Background

The current untenable nursing workforce demands are compounded by a concerning trend of attrition in nursing pre-registration education and early career nurses, along with increasing rates of retirement.

Aims

To explore and describe registered nurses’ perceptions and experiences of work wellbeing extending from what inspired them to join the healthcare organisation, what created a great day at work for them, through to what may have supported them to stay.

Method

Using a qualitative descriptive research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted, transcribed verbatim, and analysed inductively and thematically.

Results

Thirty-nine Australian nurses who resigned in 2021 from two large metropolitan healthcare organisations in Victoria were interviewed in 2022, each for 30 to 60 minutes. These nurses had a broad range of clinical roles and years of experience. Four themes were identified for each of the key research questions. Inspiration to join the organisations transpired through organisational reputation, recruitment experiences, right position, and right time, fit and feel. A great day at work was created through relationships with colleagues, experiences with managers, adequate resourcing, and delivering quality care. Factors contributing to nurses resigning included COVID-19, uncertainty of role, workload and rostering, and finally, not feeling supported, respected and valued. Factors that may have supported the nurses to stay included flexible work patterns and opportunities, improved workplace relationships, workload management and support, and supportive systems and environments. Cutting across these themes were five work wellbeing threads 1) relationships, 2) communication, 3) a desire to learn and develop, 4) work-life balance, and 5) providing quality patient care.

Conclusion

Novel ways of working and supporting individuals, teams and organisations are needed to maintain and sustain nurses. The nurses’ inspiration, what created a great day at work, and supports needed to stay were mapped to the Five-ways to Wellbeing model as disruptors of the pathway from wellbeing to illbeing to inform nursing recruitment and work wellbeing initiatives.