Mercy’s Nursing Retention Breakthrough: 6 Key Strategies (Sponsor Letter)

Marie Moore, Chief Nursing Officer for Mercy Springfield Communities

All successful organizations surely have a list of both “nailed it” and “failed it” moments. Below I’ve shared lessons learned from one of our most recent nailed it moments. Hospitals across the country have seen increased rates of turnover in their nursing workforces, and Mercy was no exception. We set out on an ambitious plan to recruit and retain like never before. A key piece to our success was the creation of the Gig Nursing platform that would allow both Mercy nurses and others across our region to pick up shifts that fit their schedules and to be a part of our team with maximum flexibility. Springfield Communities were the first in the Mercy ministry to do this, and it’s now been adopted across the organization.

In gaining a deeper understanding of our co-workers’ needs, here’s what we learned:

Use Existing Teams to Identify Improvements
We hosted open forums and one-on-one meetings with co-workers to stay connected and understand what challenges they were facing. These folks pointed out pain points and areas of inconsistency that needed correction.

Engage Your Informal Leaders
Every organization has informal leaders who act as sounding boards and glue for their teams, so pull them into the conversation. These are the co-workers who are expressing interest in going the extra mile and sharing their opinion and are often thinking of ideas and solutions already.

Sort Through Ideas and Implement Some Quick Win
We knew it would take us awhile to roll out the Gig Nursing platform, and we wanted our team to see action early on. To do that, we identified a few things that could give us a quick win. We found our team was asking for some simple things along with the bigger changes. They wanted a daily huddle and an open forum to brainstorm ideas, so we launched those things right away and they became regular touchpoints throughout the process.

Explain The No
When we had to say no to an idea, we made sure to explain why to our co-workers. We did this so they understood the limitations we were working with and knew we had heard them and weren’t just ignoring a request.

Have Top Leaders Visibly Engaged
Luckily, our leaders were willing to make big changes, but we had to have some uncomfortable conversations. It took top leaders engaging and walking side-by-side with co-workers to make it clear there was organization support. I think this helped diffuse frustration when disfunction popped up. Everyone knew we were working through this together, and it created physiological safety and trust.

Set Metrics to Measure Success
To make sure our changes were correcting the pain points we had set out to address, we set key success metrics. Specifically, we looked at co-worker satisfaction and turnover rates to measure success, and more than a year after the rollout, we’re still checking in on these metrics and making adjustments to meet the market and co-worker needs.

These core principles made all the difference in Mercy’s nursing attraction and retention efforts and I suspect they will serve as a guide when tackling other organizational challenges. Maybe there’s something here that can help lead others to their next nailed it moment.

—Marie Moore, Chief Nursing Officer