Increasing nurse job satisfaction

Abstract

In 2018, both of Amsterdam’s
academic hospitals(VUmc & AMC) officially merged into the Amsterdam UMC. As
part of thismerger two neonatal Intensive care units (NICU) are merging as
well. Thisproject aims to increase the job satisfaction of NICU nurses in
thispost-merger department. TheNICU nurse

A neonatal intensive care unit nurse treats premature borninfants as young as
24 weeks after the pregnancy. Besides nursing they guideparents through this
emotional and unstable first phase of parenthood. Largerproblem

There is a global nurse shortage and this is also noticed atboth NICU departments.
Attending this issue is even more urgent now sincemergers are often associated
with higher job dissatisfaction and higher staffturnover rates (Martin,
2008). 

Designproblem

Job satisfaction is globally considered to have a pivotalrole in nurse turnover
and the quality of care for patients. (Lu, 2019). At this moment there is no
active pursuit toincrease nurse job satisfaction at the Amsterdam UMC. This
leads to thefollowing design problem:

Howcan design thinking (empathize,define, ideate, prototype and test)
be used todefine and shape future employee experiences in order to improve
jobsatisfaction in a post-merger NICU department? 

Design research (empathize)

A NICU nurse profileof ten work values isestablished. These values are then
compared to the organizations core values.Furthermore the different work
cultures of both NICU groups are explored. 

Design goal (define)

The value ‘rewards me’is fulfilled the least well while being perceived as
relatively important bythe nurses. Therefore the designgoal is:

Improving the NICU nursing staff’s feeling of being rewarded for workrelated
efforts in order to increase their overall job satisfaction.

A future experience map (ideate)

To define and shape future NICU nurse experiences, a future employee experience
map is made. Promising solutions are also placed in theemployee experience map.

Boost (prototype)

One concept in the future experience mapis prototyped and tested. This concept
is the ‘Boost’ concept which aims atimproving employees wellbeing by
facilitating a short personal moment away fromall stimuli during a workday. At
the VUmc the concept is prototyped. Walls andceilings are covered with blankets
and a massage chair, exercise area andreading corner are created.

Promising results (test)

For three weeks the Boost concept is piloted in the VUmc. Compared to the
zeromeasurement a small but positive increase is observed. This data combined
withthe desirability of the conceptshows that the boost concept has the
potential for increasing jobsatisfaction. 

Recommendation

Although more measurements are needed the Boost concept shows the potential
toincrease job satisfaction. Many more ideas are mapped in the future
experiencemap. This leads to the following final recommendation:

Combine the future employee experience map with a design thinking mindset
(empathize,define, ideate, prototype, test) to realize many incremental gains
in nurse jobsatisfaction in order to fight the nurse shortage issue.