Turnover in healthcare is nothing new. It’s been a problem for many organizations long before the pandemic burnout. For hospitals, the current turnover rate is 20.7% and a whopping 96% of healthcare organizations aim to improve retention of their nursing staff as a primary goal going forward.
Retention might not be at the top of your list of primary goals. However, it should be. Not only does turnover pose an extra expense for your organization, but, most importantly, a high turnover rate negatively impacts patient care.
One of the most efficient ways to promote retention among your nursing staff begins on day one of your onboarding process. And prioritizing a well-thought-out and thorough onboarding process from the get-go builds trust and forges a relationship with your staff that makes them wish to stay with your organization.
Enhancing Retention and Additional Benefits
Of course, multiple factors go into a person’s choice to seek employment elsewhere. But, it is important to note that many nurses point to a weak or non-existent onboarding experience as being at the core of their decision to look for a job elsewhere. For this reason, your organization must recognize the link between onboarding and retention and do all you can to create a path toward onboarding success.
Here are just a few of the benefits you can expect from a strong onboarding program:
- Increased productivity by 70%.
- Improved new hire retention.
- Increase in leadership through the mentoring component of your onboarding program.
With all that onboarding success means for your healthcare organization, it’s hard to believe that any employer follows a poor, weak, or limited process. Alas, they do! According to a poll by Gallup, 88% of employees agree that their onboarding was a negative experience. Around 20% of new hires leave within the first 45 days, and up to 50% depart within 18 months. That’s why onboarding success is vital for the health of your organization.
Complete Guide to Onboarding Success
So, what goes into onboarding success? A successful new hire onboarding program addresses several key factors that instill confidence and trust in your organization. You must also do all in your power to make your new nurses feel supported and an integral part of the team. And the earlier you begin your process the better your results.
Here, we offer a complete guide for nurse onboarding success for your organization. These tried-and-true measures make your staff feel respected and confident in their abilities. Like any excellent healthcare organization, your goal is quality patient care. Incorporate this complete guide into your onboarding program and watch what happens.
For Onboarding Success Begin Before Orientation
Be sure you send your newly hired nurses an information packet before their orientation. Be sure to include information relevant to the hospital or healthcare organization, a glimpse of your organization’s culture, and how the healthcare team is structured.
Include in the welcome packet any guides necessary to navigate the facility, schedules of the orientation program, and contact information for any employee related to the orientation program. Follow up with an email that includes links to the necessary information.
Orientation
Cover all of the pertinent hospital policies. Explain your healthcare organization’s mission and provide a copy of the statement in the orientation packet. Go over the core values and goals for the future. Provide a tour of the facility. You’ll want to include some time for learning your system and software. Including this part of the onboarding in orientation makes the acclimation to your facility much easier. Be sure to allow enough time in the schedule for questions.
Hands-on Training for Core Skills
This is a basic refresher for most new hires but a necessary component of the onboarding success. Every hospital, clinic, and skilled nursing facility has its own protocols and ways of doing things. Develop a training program for core skills such as IV insertion, administering meds, providing wound care, and any other skills that are called upon routinely in your healthcare facility or care unit.
Another useful part of your onboarding success is to go over common scenarios with your newly hired nurse. Practice makes perfect, as they say, and you want your new hires to feel their most confident with their patients. Go over things like common triage, trauma assessment, and code response, and simulate a few of the more routine cases your facility sees.
Mentorship: The Onboarding Game Changer
Assigning strong leaders as mentors to your new hires is a beneficial part of the onboarding program. Just please make sure the preceptor understands the assignment. Educate your nurse mentors and reward them for their services. Assign each new hire a mentor who is skilled and well-experienced in the types of tasks for which your new nurses are responsible.
A strong mentor provides encouragement and support for new nurses. They field any questions, provide feedback, and help in the adjustment period. Having a go-to coworker helps instill confidence in your new hire.
A mentorship program goes a very long way in creating a cohesive team, and having a mentor helps new nurses acclimate to the new job, it’s true. Not only that but being able to offer a mentorship position to your more experienced nurses allows you to test their mettle as far as future leadership positions. Be sure you schedule regular weekly check-ins with the mentor(s) during the onboarding process to make sure things are going well.
Create a Peer Support Group
When you have a few new hires starting around the same time, it helps to introduce them and create a peer support group of sorts. Even if they don’t work in the same unit, they will share some of the same struggles. Having another nurse with whom to share those struggles, someone who identifies along with them, forges bonds and strengthens the team. This shared camaraderie also eases the transition while helping your nurses learn from each other.
