One of our new forum members Krishna had some interesting thoughts on the changing nursing workforce. So much that we thought it deserved a blog post. We’d be really interested to hear your views so share them below!
She has been nursing for 30 years and says she has noticed a shift in “life values” between the 70′s-80′s trained nurse and the upcoming young grads of today.
“But this isn’t a bad thing,” she says.
“In the 80′s we looked up to Alan Bond and Christopher Skase for ‘how to make a quid’. Well…really…where did that get us? We worked and worked, to pay for the pools, the McMansions, the overseas travel, the gadgets. We commuted for up to two hours a day to work….are we insane?
Then the ‘new breed‘ came. The grads who go part-time after a year or two. The “life-stylers. I take my hat off to them. Sure they want to travel, but they don’t yearn for the stuff we did.
Where does that leave the nursing profession? With not many 3rd-6th year nurses working full-time?
Have a look around your ward. How many are “babies” newly graduated, how many are in the middle group and how many of us “crusties’ are on your staffing profile? Where are the 3rd-6th years??
If we look in to the future of the nursing workforce we have to understand what drives the newly graduated today. It is certainly not the hierarchical response of the past (do as I say.) They have the power to leave. And this will impact on our profession significantly within the next 10 years.
The change is happening. So, for example, when NSW health wants to trial “pattern rostering” like in Hunter New England, why would a young person stay?
What is happening in the private sector? Or, more significantly, in aged care? The vitriol is alive and well with the ‘party’ spin-doctors but let’s see what really unfolds. A “Hung parliament” might actually be a good thing to shake up the two major parties. We’ll “watch this space.”
Bernhard agrees that there are more RNs of less than five years post-grad experience in areas that used to have regular ‘long-term’ nursing staff.
What do you think? What is your staffing profile made up of? What drives the new graduate today?
Image credit: University of Miami.
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” What drives the new graduate? ”
I think, only THEY can answer that.
As a beginner ‘old crustie’ ( Ie., minimum of being 8th T/A x 2 plus, or 20 years ), it’s hard to say, what young people are actually thinking, when they enter Nursing.
I would have to say, when I first started off in the ‘new’ course in 1985, we had people come into Nursing to get a headstart in Science courses; as Police Officers; as Social Workers, and of course, some were there for the ‘social life’, just like many other Uni. courses on campus.
In the first course ( the one I did anyway ), we had 91 start, and only 33 graduated. What does that say? That it was a hard course to pass? That the teachers made it tough for some, so they left? That some students just gave up, and withdrew? That some students changed career choice mid course?( all of the above were true to a point )
Of the 33 that passed, there were only three (3 ) males. ( Actually, I was not one of that group, as I moved onto another course to finish third year ) I’m not going to put up a ‘whinge’ here, but I did find it a bit hard to get through certain elements of the course, due to the ‘attitude’ of some of the ‘old school’ teachers on the first diploma courses.
But back to what drives today’s new nurses?
As a first year out, it’s not the money….
Myself, when I was a first year RN, I was looking for a long term future. Nursing got me out of driving taxis in Sydney for ten years ( probably saved my life – but then, I willing went into psych nursing, so make sense of that ! )
We all have to admit, that beyond the issues of pay and conditions, nurses can go almost anywhere and get a job, both in and out of Australia.
After your basic degree, you can train up for any of over forty ( I think it’s actually 45 now ) specialty areas of ‘nursing’. No other degree allows such flexability in the workforce.
For many, there’s the concept of ‘Pro Utliate Homium’ ( For The Service of Mankind ), and all the ideals of a ‘service ‘ industry to cater for those who feel the ‘calling’ of a profession that needs to be there. Someone has to do it. A bit like, there has to be police, the military, teachers, etc. even taxi drivers !
I’ve stuck with Nursing ( even though I’ve had little breaks along the way, and worked for DoCS and the Transit Officers on the Sydney trains ), I still kept up casual shifts. So I can say, I’ve never really been away from Nursing for more than a few weeks at a time, over the past twenty years. ( and that means, I’ve never taken a full entitlement of Annular Leave all at once – never ! ) That’s another benefit of the industry – you can hold two or more jobs at once, and always keep up with your Nursing skills.
Great replies, I have undertaken further study , in another degree,which has many links , to the workforce and the how planning other factors may effect it , being an RN since 1998, having graduated from a Uni which no longer has an under grad program, I have looked at many sources of research on workplace and values and conflicts between them, with regard to nursing retention , skill mix ,WHO forcasts,its impact on the current nurses stress levels and organisational opportunities available to help with this , I came up with no cohesive answers as the data did not, globallay represent and account for the complexity within which nurses perform their normal duties , summursiation and anaecdotal evidence , is sometimes struck off us unimportant to the statistics which forcus mainly on outdated models of data collection, the only accurate picture and that is even up for debate in the literature is that one premise remains , we have an aging population with a great majority of nurses reaching retirement age within the next ten years , the output of Uni places is not supported by funding to ultimately meet demand.various sourses provided indicators of shortfalls , namely a study by the USQ, but how accurate can the findings be if, and the retorts of it, if the questions asked are not applicable ?. If in establishing goals, how can we, if the benchmarks , or collection methods lack vital features, like What causes nurses to leave and how it is quantified accurately , the current data , suggests a good standard when dealing with an Art and a science an example of this could be the stats on waiting times and the Yellow book as not indicative of actual/potentials for growth of ideas needed to develope nurses. This can also suggest a lack of Organisational commitment to provision of good info,eg the data , relies on skill mix for which we are currently voting on, we need to change completley the organisation structure of nurses careers through more research of the frontlines and how it affects and effects retention , to provide for the massive demographic shifts of the future, I can be wrong sometimes , and Jaded but aging workforce and this not being separate from the nursing workforce as they are apart of the population are subject to the same , shifts in demographic changes. Input od and demands of and what makes things attractive for nurses to stay needs to be seriously looked at, just some thoughts , and again the training of nurses and their retention may be impacted by , their ability to have direct influence on the organisational structures for which they work . From a personal level maybe Our importance needs to be significantly more recognised and acknowledged , as at the end of the day we are usually the ones holding the hands of patients. Our intrinsic love of caring can be offset by poor organisational inclusion of our needs to grow and expand our roles , again another , thought , we as a profession have alot to consider !