Research Proposal on "Nursing Leader's Perceived Role in Nurse Recruitment"

Research Proposal 30 pages (8934 words) Sources: 25

[EXCERPT] . . . .

LR Explor/The nurse leader role in recruit.

Nurse Leaders as Recruiters

Nurse leaders serve an integral role in the field to demonstrate skill in recruitment of future nurses. To do this they must work within existing systems as well as advocate for the expansion of other recruitment essential systems and system change need awareness. Nurse leaders must work collaboratively with human resource departments as well as becoming fundamental community recruiters in and outside of the work setting. (Anson, 2000, p. 21) This review of literature will then address general and specific issues of the role of nurse leaders as recruiters by thematically addressing certain trends and change needs in the health care industry in general and in nursing care that have specific and general implications in new nurse recruitment.

Nurse Leaders and Advocates for Incentive

It is frequently professed that the human element of any organization is its strongest asset, though restrictive budgets and a consistent multiplicity of need often take precedence over growth in staff personal development. In nursing care the emphasis must remain upon the patient of any institution, (Knox, Blankmeyer & Stutzman, 2001, p.45) which makes it important to make sure that this emphasis does not allow the institution to stray from seeking the highest quality employees to provide optimum care and therefore patient focus. The literature therefore stresses the importance of instituting a system to provide staff with opportunity and conditional monetary incentive to obtain higher levels of professional development. In this manner nurse leaders are made and these leaders with appropriate goals will recruit future nurses into the field.

Staffing is clearly one of the most important issues facing institutional care, especially in the face of a potentially exponentially growing health care industry. As baby boomers age, solutions to staffing must be core principles, as creating a base of invested and skilled staff is essential to sustaining new growth demands. In this demand to effectively staff, for the growing demand to come, there are many possible solutions. One of the most foundational solutions to high staff turnover as well as future recruitment and retention is to offer staff opportunities for professional and personal development, that will create investments equal to or greater than any expenditure on the part of the facility, with regard to recruitment of entirely new staff. In this manner nurse leaders serve a basis for demonstrative and philosophical leads in recruitment. In other words, those individuals in the medical care setting who have yet to achieve the status of RN or greater need to have the working opportunity to observe and even formally and informally interview RNs to help them determine the course of their future. This system could be in the form of a matched mentorship program, where an individual RN is matched with a staff member in the institution that wishes to explore nursing as an option. (Feldman & Greenberg, 2005, p. 80) Medical institutions employ people at many levels, from housekeeping staff to direct care aides. All of these individuals have the potential to develop into well informed and high functioning RNs as they demonstrate skills they have learned at lower levels of nursing care and those they obtain as nursing students. Programs and institutions that offer development incentives, therefore will foster and support the role of the nurse leader in his or her ability to help recruit good quality future nurses. The individuals recruited in this scenario demonstrate individuals who often have high levels of interest in the caring professions, a good bit of skill, and have simply not been given the opportunity to develop that skill and interest into realized high level licensure and education.

Healthcare institutions that offer incentive programs such as advanced development tuition reimbursement offer individuals a means to seek greater professional development, often in trade specific development and with the ultimate goal of continuity as contracts involved often include a retention clause, where the individual will commit to working for the healthcare organization after he or she achieves a higher degree for some period of time to "pay back" the institution for the investment. (Cimini & Muhl, 1995, p. 74) RNs and other nurse leaders are then offered a direct opportunity to influence individuals with interest and aptitude in healthcare to advance their degrees to the level of a nurse. This is a symbiotic relationship needs to be not only harbored as it exists today but expanded to improve the odds that those with interest and aptitude, that may lack opportunity are given that opportunity. Nurse leaders have the authority and responsibility to advocate for such systems in any institution they work.

One manner in which this can be achieved is to offer both time and conditional tuition reimbursement to current and future staff members, at both skilled and entry levels, so bilateral investment is ensured. Offering staff members the opportunity and time to seek adult professional development as well as conditional tuition reimbursement to do so can achieve a twofold result, one being that when seeking to retain or recruit employees the facility offers a nontraditional benefit that can be an immeasurable opportunity for many individuals and second will create a base of staff with greater skills to meet the ultimate goal of excellent patient care. Nurse leaders should be at the core of any such program as they demonstrate the most fundamental aspect of recruitment of skilled nursing staff through lived experiences.

Research and anecdotal studies illustrate that these unique support relationships in the nursing profession can endure for many years (Olson & Vance, 1993; Vance & Olson, 1991, 1998). Formal or planned mentor relationships are the organizational application of informal mentoring relationships. These relationships promote ongoing learning, excellence, and creativity in work, as well as commitment to the organization. Formal mentor pro- grams match mentors and proteges with respect to mutual goals and needs. These formal programs require careful planning, orientation, training, support, and follow-up of the participants (Vance, 1999; Vance & Bamford, 1998). Formal mentor programs provide heightened focus and visibility to mentoring, and create enhanced commu- nication, motivation, and productivity (Duff & Cohen, 1993; Kaye & Jacobson, 1995; Murray & Owen, 1991; Wickman & Sjodin, 1997). (Feldman & Greenberg, 2005, p. 85)

Given the nature of the facility, with its overarching emphasis on psychosocial care and the nature of the growth in information in this area, seeking employees who are capable and willing to seek out cutting edge development associated with such care could be the determinant factor of success. Making those employees from those who are already committed to serve this facility would be the best possible solution to any perceived shortcomings. (Zlotnik, Vourlekis & Galambos, 2006, p. 83) Conditional reimbursement frequently emphasizes time and success contracts that are best employed when the individual is offered support from the institution to allow growth. Forming a benefit such as tuition reimbursement contracts, often offered to employees with greater than one year of service to the institution, with an emphasis on achievement goals, such as grades above a certain level for reimbursement to be paid and a contract commitment to a certain number of years service following the completion of any degree or certificate sough and reimbursed by the facility. Such benefits packages have proven effective in many institutional settings, such as hospitals and prisons, in improving staff quality, recruitment and retention. (Wilkinson, 2002, p. 84) Simply employing such a tactic will help the institution emphasize an overall view of belief in the asset of the human element in its organization to current and future employees, to patients and families as well as to the broader community, which constitutes the future patients of the institution.

This step will also allow the institution to rightly claim that its overarching goal is to create a system that seeks out and builds the best staff it possibly can, reestablishing the medical industry as one that is progressively developmental, rather than a conglomeration of low paid entry level, dead end jobs. The importance of this message and the creation of a more progressive reality could make the difference between mediocre care and optimal care and environment for residents and staff. In short seeking to create an environment where employees are offered the opportunity to better their professional standing at every level will create a system that has far less burn out and turn over and emphasizes future rather than only immediate staff needs. The role that nurse leaders play in this is integral, as nurse leaders as they can fundamentally encourage those they mentor to better develop skills and education and help replace themselves as they age and leave their current positions. (NSSRN, 2007)

In addition to offering conditional tuition reimbursement the facility must also seek to allow staff time to achieve better outcomes with educational goals, including additional on site in-service time, staff communication time regarding educational endeavors and time off for educational attainment. Nurse leaders serve an interal role in this goal as they advocate for such services and even take… READ MORE

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