Offer Opportunities for Shadowing
Offer opportunities for your new hire to spend a shift or part of a shift shadowing someone from a related unit or department. It is important for collaboration between disciplines and enhances the skills of your entire nursing staff. Larger facilities may offer a few different opportunities to shadow across departments over the first several weeks.
Tailor the Training
Spend some time going over new nurse training and make it unit-specific. Develop a program that goes deep into the scenarios and common occurrences within the unit. Take the time to collaborate with some of the more experienced members of the team. Your nursing staff have the experience and the skills that are unique to that job in that environment. Listen to them when developing your training module.
Check-ins, Evaluations, and Surveys Keep Onboarding Successful
During the first month of your new hires’ experience with your healthcare organization, it’s wise to set up regular meetings. Weekly check-ins offer you both an opportunity to find out how things are going, whether your new nurse has any concerns, and so forth. These weekly check-ins should be a safe space where your new hire feels comfortable sharing any issues they may have adjusting to the job.
Monthly evaluations provide constructive feedback for your new nurses. When you assess their interpersonal skills and clinical prowess and offer praise for any strides they are making going above and beyond, you encourage and enhance their confidence as a nurse, help them develop into a better nurse, and learn more about their trajectory and desired career path.
Monthly surveys provide an opportunity for your new nurses to give you feedback as well. This is instrumental in developing a program that ensures onboarding success.
Not only do the check-ins, evaluations, and surveys allow your organization’s new hires to ask questions and gauge where they are within the organization, but you can proactively intervene if problems arise. There is a lot to learn during the onboarding process. It’s easy to become overwhelmed. And although nurses are often well-equipped when it comes to multitasking, it often takes a while for new nurses. Weekly and down the road, monthly check-ins prevent overwhelm and burnout.
Professional Development
Introduce professional development to your new nurses early on in the onboarding process by discussing your healthcare organization’s opportunities for development. Ask them about their career goals and find out where they may see themselves in five years. This inspires the new hire to see a future within your organization. You can even help them by outlining a potential path for their career with your facility.
Continuing Education
Support your new hires in continuing their education. Offer guidance and encourage participation in workshops, as well as programs that enhance their skills, learn new skills, pursue certifications, and help them to develop professionally. This benefits your nursing staff and your healthcare organization as well.
Provide Support for Stress and Avoid Burnout
Encourage your new hires to take advantage of wellness opportunities offered by your healthcare organization. Acclimating to a new job can be overwhelming and stressful. If you want to instill a sense of confidence and respect make sure your new hires and established nursing staff for that matter access stress management as it is offered by your organization. If you don’t offer any such program that protects the mental and emotional wellness of your valuable staff.
Nursing is a tough job. There are a lot of ups and downs involved in patient care and if you don’t provide opportunities for your staff to work on their stress you can almost guarantee burnout will happen. Never neglect an opportunity to show how much you value and support the nurses who work for your organization. Prioritize the well-being of all nurses on your staff.
Team Building Opportunities
Nothing forges bonds between coworkers as much as going out to dinner, for a spa day, or kicking back at a sporting event with your coworkers on the boss’s dime! Create these team-building sessions for your new hires during those first few months as part of the onboarding process.
Stress Your Healthcare Organization’s Commitment to Work-Life Balance
When your new nurses are just starting they need a few breaks. This is especially true if your new hire is also new to the night shift. Whatever hard and fast rules you have for shift-changing or scheduling may need to be bent a bit to keep a quality nurse. Flexible scheduling for new nurses helps facilitate work-life balance.
Of course, you won’t be so lenient that your current staff is carrying the load. Make sure both the new hires and the established nursing staff understand this is only part of the onboarding process.
Above All Else Learn to Communicate Effectively
One of the most essential and effective parts of every component of the onboarding process is stellar communication. When you possess excellent communication skills, your new hires, mentors, and established nurses have clear expectations of the job. A clear understanding of responsibilities and job expectations and a simple but concise description of the job ensures everyone knows and understands their role.
If you are concerned you lack the proper communication skills then work on them. There truly is no more effective tool in any exchange than possessing the ability to communicate clearly and well.
BOS Medical Staffing for Onboarding Success
Your healthcare organization can have onboarding success when you incorporate these components into your onboarding process. For further information and help with any healthcare HR tasks please contact BOS Medical Staffing. Together we’ll ensure an easy onboarding for your new nurses.
