5 Ways to Improve Nurse Job Satisfaction

A career in nursing can be challenging. Long shift hours and emotionally difficult work are just a few of the stressors and demands of the job. Healthcare leaders often look for ways to improve nurse job satisfaction, but many find it difficult to develop solutions that are lasting and meaningful.

How can facilities reinvigorate their nursing team and get them excited about providing patient care? In this article, we review the importance of bringing joy back to healthcare, list potential challenges to improving nursing satisfaction, and outline five strategies employers can use to empower and motivate nurses to make a difference.

Why Is Job Satisfaction Important?

In nursing, job satisfaction is a key indicator of staff engagement and influences whether an employee chooses to stay at their job. Nurses who report higher levels of workplace satisfaction are less likely to burnout and leave the profession, reducing staff turnover and saving healthcare organizations up to $8.5 million annually.

Boosting employee wellness and reducing healthcare costs aren’t the only reasons facilities focus on enhancing nurse job satisfaction. Research suggests that when care teams are happier and healthier, so are their patients. Nurse fulfillment is directly correlated with:

• Stronger patient engagement
• Better health outcomes
• Higher patient satisfaction scores

What Variables Inhibit Nursing Job Satisfaction?

According to one survey conducted by IntelyCare, 61% of nurses don’t enjoy going to work, and 45% of nurses are preparing to leave the profession within the next year. Why is a job that gives so much fulfillment and purpose difficult to enjoy? Here are a few nursing job satisfaction factors that impede staff wellness:

• Too Much Time Spent at a Computer: According to the IntelyCare nurse job satisfaction survey cited earlier, 42% of nursing professionals reported feeling like they don’t spend enough time with patients. Administrative burdens and charting requirements limit the amount of valuable time patients and providers are able to spend together.
• Poor Leadership Visibility: Some nursing leaders are rarely seen visiting the clinical setting and have offices far from patient care units. Nurses who report having disengaged leadership feel unsupported and undervalued.
• Feeling Unsafe: Some nurses experience high rates of patient-related violence and moral distress. Between 30-80% of nurses have been assaulted at least once during their career, and 80% of nurses don’t feel safe in the workplace.
• Unhealthy Work Schedules: Many nurses work 12-hour shifts, forcing them to miss out on important family moments and adequate sleep. Those who work night shift experience hormonal imbalance, putting staff members at higher risk for cancer, obesity, and infertility.
• Inadequate Staffing and Inappropriate Patient Ratios: The IntelyCare survey cited earlier reports that 46% of nurses feel their facility is understaffed. Over 86% of nurses are asked to cover additional shifts every week, some of whom are already asked to provide care to more than nine patients at a time.

How to Increase Job Satisfaction in Nursing: 5 Strategies

Nurses are devoted to patient care and stay in the profession with the desire to help their patients and communities. Harnessing this passion and fostering nurse career enjoyment should be as important to facilities as achieving awards and staying within operating budgets.

High quality care begins and ends with workplace wellness. If you’re a healthcare leader, you may be wondering how to improve nurse job satisfaction at your facility. There’s no magic bullet, but utilizing these five tips can help you get the ball rolling.

1. Allow for Flexibility

When nurses feel a lack of control over their work schedule and patient assignments, they have higher rates of burnout. When things get busy or challenging, they shouldn’t have to completely leave their jobs or call in sick to get a break. Make their workload easier to manage by allowing for greater scheduling flexibility.

Tips: Allowing nurses to self-schedule or choose shift preferences helps contribute to a sense of empowerment. Another way healthcare leaders can facilitate a more flexible workplace is by allowing nurses to shift between clinical specialties. Some departments allow nurses to work shifts in outpatient clinics or over telehealth platforms when they need a break from a more demanding setting like the emergency department or intensive care unit.

2. Support a Healthy Work-Life Balance

Nurses give so much emotional and physical energy to patients that they often find it hard to care for themselves. Personal time, commitments to family and friends, spirituality, and physical health are often neglected due to exhaustion and being overworked.

Tips: Facilities that provide person-centered care and offer generous benefit packages demonstrate that they care about employees as people, not just profit drivers. Encouraging staff members to utilize their paid time off can help them rest and recuperate before getting completely burned out.

3. Improve Workflow and Reduce Administrative Burden

One-third of a nurse’s shift is spent charting patient data. While vital sign and physical assessment documentation is essential to safe care, many nurses find other charting requirements repetitive and unnecessary.

Tips: Facilities can streamline administrative duties by allowing nurses to chart by exception, documenting findings only when they’re outside of expected limits or have changed since the previous patient assessment.

Clerical charting like inputting a patient’s emergency contact information or scanning in legal paperwork can be done by non-clinical professionals to optimize patient-provider contact. When delegation and implementation of technology (such as bedside charting software) are done appropriately, nurses are allowed more valuable time with patients, improving patient and staff satisfaction.

4. Develop a Culture of Professional Growth

A key indicator of job satisfaction in any career is the opportunity for professional growth. Facilities that encourage higher education, specialized training, and career development tend to have a happier and more cohesive workforce.

Tips: Creating a high-quality preceptor program is one way facilities can promote leadership and professionalism in the workplace. Training experienced nurses to effectively teach newly hired nurses is essential to achieving optimal health outcomes, strong nurse retention, and high satisfaction scores.

5. Create a Long-Term Staffing Plan

Nursing trends suggest that healthcare professionals appreciate safe staffing levels as much as they do higher wages and better benefits. Building a multidisciplinary team of full-time staff can enhance teamwork and collaboration, boosting nurse job satisfaction scores and patient outcomes.

Tips: Facilities can utilize float pool or per-diem nurses to help cover any gaps. While this may seem like an unnecessary expense, it can actually save facilities millions of dollars in turnover costs.

Support Your Staff and Reignite Their Passion for Caring

Now that you understand why nurse job satisfaction is important for engagement and retention, you might be looking for more ways to support your interdisciplinary team in providing high-quality care. Don’t miss out on the latest evidence-based nursing trends in our IntelyCare newsletter.