While nurses play a vital role in the health sector, a concerning fact is there is not an adequate number of them in this sector. The current global nursing shortage is 5.9 million with the worst situation prevailing in Africa and some Southeast Asian countries. Addressing the global nursing shortage is so urgent that the healthcare system will be paralyzed if there are not enough nurses. Several strategies that will work to recruit, and retain nurses are expanding the nursing programs, lowering the barriers to enrolling into a nursing program, offering flexible loans and repayment systems, reducing the long working hours and excessive workload of nurses, and ensuring prospective career progression.
Understanding the Causes of the Nursing Shortage
While the healthcare sector is unthinkable without the useful contribution of nurses, shortage of them in this sector is highly unexpected. However, several factors are responsible for causing a shortage in this sector. These are
Increased Demand
We now have more senior citizens than in any previous century thanks to the significant improvements in medical science. However, aging people are often diagnosed with one or two chronic diseases and also require frequent hospitalization. Hospitals or clinics require a significant number of nurses pushing the demand of these healthcare workers to a new height.
Aging Workforce
The retirement of many senior nurses also worsened the nursing shortage. Many senior nurses are also close to retirement. Their retirement has significant negative impacts on the health sector including the loss of seasoned health workers and the loss of opportunity of training new nurses.
Burnout and Job Stress
Nursing is a highly stressful job often associated with long working hours, poor staffing, and an increased number of patients. Working under such a mentally, and physically exhausting job, many nurses experience anxiety, fatigue, and burnout which forces many of them to leave the profession resulting in a significant nursing shortage.
Limited Training Capacity
The difficulty in making nursing education, and training accessible to students who want to build a career in this noble profession is another reason for the nursing shortage. Several difficulties that are blocking nursing education are the insufficient number of nursing educators, the shortage in web-based nursing programs, and the difficulty in providing practical training for new nurses.
Recruitment Strategies
The recruitment strategies of nurses must address the reasons for the nursing shortage.
Educational Initiatives
Two effective educational initiatives that can effectively address the nursing shortage are expanding the nursing programs, and reducing the entry barriers into several nursing programs. Expanding nursing programs could include strategies like increasing student intake, opening new programs, and offering online programs. Simple admission process, and removing unnecessary pre-requisites will also increase the number of new enrollments.
Diversity and Inclusion Effort
An effective hiring strategy is ignoring policies of biases and discrimination against any race, ethnicity, language, or sexual orientation but allowing a wide range of candidates who would form a team of workforce representing the whole nation. Collaboration with community organizations, job fair. and career events will help to gather a diverse group of aspiring nursing candidates.
Scholarship and Loan Repayment Program
Offering financial incentives to students who are serious about developing a nursing career would be a powerful strategy to attract a significant number of applicants. The financial package for nursing students will also need to include a flexible loan repayment system and loan forgiveness for graduate students committed to serving improvised areas or remote locations.
Targeting High School Students:
High school students are ideal for providing education and training to prepare for future nurses. In addition to their young age which means they have a long prospective career, they absorb better theoretical nursing knowledge and training than their older counterparts. However, the problem with high school students is they are not motivated enough to choose the nursing profession as they think it is not a prestigious profession like doctors or teachers. Motivating high school students requires highlighting nursing as a noble profession with the promise of good remuneration and a stable and developing career.
Retention Strategies
The retention strategies of nurses must address the issues and solutions to stop people from switching to other professions. So nurses’ retention strategies include the following strategies
Improving Working Conditions
While nurses provide essential services to patients, ironically, their working conditions are precarious. While excessive workload is a major issue forcing many nurses to abandon the profession, maintaining a delicate ratio of the total number of patients versus the assignment of nurses will lessen the latter duty. Stress and anxiety are associated with the nursing profession resulting in the burning out of nurses. Several studies have shown that physical exercises have the potential to alleviate stress and anxiety. Encourage nurses to include aerobics in their daily routine. Strength and fitness are essential for nurses to stay fit under strenuous labor. In addition, they also need to maintain a healthy balanced diet to ward off malnutrition.
Career Advancement Opportunities
An effective nurse-retaining strategy is convincing them by offering several career development paths. There is a major concern with the increasing number of nurses leaving the profession. A recent survey conducted by Mckinsey and Company among US nurses found that 32% of registered nurses are considering leaving the direct patient care service. The authority of healthcare facilities encourages nurses to pursue further education, running counseling services, and residency programs to enhance their confidence regarding career development and thus prevent them from switching to another profession.
