Evaluating emergency nurse leader capacity to reduce first-year employee turnover

2019-04-26RN turnover is steadily increasing across all nursing disciplines. The overall turnover rate for first-year RNs is presently around 29% and it continues to outpace overall department turnover. Of the different nursing specialties, emergency nursing has the highest overall turnover rate of 19.0% annually and continues to exceed the national average rate of 17.2%. This field-based evaluation study explored first-year turnover in hospital emergency departments and how the competencies of emergency nurse leaders can influence turnover. A comprehensive review of desired leader competencies was guided by the Leadership Competency Framework established by the American Nurses Association. This framework was used to assess emergency nurse leader’s knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences to manage employee performance. The group of participants in the study is a small, non-representative sample of the field of emergency nursing. Therefore, global generalizations were not made about the data gathered. Information collected is a representation of only the participants in this study. Key areas found in the data include a need for leaders to review their department’s turnover metrics, individual leadership and communication style, and coaching methods to positively affect department operations. Emergency nurse leaders reported a high degree of confidence in these areas but a larger sampling of leaders is needed to accurately assess competence in these areas. Lack of organizational support for leadership development and accountability was also found in the data. Future studies are recommended on the administrator-director relationship and the evolving role of the charge nurse due to their impact in the emergency department. The study concluded with recommended solutions to close gaps in emergency nurse leaders’ knowledge, as well as provided motivational, and organizational recommendations for implementation