What are the Workplace Conditions that Retain Nurses, Minimize Turnover and Increase Job Satisfaction?
The factors influencing nursing job satisfaction and retention have been studied intensely and repeatedly for over 20 years. If the factors contributing to the current crisis in nursing have become increasingly well understood, then many of the solutions surely have, for many years, been just as clear. The more important variable, we submit, is the political will (at all levels) to implement the changes and strategies we know are central to creating high-quality workplaces. After reviewing 23 Canadian nursing workforce studies, the Canadian Nurses Association and Canadian Healthcare Association issued a joint report in 1990 concluding that there was a clear indication of “growing dissatisfaction among nurses over the past decade” with “limited attention given to their concerns.” That report alone reviewed nearly 600 recommendations to remedy the problems. Ten years ago, Irvine and Evans conducted a meta-analysis of 70 studies that identified factors contributing to enhanced nursing job
