10 | 5 Staffing Strategies for Engaged Nurses Better Patient Outcomes
M
anaging staff scheduling and ensuring open
shifts are filled is an ongoing challenge for
every healthcare organization. Matching
staff with patients in a way that meets patient care
needs, minimizes costs and satisfies staff can seem
nearly impossible.
In an effort to meet those challenges, many
health systems are falling into common staffing
and scheduling pitfalls. However, a new staffing
methodology called Collaborative Staffing can help
health systems avoid those pitfalls. Collaborative
Staffing is a ground-up model that empowers
employees to be part of the solution in deploying the
workforce to ensure optimal patient coverage and
minimize labor costs.
Here's a closer look at three common staffing and
scheduling pitfalls and how to avoid them through
the use of Collaborative Staffing:
Pitfall 1: Driving the staffing
process from the top down, with
limited employee involvement.
With a 'manager-directed' approach, unit managers
and/or a central staffing office are responsible and
accountable for creating staffing plans and filling
staffing needs. This top-down approach gives
nurses and other frontline staff very little input or
insight into the staffing process. With limited visibility
into the schedule creation process or where there
are gaps in staff coverage, the staff can do little to
be part of the solution: the weight of staffing and
scheduling tasks falls squarely on the shoulders of
the managers. But managers' time would be better
spent mentoring staff and focused on strategic
initiatives like quality or patient safety, rather than
the routine tasks of managing staffing coverage.
Staff know their preferences and availability better
than managers. By giving them control over the
shifts they pick up, they enjoy better work/life
balance and an increased sense of autonomy. That
delivers widespread benefits. When nurses feel their
work environment is empowering, they are more
committed to the organization and report high
quality of care in their units.
1
As the name implies, Collaborative Staffing is a staff-
partnered process that empowers employees by
giving them visibility into organizational needs and
a voice that enables them to be part of the solution.
With the Collaborative Staffing model, staffing
and scheduling is a joint effort between managers
and staff to fill open shifts in a way that meets
patient care needs and takes employee skills and
preferences into account.
Pitfall 2: Staffing in silos, with little
regard for matching staff with
patient needs enterprise-wide.
When each unit is solely focused on their own
staffing needs, there's not an opportunity to
develop a staffing strategy that benefits the
entire organization. A lack of transparency across
units makes it difficult for available staff in one
unit to fill staffing holes in another unit. That
means that while a nurse is being sent home for
HOW TO AVOID 3 COMMON STAFFING
AND SCHEDULING PITFALLS
Written by Karlene Kerfoot, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
