Health care career that may experience a lot of turnover and has difficutly retaining people - Essay Example

Introduction Healthcare is an important sector of the economy. Registered Nurses constitute the biggest segment of the healthcare workforce and they are in acute short supply. Due to acute shortage, retention of nurses has been a major issue and will remain so in future. The paper focuses on nursing staff to find the reasons for their high turnover in healthcare sector and suggests the ways to retain them for the efficient functioning of an organization. Reasons of High Turnover CareerBuilder (2010) went through the employment records of 12,147 registered nurses (RNs) and found that the median duration of RNs remaining in the healthcare organization is just 1.4 years. On further investigation it was found that the physicians offices saw the longest tenure of 1.

57 years compared to only 0.97 years in the nursing care facilities. Difficulty faced by nurses in the job was the major reason given by them. When nurses were asked about the issues they face in their jobs, they gave several reasons but some of the prominent ones were lack of advancement opportunities, work overload, poor salary, too few staff, and poor organizational culture. Lack of training, poor fit with boss, and not enough access to technology were also some of the other reasons mentioned by them.

Remedial Measures to Achieve High Retention Rate Work load and too few staff are the issues that are greatly related and can be addressed by recruiting adequate staff, as a long term solution, so that nurses do not have to borne undue pressures that eventually cause burn out and force them to leave the organization. Recruiting sufficient nurses would automatically lessen the workload on each nurse to a reasonable level improving working environment substantially. Regarding the other issues raised by the nurses, the organization needs to have an effective retention policy at place.

Motivation and the recognition are the two primary pillars of any retention policy. McConnell (2010) argues that an effective reward system must be in place so that nurses feel motivated. Even suitable incentive schemes must be launched to recognize the good job done by them. From the behavioral view point, nurses must be rewarded suitably when the patients appreciate and give them good feedback at the time of their discharge. Reward system and recognition cannot replace the generous pay scale necessary to retain the good and efficient nurse; nevertheless, they work like a great motivator for the nurses.

It is necessary that the supervisor or manager looks at the issue in its entirety so as to eliminate the root causes that are behind high turnover of the nurses. Conclusion Recruitment of the healthcare professional including nurses is an important process in the healthcare industries; however, retaining the trained and efficient nurse is even much more skillful job. It is important to note that recruiting a new and experienced nurse is hugely expensive than retaining a trained nurse in a given healthcare setting.

A high retention rate eventually translates into increased productivity, high staff morale, and enhanced customer satisfaction creating a vibrant and successful organization. ReferencesCareerBuilder (2010). How to Cure the Retention Problems Ailing Your Health Care Organization. careerbuildercommunications.com. Retrieved November 10, 2012 from http://www.careerbuildercommunications.com/pdf/turnoverrx-whitepaper.pdfMcConnell (2010). Umikers management skills for the new health care supervisor, 5th ed.

Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Sudbury. Nursing Shortage (2012). American Association of College of Nursing. aacn.nche.edu. Retrieved November 10, 2012 from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/fact- sheets/nursing-shortage