution of nursing staff and values their role as preceptors to the students.

In the modern society, quality of care provided by medical practitioners is an important factor towards achieving better health outcomes of the public population. This is where the staff members will usually provide their various skills in terms of service to the patient to the best of their ability. However, with the healthcare industry becoming one of the most tasking professions in the world, it is becoming more and more difficult for these practitioners to provide quality service. This is mainly attributed to lack of support from the management, burnout of staff, low levels of morale and turnover intentions of the workers. These factors will all have the result of poor quality of health care services rendered to the patients resulting in low levels of satisfaction (Ball, Murrells, Rafferty, Morrow & Griffiths, 2012).

As a result, it has been identified that rewards and recognition have the effect of alleviating all these negative outcomes of care provided in an institution. The rewards and recognition will usually inform the staff that their input or contribution to the care of patients is highly valued. Research has found that monetary rewards though acceptable will not always hold the recognition that the nursing staff desire. Some of the nursing management officers of health institutions have identified the need for including the staff in creating these rewarding and recognizing programs. This will help in generating meaningful awards that will ensure the motivation and retention of qualified nursing staff resulting in quality improvement in the institution. The reward system should be fair in such that it is open for all staff to identify how assessments are conducted.

References

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Barnes, B. & Lefton, C. (2013) “The Power of Meaningful Recognition in a Healthy Work Environment”, AACN Advanced Critical Care , 24, 2: 114-116.

Dawson, A. J., Stasa, H., Roche, M. A., Homer, C. S. E. & Duffield, C. (2014) “Nursing churn and turnover in Australian hospitals: nurses perceptions and suggestions for supportive strategies”, BMC Nursing , 13, 11: 1-10.

Djukic, M., Kovner, C. T., Brewer, C. S., Fatehi, F. K., & Cline, D. D. (2013). Work environment factors other than staffing associated with nurses’ ratings of patient care quality.  Health Care Management Review ,  38 (2), 105-114.

Larson, J. (2012) How Employee Recognition Programs Can Have a Meaningful Impact . AMN Healthcare, Online. Retrieved from http://www.amnhealthcare.com/latest-healthcare-news/434/1033/#sthash.hV5pSoEs.dpuf  

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Lefton, C. (2014) “Nursing Perspectives: Transforming NICU Culture: The Power of Meaningful Recognition”, NeoReviews , 15: 221-224.

Pearson, Wyte-Lake, Bowman, Needleman and Dobalian (2015) “Assessing the impact of academic-practice partnerships on nursing staff”, BMC Nursing , 14, 28: 1-9.

Van Bogaert, P., Kowalski, C., Weeks, S. M., Van heusden, D. & Clarke, S. P. (2013) “The relationship between nurse practice environment, nurse work characteristics, burnout and job outcome and quality of nursing care: A cross-sectional survey”, Journal of Nursing Studies , 50, 12: 1667-77.

You, L. M., Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., Liu, K., He, G. P., Hu, Y., ... & Shang, S. M. (2013). Hospital nursing, care quality, and patient satisfaction: cross-sectional surveys of nurses and patients in hospitals in China and Europe.  International journal of nursing studies ,  50 (2), 154-161.