Turnaround Artist
Taking on a role commoly assumed by an RN, a nurse recruitment/retention coordinator successfully contributes to hight satifaction rates among staff, lower turnover

By Phil McPeck
September 4, 2003

It's such a familiar refrain in health care, particularly among nurses, that jaws probably drop when RNs hear why Linda Youngblood left the furniture industry to become a nurse retention coordinator for Centra Health's Lynchburg General Hospital in Virginia.

"I'd been in management for 13 years and I'd had enough of the stress and the hours and no life outside of work," said Youngblood, who has a bachelor's degree in organizational management, but no nursing experience. She joined Centra Health five years ago and-under a new vice president of nursing who had a reputation for accessibility-was promoted into what is traditionally a nurse's role.

Youngblood said the key to retention, which is inexorably tied to nurses' self-image and satisfaction, is hearing nurses, not just listening to them. "A lot of times you have to go out seeking what their issues are," she said. "They're so busy and so tied up with their own lives with work and family and all, they may not come to you."

RNs are encouraged to raise issues with their supervisors and unit managers, Youngblood said, but, "we all know that sometimes that's not the most comfortable route to go. So you have to ask."

And ask she does, not once, but repeatedly. It begins with orientation: "We talk about work-life balance, taking care of yourself and getting your priorities straight. I have such a passion for that because I've been there," Youngblood said.

Orientation is followed up with 10-question surveys at three- and six-month intervals to assess staffers' experience in the organization. Also, "about twice a year we try to invite them to a breakfast or dinner with our senior vice president of nursing or CEO to hear what their concerns are," Youngblood said.

The effect of Youngblood's involvement, as well as the open-door policy of Golden Bethune, MSN, RN, CNAA, senior vice president of patient services, speaks for itself. At Lynchburg General and Virginia Baptist hospitals, a 14.3 percent turnover rate among nurses in 2000 fell to 9 percent at the end of 2002, and continues to drop. Absenteeism is dramatically lower, too, among other signs that the staff is being heard.

"The nurse-sensitive indicators all are moving in the right direction," Bethune said of the use of patient restraints, medication errors, patient satisfaction levels and other measures of nurses' performance.

Centra Health also recently hired a North Carolina firm to conduct employee satisfaction surveys and create plans of action for its hospitals.

Youngblood said she's gained a wealth of clinical knowledge and added that plenty of nursing resources are available when she needs them, but people issues tend to be the same from industry to industry.

"What I hear most is that nurses take a lot of pride in what they do. They feel good about what they do and they want to know that their organization appreciates their role and values the role they play," she said.

As a recruiter hiring as many as 70 new RN graduates a year, Youngblood is a front-row witness to the rapidly changing face of nursing, from the frustrations of baby boomers and older nurses, to the perceptions of high schoolers, middle schoolers and even grade schoolers who won't become nurses unless they at least consider it a rewarding profession.

Of veteran nurses, she said, "You used to have more time to spend with a patient, you could get to know the patient. You could care personally for that patient and they really miss that. You have that frustration that nursing has changed; how they nursed when they started their careers and how they nurse now is very different," she said.

Additionally, patient acuity is much higher than it used to be.

But Youngblood, who at age 51 can empathize with veteran RNs, said she is optimistic on the future of nursing because of the younger nurses she sees. They include second- or third-career nurses of all ages. "They seem so mature and they are so excited about their roles," she said.

Youngblood said she is fortunate that locally she can tap bachelor's of nursing degree programs at Liberty University and Lynchburg College, as well as Centra Health's own diploma program for new staff. "Of course, they do their clinicals here," she said, and that's where success-which is a key component of job satisfaction-begins.

Centra also has an extern program for senior-year students, in which they are paid and work one-on-one with a preceptor, in exchange for a one-year employment commitment after they graduate.

Youngblood's influence begins well before college, though, encouraging teens and preteens, girls and boys, to think of nursing as a career. Most receptive, she said, are those who have family members in a health profession or a parent, grandparent or other close relative who has had good nursing care. Those who have never had exposure to nursing usually don't consider making it their careers.

"I keep in my office the Johnson & Johnson video and brochures, a packet of information on nursing as a career, salaries, where to go to school and the type of classes you will need," Youngblood said.

The television-produced glamour of pediatrics, labor and delivery, and emergency and operating room nursing creates a lot of interest, but there also is legal nursing, corporate nursing and teaching. "You can pretty much do anything with nursing," Youngblood said. "Our job is to expose them to all areas of nursing, show them all the possibilities, not just bedside nursing."