3 Strategies to Handle Nursing Staff-Related Problems

Healthcare staffing issues have reached an all-time high since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The demand for healthcare continues to grow as we recover from the pandemic and the population ages; however, the number of healthcare workers is falling. In the next decade, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects an almost 200,000 nursing shortage and 124,000 physician shortage.?

Why is this happening, and what can we do about it? Several challenges have been identified, and in this article, we discuss these issues with some practical strategies to address them.?

Common Nursing Staff-Related Problems

The most common staff-related challenges identified in Becker’s Hospital Review include the following:?

• Employee engagement: Staff engagement describes how committed and involved an employee is with their work, which includes a nurse's commitment to the institution that employs them and feeling valued and listened to by that employer.??
• Job satisfaction: Satisfaction is how happy a person is in their current role. For nurses, this feeling can include a sense of purpose and enjoyment in their work.?

• Burnout and wellness: Burnout occurs when people are mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. Up to 40% of all nurses suffer from some level of burnout in the United States, which has only risen since the pandemic. Up to 65% of nurses who leave the profession cite burnout as the reason why.?

• Company culture: Forbes defines workplace culture as “the shared values, belief systems, attitudes, and the set of assumptions that people in a workplace share.” It can include the message that the organization portrays to the outside world. If the culture is generally negative, this factor can contribute to staff retention.?

• Leadership and communication: Leaders who are engaged and listen to their employees' concerns have better nursing attrition rates. These nurses have higher job satisfaction and engagement levels in their workplace. However, poor leadership or communication can affect nursing retention rates and staffing.?

• Professional development resources or growth opportunities: Opportunities for job growth and professional development keep nurses motivated and engaged in their work. The UC Davis Health Care Center has a robust professional development program and a 92% attrition rate, well above the national average.

Effective Strategies for Handling Nursing Staff-related Issues

Knowing the obstacles with staffing is the first step in addressing them. Even with multiple challenges, there are a few practical strategies organizations can implement to address these issues and improve staffing.?

1. Create paths and resources for professional development. A clinical ladder program helps guide nurses in their career growth and development. This program encourages nurses to develop and improve their critical thinking, problem-solving, and research skills. These skills can help nurses be more creative in how they approach their work and patient care. It also gives them opportunities for leadership, academia, and pay increases, all of which have been shown to increase job satisfaction and engagement for nurses.?

1. Encourage direct lines of communication with leadership.?Promoting and encouraging open lines of communication between staff nurses, management, and administrators helps reduce workplace frustration and improves job satisfaction. This process could include having an open door policy, hosting forums or town halls regularly, or implementing an anonymous suggestion box or other resources in the workplace for nurses to voice their concerns and requests for change. Open communication can also help management in problem-solving their specific staffing issues.?

1. Focus on supporting nursing wellness and preventing burnout.?Burnout is now the leading cause for nurses leaving their current workplaces, making it essential to consider when addressing staffing concerns. Ways to help prevent burnout include eliminating mandatory overtime, providing wellness programs or offering resources for outside support, and creating a flexible, positive culture. Promoting employee wellness over all else conveys to the employees that you value them and their well-being.?

When implemented, creating an open, positive, wellness, and growth-focused culture can improve nurse staffing results dramatically.??

Legal Considerations to Know When Dealing with Nursing Staff-related Problems

When dealing with staffing challenges, it’s important to keep legal obstacles or problems in mind, especially for management or healthcare administration. The most important is poor patient care. With a nursing shortage, nurses are caring for more and more patients with increasingly complicated needs. If insufficient staffing is involved when a patient care-related error occurs, this situation can trigger legal concerns, including lawsuits for malpractice or negligence against the nurse, the unit, or the organization itself.?

Good nurse staffing is integral to keeping nurses satisfied in their jobs and helps keep patients safe and the organization from legal concerns. There are many tools out there that can help walk you through this process and implement a few of these ideas. Check out StaffGarden for a free demo!?

References?

Agarwal, P. (2018, August 29). How to create a positive workplace culture. Forbes.

American Nurses Association. (n.d.). Nurse retention strategies: How to combat nurse turnover.

Becker’s Hospital Review. (n.d.). Top 10 healthcare staffing issues and how to solve them.?

Connolly, L. (2023, September 27). UC Davis Health has 92% nurse retention rate, well above industry average. UC Davis Health.

Dempsey, C. & Reily, B.A. (2016). Nurse engagement: What are the contributing factors for success? The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(1), Manuscript 2.

Thompson, S. (n.d.). What is the corporate negligence doctrine? CHRON.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2023, September 6). Occupational outlook handbook: Registered nurses.

Well-being Index. (n.d.). Nurse burnout: Everything you need to know about nurse burnout.

Alison Shely, DNP, FNP-C is a nurse practitioner, nurse coach, yoga teacher, and nurse writer who specializes in articles, blogging, and copy. She has been in nursing since 2014, working in intensive care, women’s health, and primary care as a registered nurse and family nurse practitioner. She has written for a variety of publications including Rncareers.org, Moxie Scrubs, Aspen University, and more. She is also the winner of the 2020 Shift Report writing contest for Next Level Nursing. Her specialty topics include mental health, health and wellness, yoga philosophy and practice, and community health. She also serves as a mental health coach primarily to other nurses and healthcare workers concerning healthy lifestyles and mental health.