Paper
Friday, July 13, 2007
Nurse Occupational and Organizational Commitment: Retention Tools Grounded in Evidence
Barbara McIntosh, PhD, School of Business Administration, Universtiy of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA, Mary Val Palumbo, DNP, APRN, Office of Nursing Workforce Research, Planning, and Development, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA, and Betty Rambur, DNSc, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.
| Learning Objective #1: identify the components of nurses' occupational commitment and organizational commitment. |
| Learning Objective #2: understand the relationship between commitment and intent to stay on the job for this sample of nurses. |
Aim:
Building occupation and organization commitment may be a useful approach to help stem the flow of nurses from the workplace, particularly given predicted labor shortages. This survey research was designed to explore 1) the strength of the components of occupational identification and 2) organizational commitment (including affective, normative and continuance commitment) and 3) the relationship between this commitment and intention to remain working for three age cohorts: <40, 40-54, and 55+.
Methods:
All nurses in 12 U.S. rural healthcare organizations (692 in 4 hospitals, 400 in 7 home health agencies, and 7 in 1 long term care facility) were surveyed. Measures included Occupation Commitment (Myer, 1997), Organizational Commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990), demographic information, and self-reports of intention to remain in the organization and intention to remain in the profession. Data (n= 583) were analyzed using univariate and multivariate regression techniques.
Results:
The older the nurse, the later the expected retirement age. In all three age cohorts, nurses reported that nursing is key to their pride and self-image. Their unwillingness to change professions, however, was related much more strongly to the costs associated with such a change than to a sense of responsibility or obligation to the profession. For all three age cohorts, normative commitment was most important. Respondents reported being particularly concerned about what others think about their organization. Nurses 55+ reported the highest levels of affective commitment and continuance commitment was nominally lower. A sense of community and co-worker relations did not contribute to retention.
Discussion:
Findings about the components of organization commitment in this study suggest that management needs to value the nurse’s contributions, show concern for the individual, and be willing to be flexible if that nurse needs help. Further implications for evidence-based retention strategies are discussed.