Supporting Novice Nurses

Most novice nurses don’t feel ready for practice.

To address this challenge, many nurse leaders are nurturing an encouraging culture that helps new nurses to feel welcomed, valued, and supported throughout their entire nursing career journeys.

An environment that supports these nurses hinges on helping them gain confidence in their skills, offering resources to fuel their professional growth, and providing avenues for coaching and conversations about their daily work and future aspirations. A well-rounded approach can positively impact the trajectory of novice nurses’ careers.

Nurse leaders shared their challenges, experiences, and strategies for recruiting, engaging, and retaining novice nurses during Elsevier’s virtual roundtable, Beat the Burnout: How to Support & Retain Novice Nurses and their Educators. Included among the concerns they are experiencing:

• Ongoing staff shortages and constant recruitment due to low retention

• New nurses’ limited understanding of job responsibilities and career opportunities

• Lack of feedback and overall dissatisfaction among new nurses

Strengthening recruitment and retention

Create a sense of belonging. Novice nurses need leadership support and resources to stay, grow and excel. Most importantly, they need to feel each day that they are seen, heard, and valued in a safe and inclusive work environment. There are many ways to foster belonging. Key among them is demonstrating that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a core organizational value. Finding out why nurses choose to enter the profession and finding ways to bring their individual creative, organizational and other skills and talents to the organization can also help new nurses feel valued.

Understanding job responsibilities and growth opportunities

Put learning first. While learning starts with a robust orientation built on a foundation of evidence-based practice, it should also prioritize professional skills development such as communication, teamwork, empathy, and problem-solving. This can give new nurses a baseline to begin their integration into the professional workforce while providing important patient-facing skills.

Strengthening communication and improving satisfaction

Instill communication in your organization’s culture. A supportive environment that prioritizes communication can help improve nurse engagement and foster a sense of community while ensuring accountability. Additionally, nurse leaders can take advantage of opportunities to be relatable and supportive of their teams and show up as authentic leaders by outwardly communicating in a variety of settings. From open town halls with residents, to peer support groups for new graduate nurses, surrounding novice nurses with opportunities to have their voices heard is the best way to help them build confidence and assure them that they’re an important part of the organization.