Nurse satisfaction surveys play a crucial role in understanding how nurses view their jobs and their work environment. This is especially key, as maintaining nurse satisfaction is becoming more and more important in the healthcare industry.
These surveys help healthcare organizations understand the main problems that nurses have with their workplace.
Whether you manage a big city hospital or a small clinic, learning how to use these surveys effectively can be a game changer.
What Goes Into a Nurse Satisfaction Survey
A happy nurse makes all the difference in patient care, and a survey is a step toward ensuring that satisfaction. Below, we’ll review the main elements of these surveys including common challenges.
Purpose of a Nurse Satisfaction Survey
Nurse satisfaction surveys aim to capture insights about the workplace from the nurse's perspective (whether it's positive or negative). After all, hospitals and medical practices can’t guess what their nurses are upset about unless they get reliable feedback from them.
The surveys usually explore factors like:
- Work environment
- Leadership
- Job responsibilities
- Career development
For instance, if survey data shows a high level of dissatisfaction with scheduling, solutions like flexible shifts may be considered.
In our work with healthcare companies, we've found these surveys help with highlighting and fixing issues affecting job satisfaction, which can lead to high turnover if left unchecked. Remember that surveys simply take the guessing out of nurse satisfaction and instead let companies make data-driven decisions.
Challenges of Running a Nurse Survey
There are a few challenges when running a survey for nurses.
Starting with the nurses themselves, they are overworked and over-regulated - especially after COVID-19.
Secondly, with online surveys, it’s important to think of certain questions specific to nurses. During this stage, there’s a fine line between making the questions relevant and keeping bias out. In order to avoid this, we recommend spending a significant amount of time determining which topics should be covered in the survey.
Remember: the main goal is to collect valuable information about the nurse’s job satisfaction. Anything that gets in the way of that should be eliminated.
Despite the challenges, nurse surveys are still 100% worth it for healthcare organizations looking to maintain a positive culture.
Why Nurse Surveys Are So Important
Surveys for nurses have three major benefits: increased retention, satisfaction, and better patient satisfaction rates as well. Keep reading to learn more about each of these pros.
Better Retention
On the frontlines of most medical organizations, nurses are essential in patient care.
However, in recent years, healthcare is becoming more demanding when it comes to expectations for nurses - it’s likely just one of the reasons one-third of nurses are considering quitting.
That’s where surveys come in!
Surveys can show the primary reasons for turnover, making it easier to address the root causes. As a result, retaining skilled nurses becomes much simpler.
An added bonus? Hospitals can save thousands by keeping experienced nurses on staff rather than constantly training new ones.
Higher Employee Satisfaction
In our work with healthcare providers, we've seen how feedback about work conditions can lead to a change in employee attitudes. This not only saves the company money, but it also improves employee morale and efficiency.
Often, high satisfaction levels lead to a more motivated workforce. Nurses who feel valued perform better for patients and are more engaged in the workplace.
So beyond just the money hospitals can save on churning nurses, supporting the nurses can lead to better performance and efficiency making the hospital operate even better.
Improved Patient Satisfaction
Just as important as nurse satisfaction is patient satisfaction.
If nurses aren’t performing well, it can have a negative impact on patients. In some extreme cases, it can be the difference between a hospital getting a lawsuit or not. For example, overworked nurses can often lead to mistakes which can get messy fast.
Satisfied nurses provide better care, which naturally leads to happier patients. In our experience, consistent and positive interactions between nurses and patients improve the practice’s reputation.
Measurements & Metrics For a Nurse Satisfaction Survey
In the past, companies have conducted employee surveys on a yearly basis in the healthcare field.
Often, this timeline is too long and doesn’t yield enough data to make an impact.
When to Survey
You’ll need to survey somewhat regularly in order to see improvements. Whether it’s quarterly or even more frequently, getting more data will always help make better decisions to save more money.
What to Measure
When it comes to the measurements and metrics, it’s up to you to decide what needs to be measured, but you can also work with an expert third party team that can help you come up with what to measure.
Areas like pay, benefits, and scheduling are great examples of things to measure. Other examples are opinions about leadership/management, work-life balance surveys, and career development opportunities.
