Job Satisfaction

I tend to agree with a lot of the statements in this article. I especially like the part where the one nurse wrote, “Please take the busyness of patients into account when scheduling.” This finding corresponds with Oermann and Moffitt-Wolf’s (1997) observation that new graduates experienced stress during orientation due to lack of experience, lack of organizational skills, and new situations. (Halfer & Graf, 2006) The inability to handle the intense working environment, advanced technology, and high patient acuity results in new graduate nurse turnover rates of 35% to 60%. All of this occurs within the first year of employment. Turnover has an inverse relationship to job satisfaction. As job satisfaction increases turnover decreases. Many factors influence the satisfaction of new graduates. (Halfer & Graf, 2006) New graduate nurses are leaving their current positions at an alarmingly higher rate than experienced nurses (Patterson, 2009) I do believe things can be done to change these issues. I feel it is important, though it is not always practical to involve the new staff in the scheduling process and, as the article states, include as a “Team scheduling” process, rather than a “self scheduling”. This may make more people feel involved, and although it may not solve all of the issues, such as weekends or holidays, it may be a small change that will improve job satisfaction. I wish they had something like this on the unit I work on. We are able to switch with others on the unit for days that we need off, which is helpful, but it would be nice just to do it as one big team in the beginning. This also would allow you time to spend with your coworkers. Nurses say they enjoy interactions with peers the most, pay the least. (ANA, 2005) I am not sure that I dislike the pay, although I do wish it were more 50 percent of the time, but I do enjoy the interactions with the staff and feel we need more of this.

References

ANA. (2005). Survey of 76,000 Nurses Probes Elements of Job Satisfaction, USA. Medical News Today .

Halfer, D., & Graf, E. (2006, May-June). Graduate Nurse Perceptions of the Work Experience. Nursing

Economic$ , pp. 150-155.

Patterson, D. K. (2009, November 3). Impact of Mentoring on Novice Nurses' Job Satisfaction and

Retention . Sigma Theta Tau International .