Relationship between Management and Nurse Staff Turnover Rates (Essay Sample)

Challenges in Retaining Healthcare Staff
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Challenges in Retaining Healthcare Staff
The relationship between the human resource management policies and the staff turnover rates is important. Excessive rates of nursing staff turnover directly impact the quality, cost, and access to patient healthcare within an institution (Rondeau and Wagar, 2016). Health care reforms in management and service provisions have led to an increase in the demand for providers of primary health care. Management and turnover of healthcare staff, therefore, has impacted the profitability and the performance of the healthcare institutions. This paper aims to outline contemporary healthcare management challenges related to the rates of nursing staff turnover, after that providing a critical evaluation of the proposed solutions towards these challenges.
Relationship between Management and Nurse Staff Turnover Rates
The failure of a healthcare administration to analyze the problems that create environments fostering nurse turnover is one of the management problems associated with this matter of concern. It is imperative for the healthcare management team to evaluate and continually monitor primary factors such as the work schedule of the various nurses and availability of career development opportunities for them. However, the response of the nurses to these factors may vary depending on their roles and the policies and resources of the organization (Hunt, 2017). Therefore, the organization should evaluate the manner in which each of the nurses is affected by these key factors to avoid instances of early job quitting and retrenchment. Effective healthcare administrations should factor in the flexibility of the nurses based on their areas of professional interest.
The results of an ineffective nursing staff management is a negative environment of work associated with; a feeling of being overworked, lack of clarity in their roles within the organization; feeling unappreciated for their contribution in healthcare; little trust between the nurses and the organization; and also eventual communication breakdown with the management on pertinent healthcare issues. According to Hunt, 2017 several factors are related to healthcare management problems that have a direct impact on the nursing staff turnover. These factors include the recent changes in educational and cultural obligations, technological advancement and economic demands within the management of a healthcare setup. These factorial shifts have prompted organizations to call for highly trained stable and fully engaged nursing staff. Hunt, 2017 adds that this situation has been coupled with expected mass retirements which have not been helped with the extended periods of time associated with nurse recruitment.
In instances where the management does not provide a timely solution to counter such a negative work environment, high staff turnover result.
Nurse Turnover Statistics
The yearly financial costs associated with nurse turnover is estimated to be two–fold the salary of the nurses. Annual nurse turnover cases affect the base of health care provision within an institution through ways such as reduced quality of patient care and eventual loss of patients, and also increased staffing costs associated with the hiring of prospective replacements. According to Rondeau and Wagar, 2016, the reported rate of nurse turnover in Canadian hospitals is estimated at 20 percent and a corresponding $ 27, 000 annual losses. Relatively similar rates are prevalent in Australia (15 percent) and the United States (27 percent). In all the outlined instances the rate of turnover is higher among newly hired nurses and recent nursing graduates. These indicators point to a lack of a coherent human resource management (HRM) system that can effectively coordinate various management practices to ensure adequate performance evaluation of the nurses.
Solutions to Reduce Nurse Turnover
Various interventions can be adapted to ensure that the rate of stock turnover is curbed by the management of the organization. It is, however, important to understand that the rate of nursing staff turnover cannot be addressed entirely through the implementation of these solutions as the causes are a diverse context (Hunt, 2017).
Increasing the number of prospective candidates- the health care organization can prepare the next society through creating awareness of the nursing profession as a possible and desirable career destination. This measure can be supported by other measures such as lobbying the increase of nursing schools by the government and offering nursing scholarships to interested students (Hunt, 2017). This solution provides the healthcare organization with a wide base of highly skilled prospective candidates that can effectively work within the prescription of the institutions. However, this is financially costly and may not be effective in curbing short-term turnover rates within an organization.
Making the nursing profession more attractive within an organization is an important intervention. This can be done through increased benefits and compensation to the nursing staff, enhance job sharing and flexibility, and foster career development activities aligned to nursing. This is however limited when considering that there is a thin extent to which the job can be made attractive.
During the recruitment process, the organization should also consider screening the prospective nurse candidates based on how well they fit and are interested in the job. The recruitment of candidates with no real description and knowledge of their roles in an organization is a leading cause of high nursing staff turnover (Rondeau & Wagar, 2016). This culminates their desires and interest on the job through a more realistic approach. This approach is however ...