The Strategic Plan on Nurses’ Shortage
The deficit of nurses in organizations has become a developing concern, in particular with the increase in the number of healthcare organizations. As a nurse executive, I think the need for an adequate number of nurses necessitates the creation of a strategic plan that will handle this growing challenge through improvement on education to nurses with the aim of improving their performance. The purpose of this paper is to describe a strategic plan that will handle this problem of the shortage of nurses using the SWOT analysis.
Key Concepts of the Strategic Plan
| Stakeholders involved in the planning process | Stakeholder | Rationale |
| Chair of the Governing body Chief Executive Officer
Chief Financial Officer
Chief Nursing Officer | To oversee the planning process. To provide guidance on the best methods that the plan can use to conform to the daily roles of nurses. To help the financial capabilities of the organization to meet the plan’s requirements. To protect the interest of the nurses during the strategic planning process. | |
| Internal Influence | Strengths. The organization has an excellent working environment for all members. This environment provides the opportunity for the organization to have a unified and industrial workforce. [1] | |
| Weaknesses. The organization’s weaknesses manifest in the little incentives and its failure to provide opportunities for the nursing staff to advance their education. | ||
| External influence | Opportunities The external influences include the opportunities that the organization has to solve the nurses’ shortage situation. They include the available promotion opportunities since the team is still growing and the organization’s stable financial capability. | |
| Threats The threats that face the team have the lack of official having leadership positions to improve their competence through getting training on good governance. | ||
Recommendations
Organizations should prioritize the improvement of the education levels of its staff. This step would promote the morale for the nurses since they will have confidence in their potential to raise the ranks of the organization due to their additional education (Bognanno & Melero, 2016). [2]This possibility for promotion opportunities will eventually make the nurses retain their jobs in the organization as they wait for their development.
Additionally, the team should focus on improving the motivation of the nurses through better incentives. The situations that warrant incentives to be given to the nurses should be increased to make it easy for them to reward. These will make the nurses feel more appreciated by the organization (Adzei & Atinga, 2012). Thus, the nurses will become loyal to the team since they will prefer to work in an organization that appreciates their efforts.
Supporting Evidence
Additional education of the nurses will make them maintain their employment positions in their particular organizations. According to Nardi and Gyurko (2013), the nurses are interested in organizations that provide opportunities for them to improve their education levels. These makes organizations with lucrative educational sponsorship programs to get more nurses. Thus, my organization has to provide programs to get this kind of nurses.
Further, the organization has to improve the organization’s rewarding program. Incentives are necessary to address the issue of nurses’ job dissatisfaction, stress, and burnouts. The nurses prefer organizations that would give them incentives that are equal to their efforts. If case the incentives are not satisfactory, they tend to leave their teams for others. Hence, organizations eventually lack adequate nurses (Toh et al., 2012).
Moreover, organizations with better quality reimbursement policies tend to retain their workforce than those that lack. According to Littlejohn et al. (2012), some nurses leave their organizations when they fail to get adequate compensation for the expenses that they incur when they perform proper work functions.[3] This inadequate compensation discourages their work morale and makes them join other organizations.
Conclusion
Organizations need a strategic plan to address the issue of insufficient nurses. The strategy advocates for the organizations to improve their incentive programs and provide excellent opportunities for nurses to improve their education. If implemented, the plan will resolve the challenge of having a shortage of nurses in organizations, and organizations will operate with an adequate capacity of nurses.
References
Adzei, F. A., & Atinga, R. A. (2012). Motivation and retention of health workers in Ghana’s district hospitals: Addressing the critical issues. Journal of Health Organization and Management, 26(4), 467-485. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14777261211251535
Bognanno, M., & Melero, E. (2016). Promotion signals experience and education. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 25(1), 111-132. doi: 10.1111/jems.12132
Littlejohn, L., Campbell, J., Collins-McNeil, J., & Khayile, T. (2012). Nursing shortage: A comparative analysis. International Journal of Nursing, 1(1), 22-27. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2f04/3655702f516a24e0774ce6ea67a7e7f435c3.pdf
Nardi, D. A., & Gyurko, C. C. (2013). The global nursing faculty shortage: Status and solutions for change. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 45(3), 317-326. doi: 10.1111/jnu.12030
Toh, S. G., Ang, E., & Devi, M. K. (2012). A systematic review of the relationship between the nursing shortage and job satisfaction, stress and burnout levels among nurses in oncology/ hematology settings. International Journal of Evidence‐based Healthcare, 10(2), 126-141. doi:10.1111/j.1744-1609.2012.00271.x
[1] Toh et al. (2012) argues that an environment that supports employees to work without feeling pressured helps increase their interest in what they do. Focusing on ensuring that employees are not only part of policymaking but policies are also made to improve their wellbeing from their physical and job security helps improve their efficiency. Additionally, such measures may also create an opportunity to foster teamwork among employees (Toh et al., 2012).
[2] Bognanno and Melero (2016) argue that educating employees equips them with new skills in the market that help them tackle new problems they encounter in their work. With new treatment procedures and options available for patients, educating nurses or encouraging them to further their education exposes them to these interventions. Incorporating such knowledge in their years of experience is a move that can improve the health sector.
[3] Employee compensation should align with their work and competitive (Littlejohn et al., 2012).
