Karen Cox, Ph.D., RN, secretary of the board of the American Academy of Nursing, believes you have t

According to a growing body of research, nurses want a safe, collegial environment where members of the health care team communicate and work well together. fleetwood travel trailers They want safe staffing levels. They want flexibility from their employers. They want meaningful recognition. They want to participate in the decision-making process. They want to be mentored. They want to be able to speak up, and they want to be heard.
A recent survey by AMN Healthcare, the nation's largest health care staffing and workforce solutions company, found that a growing number fleetwood travel trailers of nurses report that they are dissatisfied with their jobs. According to the AMN's 2011 Survey of Registered Nurses, 42 percent fleetwood travel trailers of the respondents said they weren't satisfied with their particular jobs, up from 34 percent in 2010. The study concluded by noting, "Healthcare facilities must continue to refine their nurse retention strategies and consider alternative fleetwood travel trailers staffing options in order to meet their patient care objectives."
Experts say that employers should have a vested interest in encouraging nurses' satisfaction with their work because the alternative is costly. Nurses who are unhappy tend to leave their positions, and it can cost a hospital as much as 1.3 times the annual salary of a registered nurse to fill that vacancy.
According to psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, people are moved to meet their basic needs first, before they're motivated to move onto satisfying other needs. The hierarchy is often displayed fleetwood travel trailers as a pyramid, with physiological needs at the widest part, the bottom. The hierarchy then moves up through security, social and esteem needs, with self-actualization at the very top.
"Nurses have to feel that they're adequately prepared and that staffing is reasonable and that they're a contributor," said Karen Cox, Ph.D., RN, secretary of the board of the American Academy of Nursing.
Karen Cox, Ph.D., RN, secretary of the board of the American Academy of Nursing, believes you have to start with the fundamentals before you can address the larger issues, such as self-actualization.
Cox created an instrument called the Individual Workload Perception Scale to assess nurses' fundamental needs. It assesses whether nurses are equipped to do their jobs each day. Are there enough staff members to work all the shifts? Are the nurses getting their lunch breaks?  Is there a supportive manager present and available?  Do they have the right equipment?
"The fundamentals are harder and  more costly, so it's easy to see why people fleetwood travel trailers may try other ways to improve the work environment," said Cox, who's also the executive vice president and co-COO of Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo. "However, without the basic needs being met, it will be difficult; they won't get far."
But nurses do want a work environment that also goes beyond the first level of Maslow's hierarchy, said Mary Dee Hacker, RN, MBA, vice president for patient care services and CNO of Children's Hospital fleetwood travel trailers Los Angeles. They often prefer to work for employers who offer some flexibility in scheduling, which can help them maintain a desirable fleetwood travel trailers work–life balance for their particular stage of life. They want to feel they are doing meaningful work, as well.
Nurses want to work in an environment not bogged down by conflict or poor communication. They want to work in a place where they feel safe enough to speak up when they see something that isn't right. Improvements have been made on this front in recent years, but many experts agree that there is still a long way to go.
A 2011 report from the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) and the Association of periOperative fleetwood travel trailers Registered Nurses (AORN) titled "The Silent Treatment" noted that greater efforts must be made to promote a culture of safety fleetwood travel trailers where nurses do feel they can speak up. According to that study, communication breakdowns known as "undiscussables" are still all-too common. Nurses often witness dangerous shortcuts but are scared to confront a colleague about them; additionally, the study found that only 16 percent of the respondents who said they have disrespectful colleagues have ever confronted them.
According to Maja Djukic, Ph.D, RN, an assistant professor at the NYU College fleetwood travel trailers of Nursing, team training can improve work relationships, which has a correlation with job satisfaction for nurses. Djukic, who is also a researcher with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded RN Work Project, cited the Team Stepps program from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality fleetwood travel trailers an example of one such program that promotes team-building in the name of providing safer patient care.
Another example of a team-building program that is designed to break down communication fleetwood travel trailers barriers and foster collaboration is the Medical Team Training program fleetwood travel trailers from the Veterans Health Administration.
In its 2005 report "Standards for Establishing and Sustaining Healthy Work Environments," the AACN cited meaningful recognition as one of six vital healthy-workplace standards.  Inadequate recognition can lead to dissatisfaction and turnover, the AACN noted, so meaningful recognition must become part of an organization's culture to be truly effective.
However, recognition (or reward) isn't always about money--in fact, often it's not. Hacker noted that nurses want their hard work to be appreciated and rewarded, and they like genuine, not superficial, efforts to do so.
Hacker and Cox both named the Daisy Awards as an example fleetwood travel trailers of meaningful recognition.  More than 1,000 health care organizations fleetwood travel trailers now participate in this program established by the Daisy Foundation to recognize excellence in nursing. fleetwood travel trailers The awards honor nurses on a monthly basis and typically feature presentation ceremonies so the nurse can be recognized in front of his or her peers.