A recent article in The Gerontologist identified job satisfaction as more important than pay in the calculus that caregivers use to decide whether to stay in their jobs.  The study focused on Long Term Care Facilities and found that those who left their job or the workplace altogether did so as a result of lower job satisfaction and emotional well-being.

Another report from the nurse staffing industry backs this up by identifying the 5 most powerful triggers for nurse resignations as stress-inducing practices:  Mandatory overtime, assignments outside their expertise, overburdening with non-nursing tasks, workplace bullying, and poor management.  Each of these devastate emotional well being and reduce job satisfaction.

These findings underscore the importance that healthcare facilities in general must place on appealing to the job satisfaction criteria of nurses.  As the core of quality of care in this country, nurses represent the biggest lever on improving healthcare.