Strategies To Address the Healthcare Staffing Crisis in an Acute Care Hospital

Healthcare staffing shortages are widespread and challenging; developing a successful retention and recruitment strategy requires an awareness of the generational, cultural, and environmental elements that positively influence employee motivation and engagement. The purpose of this integrative review was to synthesize existing research on factors that enhance hospital staff work satisfaction and increase intent to stay. Using the Job Characteristics Theory as a framework, an integrative review of literature published between 2019 and 2024 synthesized existing research on factors that enhance hospital staff work satisfaction and increase intent to stay. Thematic analysis of 35 selected studies identified four key themes and multiple unique and shared sub-themes: (1) organizational characteristics (committed, inclusive leadership; focus on staffing; professional development) (2) work environment (leadership, collaboration and teamwork, workplace culture, and job characteristics) (3) psychological factors (job satisfaction, burnout, wellbeing/resiliency), and (4) personal factors (generational cohort, time in role race/ethnicity, gender and role). Recommendations are based on these factors. While the stressors of a pandemic uncovered structural weaknesses in healthcare staffing policies and strategies, the resulting social climate change over the last four years has presented healthcare with the imperative to shift strategies. This review offers potential interventions that frame Job Characteristics Theory to explain how job factors modulate personal and psychological factors to affect job satisfaction and intent to stay. Healthcare administrators can use these interventions to attract and retain current and future healthcare workforces.