What to Ask
Once you’ve decided what to measure, you’ll need to write the questions in order to properly measure these items. It sounds easy but it can be hard to leave bias and leading questions at the door. After all, you’re looking for quality data which the written questions will affect.
If you’re wondering how you might run a nurse survey by yourself, keep reading.
How To Run a Nurse Satisfaction Survey Like The Experts
Below, we’ll take a look at the market research process behind a successful nurse satisfaction survey.
Set Goals
The first step is setting clear goals for your survey. Without these goals, it will be hard to know if your survey was a success or not. Take it from us - having a well-defined goal will help guide the entire process.
Discuss these goals with stakeholders to ensure alignment with organizational objectives. This alignment helps in gaining better results outside the survey as well.
Write the Best Questions
Questions should be clear, concise, and directly related to goals, as they have a significant impact on the data obtained.
For example, if the aim is to understand teamwork, use questions like, "How often do you feel supported by your peers?"
If it’s needed, you can include a mix of question types, such as multiple-choice and open-ended ones. This mix gives quantitative data and qualitative insights. In our work, we like using both types of data when it’s applicable since it can help make the data more complete.
Avoid leading or biased questions which might skew results. Keep the language simple and neutral. Ensure questions are relevant to the nurses' roles to increase engagement.
Nail Down Your Audience
This might seem obvious, but make sure the correct target audience has been selected to receive the survey. Consider if you want strictly nurses to respond, as others that aren’t nurses might have good insights to draw from too.
It’s important to know all of this at the start of the project, so consider your audience and their roles.
Collect Responses
Collecting responses both effectively and anonymously is crucial. The methods used can greatly influence results. You’ll want to use tools or a third party that is keen on security and anonymity.
The team at Drive Research believes in the importance of anonymity, and how much it helps employees trust their company’s surveys more.
And lastly, remember to follow up and be patient! Nurses are busy so it could take a bit longer for them to complete it.
Analyze the Data
Data analysis in market research should focus on extracting actionable insights. Apart from analyzing the raw data, relying on a market research team will help you break down the more complex aspects of the data.
At Drive Research, we include all of our key findings from a research project in a client report.
Use visual aids like charts to present findings clearly. Sharing these results transparently with staff can drive further engagement and improve trust.
Ways to Improve Nurse Satisfaction
Once the survey results are in, healthcare organizations can begin to make the proper changes based on the feedback. Let’s review some of the most common ways to improve nurse satisfaction using survey results.
Follow Performance Trends
By conducting regular surveys with nurses, it’s key to pay attention to what kinds of trends your data is showing. This can help you act swiftly on certain issues, saving both money and nurses.
When you work with an expert third party, especially on a regular basis, they can help monitor trends and act accordingly on them as they shift.
Listen to Your Respondents
Consistent communication is key to improving satisfaction. In feedback collection, it's vital to not only continue to collect data, but also act on that collected data.
Gathering data at the different touchpoints of the nurse’s employment is also key. With data from multiple points of employment, more info and insights can be extracted which leads to better improvement to be made.
Use Pulse Surveys to Keep Nurses Happy
At Drive Research, we’re big fans of pulse surveys.
Pulse surveys are a fantastic tool for gauging nurse/employee satisfaction continuously.
Unlike lengthy annual surveys, they can offer quick insights into current concerns. Pulse surveys are the best form of consistent data collection, especially since it is not too invasive on employees.
Why Drive Research Is the Best For Your Nurse Survey Needs
The main two reasons? Our team of pros take employee anonymity very seriously. We know that employees want to be anonymous while giving their feedback and companies benefit from the anonymity of the survey by receiving more feedback (and data).
Secondly, our expertise can help employers find the insights and trends they need to make the right business decisions to help save their nurses and money.
Contact Our Healthcare Market Research Firm Today
Drive Research is a market research company specializing in working with healthcare teams. Our own team has 80+ years of combined experience in the field, and will partner with you to create a unique satisfaction for your nurses.
To learn more about our market research services, get in touch with us today.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Austin Parker
Austin has an extensive background in SEO as he's been blogging since 16 years old back when the internet was in its infancy. As fitting, he holds a Bachelor's degree in English with a concentration in creative writing.
Learn more about Austin, here.
