About Beyond Gratitude
Call to Action & Areas of Needed Support
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated and created new challenges for many health professionals, including nurse managers. To better understand these real-time challenges and how nurse leaders' concerns have changed throughout the pandemic, AONL conducted a longitudinal study on the impact of COVID-19 on nursing leadership. In the most recent study of nurse managers:
1 in 3
report they are not
emotionally healthy.
75%
state their most pressing challenge is the overall well-being of their teams.
25%
state that because of the pandemic, they may or plan to leave nursing.
ImprovING Nurse Managers' Emotional Health
The AONL Foundation, The DAISY Foundation and our partners – Careismatic Brands and symplr – have a robust outreach initiative underway to bring awareness to the heart, body and soul that nurse managers put into their work each day.
Beyond Gratitude: A Tribute to Nurse Managers was developed to help overcome challenges most commonly cited in the AONL COVID-19 Longitudinal Study – staffing shortages, burnout and stretched resources. This initiative also builds on what nurse managers have told us: In the most recent survey, they note that meaningful gratitude is one way we can begin to make an impact to address challenges. Research also indicates how meaningful recognition can support the well-being of health professionals.
In the initiative's first phase, we provide simple, ready-to-use materials to display heartfelt gratitude. The second phase will include tools to support crucial conversations between leaders and nurse managers about moving forward with impactful and ongoing solutions.
Join us as we go Beyond Gratitude to pay tribute to nurse managers for all they do.
DISPLAYING MEANINGFUL GRATITUDE: THE Vital Impact
Nurse managers are a driving force that deeply impacts the health and well-being of their teams, the patients under their care and their organizations. Nurse managers take on many responsibilities – they provide comfort and counsel to nurses, ensure the safety of patients and their families, manage human and financial resources and so much more.
Today, many of these leaders are also stepping in to help fill staffing shortages and work alongside nurses in clinical care, in addition to their many managerial responsibilities. They feel responsible for the emotional and professional health of their nursing team, even when that means placing their own needs on the back burner.
Research shows that nurse managers provide the foundation for organizational success in several ways:
Nurse managers enhance
job satisfaction and nurse retention.
Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16077275/
Nurse managers create environments where teams thrive and connect meaning to their work.
Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31136017/
