Introduction
Nurses play a crucial role in the health care sector. In the recent years, there have been a shortage of nurses, and this has resulted in many researches to identify some of the factors that may be causing the low numbers of students opting to take nursing courses. Most of the nurses in service are old, and will soon retire. It is therefore, crucial to identify some of the factors that cause this profession to experience such a high shortage of nurses. The article by Laschinger explores how graduate nurses view their jobs. It focuses on job dissatisfaction, and turnovers. Nursing is a challenging career, and requires a person who understands and haves passion for taking care of others it also requires a lot of commitment as one my be away from family members at odd hours during the day or night depending on their shifts. These and other work challenges may be the cause of job and career dissatisfaction and turnover intentions (Laschinger, 2012).
Discussion
In this article, Laschinger sites several reasons as to why graduate nurses leave the profession after working for only a few years. The article sites personal dispositional factors, situational factors and graduate support structures as the main predictors that initiate job dissatisfaction, and the need to look for a different job among nurses. Personality characteristics play a crucial role in determining a person’s ability to cope with challenging work environment. This is the case for nursing graduates who may feel overwhelmed in the current challenging and unfriendly work environment. Personally, I think that the graduate nurses feel under pressure, and due to lack of experience in the field, they feel drained hence, they decide to look for other lee stressful careers. Core self-evaluation (CSE) plays a crucial role in shaping one views of their work. These include self-esteem, self-efficacy, control and emotional stability. Nurses need to have a strong and passionate personality that will see them through different situations with the patients and physicians. When one has a low self-esteem or self-efficacy, then they may feel exhausted within a short period. Burnout occurs due to emotional stress at work, and in some cases at home. Younger nurses have a low coping experience as compared to older nurses, hence the increased risk of them changing their careers. The work environments affect their emotions, increase the risk of experiencing burnouts among the young nurses, and increase the risk of low retentions.
In the research, Laschinger found that younger nurses in their second year of service after graduation recorded a higher level of self-evaluation. This may be due to the experience they have gained during their first year of working in the health facility. Leadership is a crucial aspect of nurses. This is because most nurses’ look up to those in leadership positions to guide them during their first years at work. Good leaders will provide a good and manageable work conditions. This gives one a good feel of the career hence they will want to continue working in the field. Leadership strategy is therefore, according to Laschinger, the best approach to use in order to improve the view of new graduate nursing to the nursing profession. Personally, I believe that having a positive and good leader who can mentor a nurse to see everyday challenges as part of any nurse’s day as the best way to shape a positive working culture for all new nurses.
Situational factors also influence how a nurse feels. Issues like structural empowerment play a crucial role in shaping the general view of nurses to their career. Everyone requires a place of work where they have autonomy, access to resources and information and numerous opportunities to learn and grow. When nurses feel that they are not part of the organization, they lose focus, and may not feel motivated to work in the organization. It is therefore, crucial to have an organizational structure that ensures nurses feel as part of it, which in turn will ensure nurse retention. Burnout also comes from bad organizational structures that do not support the needs of nurses. Various outcomes result from bad organizational structure like mental and physical health issues.
Everyone requires a work place where they feel empowered in different parts of their careers. These factors influence how the employees respond to their work. Nursing requires control and a sense of autonomy. When a nurse feels that she has no control over the situation, then he or she may become emotionally, and physically drained leading to burnout and other health related problems. There is therefore, a need to develop a positive working relationship to ensure that nurses have a positive experience during their early years working as nurses (Erickson & Grove, 2007). The six areas of work life has huge impact on how new nurses view their career, and their decision to stay in the nursing field. These are manageable workload, control over issues, rewards, fairness in rewards and duty allocation, community and person-job evaluation of value congruence.
Bullying by other older nurses and others in the health profession also plays a key role in shaping job and career satisfaction among new nurses. The new graduates need to worry about their different duties within the hospital and not about bullies at work. Bullying is an issue that is rarely addressed in many researches on nursing experience. The article shows that bullying exposure is worse during the second year of practice as compared to the first year after graduation. This affects the nurses’ experience hance, may force one to look for another career with less intimidation as compared to nursing. This results in emotional strain for the nurses that also cause burnout among them. This is a serious issue, and it needs intervention as many nurses feel intimidated once they experience bullying. I agree with the article on the fact that bullying has a negative impact on younger nurses who will view the career as unfulfilling.
The article sites that there is a gap in the transition process. Most health organizations fail to give nurses sufficient orientation to guide them on various aspects of the job. New nurses deal with complex issues during their first years of going to work. Organizations lack good support systems that can help nurses integrate and be part of the organization. In most cases, orientation in health faculties entails the normal procedure of taking the nurses through various issues. After that, the nurses are on their own with no one to look up to. I agree with the article in the aspect that organizations need to come up with additional orientation processes to help new nurses know more about the nursing career as compared to orientations that take through the basics only. This does not entail giving the nurses different preceptor or a team approach as it may be confusing for the nurses. Different people have different approaches to different issues. This also applies to nurses. One nurse may choose to deal with an issue in different way as compared to another nurse in the same situation. It is therefore, confusing for a new nurse when they have a team approach. This results in a high turnover level for nurses in their first year if they have a high number of preceptors (Berkman & Reise, 2012).
Conclusion
Everyone needs to have a positive working environment where the ix working factors are taken into consideration. Without these factors, nurses feel that they are not in the right profession. This explains the high turnover rates witnessed among new nurses. It is crucial to create a good working environment for nurses, especially those who just graduated. One graduates with a clear picture of what they expect once they begin working. When they find that everything is not as they expected, then the chances of them looking for another career due to job dissatisfaction is high. Different factors are interrelated, and they play a crucial role in determining how nurses view their job and its demands. It is therefore, urgent to find possible ways of creating a positive working environment that addresses different issues that may cause employee dissatisfaction in the nursing sector. Burnout is a serious issue among nurses especially the young nurses. It is therefore, crucial to have measures put into place to ensure that nurses do not experience burnout.
References
Berkman, E. T., & Reise, S. P. (2012). A conceptual guide to statistics using SPSS. Los
Angeles: Sage.
Erickson, R., Grove, W., (October 29, 2007). "Why Emotions Matter: Age, Agitation, and Burnout Among Registered Nurses" Online Journal of Issues in Nursing. Vol. 13, No. 1.
Laschinger, H. K. S. (2012). Job and career satisfaction and turnover intentions of newly
graduated nurses. Journal of Nursing Management, 20(4), 272-284
