Elsevier

Journal of Professional Nursing

Volume 33, Issue 4, July–August 2017, Pages 261-266
Journal of Professional Nursing

Original Articles
College nursing faculty job satisfaction and retention: A national perspective

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2017.01.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Work environment can increase job satisfaction.

  • A supportive work environment is crucial in recruitment and retention.

  • Age was negatively related to intent to stay.

  • Younger employees report longer stay than older employees.

  • Work factors are related to faculty job satisfaction and intent to stay.

Abstract

The need for registered nurses in the United States continues to grow. To meet this need for increased numbers of nurses, recruitment and retention of qualified nurse educators has become a priority. In addition, the factors associated with nursing faculties' intent to stay have emerged as important considerations for administrators. The concepts of job satisfaction and intent to stay become vital to recruiting and retaining nursing faculty. In the past decade few empirical studies have been conducted on a national scale to address job satisfaction and intent to stay in academia. The purpose of this retrospective study is to analyze variables of relationships with nurse faculty job satisfaction and intent to stay from data collected throughout the United States. The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) survey was employed for the purposes of this study. Over 1350 nurse educators were included in the survey. The findings support a variety of modifiable variables that are viewed as important by nursing faculty. The strongest relationship was found to be institutional leadership. The implications can inform academic administrators seeking to retain nursing faculty.

Section snippets

College nursing faculty and retention: A national perspective

The struggle continues in higher education to achieve and maintain a faculty with the recommended academic and experiential qualifications needed for delivery of nursing programs. The increasing faculty vacancies are directly impacting the supply of nurses available for the workforce (Derby-Davis, 2014). In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) added a sense of urgency to the struggle to recruit faculty by calling for an increase in baccalaureate and graduate prepared nurses by 2020. To meet

Faculty workplace satisfaction and retention

College faculty members draw their workplace satisfaction, and ultimately their intention to remain at an institution, from a variety of factors (O'Meara, Lounder, & Campbell, 2014). Conley and Onder (2014) focused on the importance of mentoring within a department, particularly among early-career scholars. Meng, Liu, and Xu (2014) found that administrative behaviors and culture framed an environment where faculty chose to stay or leave. Sanfey, Savas, and Hollands (2006) noted the importance

Healthy work environments in nursing education

Multiple studies have investigated the impact of a healthy work environment in promoting patient safety, promoting excellence in nursing practice, and improving recruitment and retention of nurses in clinical practice. However, little evidence was found to address the impact of the work environment on nursing faculty's recruitment and retention. In work by Kuehn (2010), findings suggested “a supportive, healthy work environment as one factor in caring for others and is crucial in recruitment

Data

This study utilized a secondary data source from the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education [COACHE] (n.d.). The data source has been collected by a consortium of over 200 colleges, universities, and systems across North America committed to making the academic workplace more attractive and equitable for faculty. For decades, the consortium administered a job satisfaction survey, collected, and stored the data. For this study, a request to COACHE was made to extract all data

Demographic variables and measures

As reported in Table 1, results did not indicate a significant relation between age and job satisfaction (r = 0.01, p > 0.05). Age did, however, demonstrate a statistically significant negative relationship with intent to stay (r =  0.52, p < 0.01). These findings indicate that younger employees report that they plan to remain with their current institution longer than older employees who may be close to retirement. In contrast, the results of independent means t-tests (see Table 1) did not indicate

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to explore the intent to stay and job satisfaction of nursing faculty members as it correlated to a variety of personal and professional variables, including demographics, rank, institutional type, and perceptions of factors related to the work environment. The findings can serve institutions in identifying the modifiable variables that can be changed to attract and retain nursing faculty.

Several key considerations were revealed to support efforts in the

Limitations

Using secondary data analysis has a few disadvantages. Dunn, Arslanian-Engoren, DeKoekkoek, Jadack, and Scott (2015) noted there could be problems with the original research hypothesis or the question(s) not being a good fit for secondary data analysis. The original researcher cannot customize the secondary data that was collected for the hypothesis or research questions being asked by later researchers. Furthermore, later researchers can only analyze the existing data and consequently cannot

Conclusion

Even though the nation anticipates a deficit of over 260,000 by 2025, expansion of programs of nursing are hampered by the ballooning demand for nursing faculty by 2020 (Spann, 2010). The work related factors associated with recruiting and retaining those qualified faculty are complex. Leadership remains a major factor related to job satisfaction and intent to stay in nursing education. Recommendations for institutional leadership such as deans and directors are (a) to develop personal and

Acknowledgement and disclaimer

The authors acknowledge that the reported results are based in whole on analyses of the COACHE Data Set. These data were collected as part of a multi-site survey administration and supported by funds from participating colleges and universities and made available to the authors by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education. This article has not been reviewed or endorsed by COACHE and does not necessarily represent the opinions of COACHE staff or members, who are not responsible

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