Creating a healthy work environment for nursing faculty.

Nursing administrators and faculty have a professional and ethical responsibility to develop and maintain a caring and healthy work environment for nursing faculty. To recruit and retain quality nursing faculty in the current nursing faculty shortage, a healthy work environment is essential. This article focuses on nursing administrators' and nursing faculty members' role in promoting a healthy academic work environment. Strategies to develop and sustain this environment are discussed. A study was conducted to determine how nursing faculty experience being cared for in the workplace (Kuehn, 2009). Eighteen nursing faculty from seven midwestern colleges and universities with baccalaureate nursing programs participated in qualitative, phenomenological interviews to explore their caring and noncaring experiences in the workplace. To convey the essence of the participants' experiences, selected stories are shared. A supportive, healthy work environment is one factor in caring for others and is key in recruitment and retention of nursing faculty. Professional nursing organizations such as the National League for Nursing (NLN) and the American Association of Critical Care Nurses have developed healthy work environment tool kits and assessments to promote such an environment. HEALTHY, SUPPORTIVE WORK ENVIRONMENT AND NURSING FACULTY RETENTION A healthy work environment including being cared for in the workplace is important for many reasons. Difficult working conditions are cited as a factor in the nursing faculty shortage (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 1999; Brown 1999; DeYoung & Bliss, 1995). According to the AACN, in 2010 U.S. nursing schools turned away 54,991 qualified applicants, with two-thirds of schools citing faculty shortages as the primary reason nursing students were denied admission (AACN, 2010). In 388 U.S. nursing schools with baccalaureate and/or graduate programs, a total of 803 faculty vacancies were identified, a vacancy rate of 6.6% (AACN, 2010). The schools also stated that they needed an additional 279 faculty positions to meet student demand. Additionally, the average age of doctorally and master's-prepared nursing faculty members is over 50, and more than 500 faculty members are projected to retire by 2018 (AACN, 2008). While the most frequently identified reasons for nursing faculty vacancies are uncompetitive salaries compared to direct practice and the limited number of doctorally prepared faculty, another reason given is a nonsupportive work environment. Nursing faculty members have identified caring, evidenced by a supportive work environment, as one of the determinants to remaining in the nursing faculty role. It is important to ascertain components of faculty retention related to the current nursing faculty shortage (Foxall, Megel, Grigsby, & Billings, 2009). Sikma (2006) and Messmer (2006) defined a supportive work environment as a place where employees are valued, supported, and encouraged by others to grow and develop to their full potential. A supportive work environment was identified as one of the four key determinants of staff retention, along with compensation and benefits, career development and advancement opportunities, and the fl exibility to balance work and personal life (Messmer, 2006). CARING EXPERIENCES OF NURSING FACULTY IN A HEALTHY, SUPPORTIVE WORK ENVIRONMENT Current research on nurses and caring focuses on nursing students' perceptions of student-faculty relationships, caring among nursing students and between nursing students and their patients, nurses' perceptions of caring for patients, and nurses' perceptions of a supportive caring work environment. A gap in the literature exists related to nursing faculty's perspectives about being cared for in the workplace. In this study, being valued and supported and making connections were common themes among the participants who experienced being cared for in a healthy work environment. …