3 Nurse Retention Strategies to Reduce Turnover

As talent shortages persist in the healthcare industry, organizations are facing challenges in retaining workers, especially when it comes to nurses. According to SIA, a staggering 40.2% of nurses are leaving the profession due to burnout and stress. In addition, 27.5% of nurses leave due to unmanageable workloads and 27.2% because they feel unsupported or undervalued.

So what steps can healthcare organizations take to address these concerns? In this blog post we’re going to discuss three proven nurse retention strategies they can implement to combat attrition, including flexible hiring methods, culture adjustments, and essential benefits.

1. Explore Flexibility in Hiring  

Labor shortages in the healthcare industry significantly contribute to burnout for nurses as they are often tasked with filling those gaps, preventing them from taking time off when needed and leading to unwanted overtime. But when organizations implement more flexibility in their talent approach, they can combat this in several ways:

Contingent Workforce

Leveraging contingent workers helps address burnout and stress by filling gaps during unforeseen circumstances and peak demand periods, as it helps ensure full-time staff isn’t overloaded with excessive workloads. Utilizing an integrated workforce management platform allows healthcare leaders to be strategic in optimizing and managing their contingent workforce, helping to lead to further savings and optimized hiring. Additionally, centralizing contingent workers across various roles, including Statement of Work, locum tenens (physicians), IT and others via a single streamlined vendor-management system (VMS) provides visibility into the workforce, allowing leaders to explore various talent strategies and better control costs.

Flexible Staffing Models

The longer it takes to fill staffing gaps, the bigger the chance for burnout among current nursing staff as they are often required to step in to fill those needs. Employing flexible staffing models allow healthcare organizations to decrease costs while reducing their dependency on staffing agencies, in addition to creating pipelines to securing full-time employees. Direct sourcing is one method, which involves creating private talent pools including referrals, retirees, and alumni as well as brand attracted talent. These pools help to fill requisitions by direct sourcing workers and allow hospitals to reduce their reliance on external agencies. Direct sourcing allows for healthcare organizations to reduce costs as it provides an alternative to the markups associated with suppliers, and as a result, helps improve time-to-fill and reduce the burnout of existing hospital staff. Healthcare systems can also lean on internal float pools of nurses, which offer flexibility for short-term assignments within the network, further eliminating the need for staffing agency markups and helping to attract nurses through higher pay.

Get best practices for building an internal agency in healthcare when you download our ebook.

Travel Nurses

Travel nurses take on temporary assignments in different clinics and hospitals that may be experiencing labor shortages. Especially during high demand periods like flu season or events like the pandemic, travel nurses fill those talent gaps and allow healthcare facilities to maintain patient care quality. In turn, this helps alleviate the strain and burnout on permanent staff.

These methods not only allow healthcare organizations to be more flexible, but also give full-time nurses the ability to take time off when needed, which helps to combat burnout and improve retention.

2. Improve Organizational Culture

A negative work environment is another contributing factor to attrition in nursing, as 86% of nurses state they have left a position due to toxicity, including harassment, bullying, and lack of support. These environments make it challenging for nurses to provide quality patient care as their impact can result in mental health issues like depression and anxiety.

Organizations can combat this by providing education and training for workers regarding bullying and harassment, enforcing policies that address these issues, and fostering a positive, nurturing professional environment. Establishing a supportive environment takes various tangible and intangible efforts on behalf of healthcare leaders and coworkers, including:

• Inviting workers to team-building events
• Providing feedback to nurses on their strengths
• Having career-goals oriented conversations with nurses
• Informing nurses about internal jobs

For more insights on fostering feelings of inclusion, check out our joint report with the Mom Project.

3. Provide Essential Benefits

Giving nurses benefits they will actually use can also be a differentiator for healthcare organizations and a powerful retention strategy. Mental healthcare benefits as well as paid time off, sick leave, and retirement options are crucial for nurses. Organizations can partner with an Employer of Record (EOR) to provide industry-leading comprehensive benefits packages to contingent workers and delegate risk mitigation while keeping costs low. (Learn more about the benefits of utilizing an EOR in our comprehensive guide.)

Additionally, organizations can improve retention by ensuring they are providing competitive pay. By investing in pay intelligence and gaining insights on real-time, location-based bill rates, they can optimize talent strategy, reduce sourcing costs and stay competitive while combatting nursing attrition at the same time. (See Magnit Pay Intel in action when you check out our interactive tool.)  

Burnout and stress are major factors behind attrition in nursing, but organizations can implement several strategies to combat it. A combination of flexible staffing strategies, a supportive professional culture, and competitive benefits packages will bolster retention efforts and talent attraction amidst ongoing labor shortages in the industry.

See how academic health system OU Health transformed its contingent workforce management when you read the full case study. 

Disclaimer: The content in this blog post is for informational purposes only and cannot be construed as specific legal advice or as a substitute for legal advice. The blog post reflects the opinion of Magnit and is not to be construed as legal solutions and positions. Contact an attorney for specific advice and guidance for specific issues or questions.