In a situation in which there is a shortage of the nursing workforce, the role of the nurse manager becomes very important. This is because patient safety must remain a priority at all times. As such, the nurse manager must find ways of mitigating the negative effects of the nurse shortage. This calls for experience, ingenuity, and resourcefulness. Their roles therefore include maintaining standards of care and patient safety, motivating their remaining staff to carry out the immense task without feeling overburdened, and meeting organizational expectations outlined it its strategic plan. Different nurse managers will adopt different approaches to the situation. There are those that will resort to authoritarianism in order to get things done. This kind of nurse manager will forcefully delegate extra duties to her staff due to the pressure of work and the lack of time to discuss over tasks before allocating them. Of course this approach is counterproductive and can only lead to worsening of the situation as more nurses will leave compounding the turnover crisis Benchmark – Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management. Other nurse leaders will adopt a more consultative and teamwork approach. To begin with, they will put on the gloves themselves and carry out tasks alongside the other staff members. This is the reason why the cl9inical nurse leader should first and foremost be a clinical expert with vast clinical experience. This way, they can fill in where there is a shortage even as they delegate other tasks to the other nurses in the team. This other nurse manager will then make sure that the working environment is conducive despite the pressure of work. The staff members will then feel appreciated and deliver only their best. This is the essence of transformational leadership (Cheng et al., 2016). In doing all these, the nurse managers will be applying the principles of management that are authority and responsibility in that they will be delegating these to the other nurses, even as they retain accountability for all the tasks.
Additional Measures the Nurse Leader and Manager Can Take in the Face of Nurse Turnover
There are additional measures that the nurse leader can institute to make sure that patient safety, professionalism, and standards of practice remain respected. She can make sure that skill mix in her team is correct. Regardless of the shortage, as the nurse and clinical manager she must ensure that the right skill mix among the registered nurses, enrolled nurses, and nurse assistants prevails (Moore, 2012). She must also make sure that she monitors her remaining staff more closely for signs of burnout such as increased irritability. This is because burnout itself will be a danger to patient safety as nurses suffering from burnout have been known to commit medication and nursing errors often.
As stated above, the leadership style that would best address the issue of nurse turnover is transformational leadership. This is a style that ensures motivation to the staff, a conducive and welcoming work environment, and an understanding ear (Cheng et al., 2016). Lack of succession planning has however made it difficult to replicate this kind of leadership, though it remains the best for this situation (Balogh-Robinson, 2012).
Conclusion
High nursing staff turnover is a menace to all healthcare organizations. It has got detrimental effects to the standard of care that is delivered by the remaining staff since they get overwhelmed with work. To effectively manage its impact, transformational nurse leadership is required. Benchmark – Effective Approaches in Leadership and Management.
References
American Nurses Association [ANA] (2015). Nursing scope and standards of practice, 3rd ed. Silver Spring, MD: Author.
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