Frontline leaders are critical to promoting a healthy culture, retaining frontline staff, and delivering positive employee and patient experiences. To understand their impact and factors that influence it, Laudio and AONL published a joint report last year called Quantifying Nurse Manager Impact. Leveraging data from Laudio Insights – covering 200,000+ frontline employees – it provides visibility into the measurable impact managers have on system goals and factors that can heighten, or hinder, it.
A key section in the report looked at the impact of purposeful leader-team member interactions* on retaining nurses, finding that one purposeful interaction each month is associated with a 7 percentage point improvement in retention, a first of its kind data point on the power of meaningful interactions in healthcare. While that might seem obvious to some, a perhaps less obvious finding was that not all touchpoints produce the same result. In other words, some types of interactions were more impactful than others. Below are all the types of engagements with a positive effect, but let’s dig in a little more…
Recognition-related interactions have the highest impact on nurse retention.
The Laudio Insights data analysis showed that recognizing employees had the biggest impact on retention – positive engagements producing positive results for workforce stability. So what does this look like? This could be thanking staff for taking on extra shifts or for a job well done. However, these acts are often difficult to track especially if a team member works nights or weekends or the manager has 50+ direct reports, as is commonly the case today.
Many organizations, including UNC Health, have found it helpful to leverage technology to surface personalized recognition opportunities to managers and make it easy for them to send a quick thank you. Their leaders also leverage technology to send surveys to staff asking how they’d like to be recognized and rewarded. For the organization's Director of Culture, Engagement, and Retention, Ingrid Jones, it is this regular recognition, acknowledgment, and appreciation that is foundational to fostering an attractive organizational culture.
Celebration-related interactions follow, increasing retention by 2.0x
Recognizing team members’ birthdays, work anniversaries, or professional development accomplishments is comparably important – and can be similarly hard to keep track of with manual processes, disparate data, and large teams. For organizations like MemorialCare, using technology to centralize all of this information in one place and make it easy for managers to act on in a timely fashion was essential. As Annabelle Braun, CNO at MemoialCare’s Orange Coast Medical Center notes, “it is these little acts of kindness that add to the hospital culture, creating an environment that people want to be a part of.”
North Mississippi Health Services similarly leverages manager-focused technology to send automated reminders to help nurse managers keep up with key milestones and events, freeing up leaders’ time and making these impactful engagements with their team members more feasible.
All check-in types have an impact, but those focused on burnout improve retention most.
Checking in is another key way leaders can support their staff and show they care. At Boston Medical Center, nursing leaders are using technology to let nurse managers know when it's time to check in with team members and also to track time and attendance trends to proactively identify those at elevated turnover. UNC Health is doing the same: When one nurse manager realized one of his teammates was working beyond their scheduled shifts, it prompted him to check in and thank them – and support going home on time. “Six weeks later they are staying over much less.”
Meaningful manager-employee interactions can go a long way in creating a positive culture, regardless of the type. That’s why enabling them is such a priority for hospitals and health systems. As these stories show, technology can be a powerful tool, making it easier to facilitate these connections and enhance culture, engagement, and retention. To learn more about the impact of nurse managers and how to maintain consistent, purposeful interactions, download the Quantifying Nurse Manager Impact report.
Disclosure: A MemorialCare affiliate has made an investment in Laudio. Any quotes or content attributed to MemorialCare or any of its staff do not constitute a product endorsement or testimonial.
* What did the report define as purposeful?
- Interactions documented by the manager in their local working files (e.g., sent email, completed new hire check-in, added note to personnel folder, scheduled follow-up reminder)
- Interactions that are specific to the work or behavior of the individual employee in the categories of celebration and recognition, check-ins, and corrective actions, with a small percentage of other/non-categorized interactions