Preceptor Toolkit Effects on New Graduate Nurse Orientation Experience

The role of the nurse preceptor is vital to the successful onboarding of new graduate nurses to the organization. By focusing on preceptor support methods in addition to the established nursing preceptor programs, organizations can improve the nurse preceptor’s confidence and competency levels. The opportunities for improvement, solution recommendation, timeline, and associated costs are provided in this summary. Many organizations have seen an increase in new graduate nurses leaving their jobs within their first year of hire. The transition period of new graduate nurses is often a period of transition shock while they acclimate into professional practice from academia (Fink et al., 2008). Structured nurse residency programs, or transition to practice programs, have shown to support new graduate nurses during this transition period and improve new graduate nurse retention within their first year of hire (Edwards et al., 2015; Silvestre, 2017; Van Camp & Chappy, 2017; Asber, 2019; Brook et al., 2019; Aparicio & Nicholson, 2020; Shinners et al., 2021). Negative preceptor experiences can be associated with some of the new graduate nurse’s departure from an organization. The nurse preceptor role is a critical component of this transition period and can positively or negatively impact the new graduate nurses experience (Edwards et al., 2015; Watkins et al., 2016; Brook et al., 2019; Aparicio & Nicholson, 2020; Shinners et al., 2021; Durkin et al., 2023). Finding ways to support the nurse preceptor can help improve preceptor confidence and competence, and consequently improve new graduate nurses’ confidence, competence, and job satisfaction.