Mentorship and Support Systems
Mentoring programs minimize the stress and anxiety of fresh graduates and newly recruited nurses, directing their careers, helping them retain their skills, and sharing valuable lessons about patient care. Mentoring also benefits the mentor in several ways including revitalizing your interest in nursing, Obtaining genuine feedback about current policies, and feedback, getting an updated idea about current nursing trends, assessing your communication skills, and finding any weakness if it is confusing, misleading, or ineffective, sharing your valuable knowledge, and expertise with newly recruited nurses to develop their careers as well as yours, becoming a role model of next generation of nurses, and overall building a positive work culture. The significant beneficiary of the mentorship system is the healthcare sector itself since it helps recruit and retain nurses.
Flexible Scheduling and Work-Life Balance
The healthcare sector will be paralyzed without the essential services of nurses. Considering their valuable services to the health sector, flexibility in nursing scheduling will help employers retain them in healthcare facilities. Personal life is a matter for every profession. Nurses are no exception. Flexibility in the nursing schedule will let them do their family responsibility with ease, encouraging them to stay in the profession.
Recognition and Appreciation Programs
Nursing is a hectic profession requiring long working hours, emotional resilience, and dedicated patient care. However, despite their valuable professional services, 47% of them think that their contribution to patient care is underappreciated, or undervalued prompting many of them to leave the profession. The recognition of nursing services and due rewards are expected to inspire nurses to continue their jobs.
Nursing rewards and recognitions take different forms to acknowledge and celebrate nurses hard work, dedication, and impact on the health sector. Various forms of acknowledgment of nursing services are formal rewards, praise ceremonies, peer recognition awards, thank-you notes, and awarding the best nurse according to patients’ votes. However, although all forms of recognition are equally inspiring for nurses to stay in the profession, a better approach is conducting a survey, and assuming what form of rewards are valuable to them and honoring them with the award they deserve.
Global Collaboration and Policy Changes
Government Initiatives: National policies and funding to support nursing workforce development
The demand for nursing professionals has increased significantly in many countries. Although the pandemic first initiated this nursing shortage, the situation worsened with an increasing number of retiring people, an aging population, and the retirement of many senior nurses. For example, 275,000 nurses are required in the USA from 2020 to 2030. To address the nursing shortage, the U.S. government intervened with an $80 million fund to train new nurses.
Global Cooperation In Addressing the Nursing Shortage
Since the pandemic, the healthcare system has been struggling everywhere due to the shortage of nurses. A recent report published by the International Council of Nurses strongly expressed that the global nursing shortage should be considered a global health emergency. To bring stability to this sector, leaders know they must retain the current nursing workforce and focus on recruiting new nurses. Both recruiting and retaining nurses require increasing the health budget. However, many countries failed to spend a significant amount of money on health budgets resulting in difficulty in making sufficient remuneration for nurses. Poor compensation for nurses causes dissatisfaction forcing many of them to leave the profession, and discouraging many from joining the profession. Building a global nursing workforce with sufficient investment from the participating countries will help rebuild the global healthcare system.
Long-term Solutions: Emphasizing sustainability in recruitment and retention efforts
The demand for nurses will increase in the foreseeable future with an ever-increasing number of aging global population, the prevalence of many chronic diseases, and the advent of new treatment procedures. The nursing shortage is an issue that requires long-term solutions stressing sustainable recruitment and retention policies.
While targeting high school students for fresh training and recruitment is a good nursing recruitment strategy, another cost-effective, and time-efficient initiative is the recruitment of inactive nurses. Experiences tell us that retaining nurses is a bigger challenge than retaining them. A project was carried out in Denmark for several years starting in 2021 to identify what strategies would work to keep nurses in their profession. Strategies the project identified include a helpful work environment, career advancement opportunities, flexible scheduling, active participation in the decision-making process, and competitive salaries.
While the nursing shortage is a real concern for the health sector, it is further exacerbated by the prediction that it will be more severe with no immediate solution. Addressing the issue requires short- and long-term strategies to ensure no disruption in the health sector. The short-term strategies must include plans to reduce nurse turnover since further reduction will augment the consequences of shortages. On the other hand, we also plan for long-term strategies since a sustainable solution to this problem lies there.
