Across the healthcare industry, more generations work together than ever before. Today's nursing leaders often find themselves managing as many as 5 generations at once, each with distinct preferences, experiences, and viewpoints. This "new normal" poses challenges as well as opportunities. Chief nursing officers (CNOs) must unify nurses who span a 50-year age range to work toward a common purpose. They must leverage each generation's skills and strengths, which broadly include the following1:
* Disciplined and loyal traditionalists
* Optimistic and hardworking baby boomers
* Self-reliant and task-oriented gen Xers
* Self-directed and eager millennials
* Creative and flexible gen Zers
With so many different working styles and career expectations across generations, it is essential that nurse leaders understand how to navigate the differences and work together to create cohesive teams.
"Today's nursing leaders face a significant challenge to support a multigenerational workforce," says Jacklynn Lesniak, MS, BSN, RN, NEA-BC, senior vice president, Patient Care Services, and CNO at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), Comprehensive Care and Research Center. "To be effective, leaders must build a level of trust with their teams that helps them connect with staff members at any level in their career. This trust helps the organization navigate changing healthcare environments with ongoing focus on the core aspects of patient care: patient safety, clinical excellence, and patient experience."
Bridging the Generation Gap With Magnet(R)
The American Nurses Credentialing Center's Magnet Recognition Program(R) provides a roadmap to build a positive, multigenerational workforce with contented staff at its core. To attract and reward the very best in nursing talent, Magnet-recognized organizations embody a collaborative culture, where nurses are valued as integral partners in the patient's safe passage through their healthcare experiences. Interprofessional cooperative practice is nurtured, with a focus on mutual respect, autonomy, and shared values.
The Magnet journey can help nurse leaders capitalize on generational differences and use them to create a positive work environment. Team building, collaborating across disciplines, and building staff engagement are often results of the Magnet process.
Leading a multigenerational workforce is not so different from leading a multidisciplinary team. It calls for flexibility, collaboration, communication, and support for different perspectives and viewpoints. Likewise, it requires that all staff members value the unique talents that each brings to the table. For example, nurses with less experience can benefit from mentoring advice from more seasoned nurses. Tech-savvy, early-career nurses can help their veteran counterparts keep up with ever-advancing technology.
At CTCA, leaders and staff are equipped to address any modern-day nursing or healthcare challenge they might face. "Our Magnet culture creates opportunities for staff of all generations and experience levels to learn, grow, and inform nursing practice," Lesniak says. "The energizing part of this is the ability for CTCA nurses and leaders to simultaneously build momentum for future efforts while continuously improving patient care. It's a rewarding process and one that I believe makes Magnet-recognized hospitals the most fulfilling place to make an impact on the lives of patients and their loved ones."
Magnet promotes interprofessional decision-making structures such as shared governance committees and unit practice councils where nurses confer, collaborate, and develop professionally to provide the highest-quality care. Melody Dickerson, MSN, RN, CPHQ, senior vice president and CNO at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia, says the Magnet process brings everyone to the table when it comes to problem-solving or practice change. "In a Magnet hospital, nurses embrace evidence-based thinking that transcends generations," she says. "So even a new nurse transitioning into practice can work on an evidence-based project and find answers that multigenerational colleagues will welcome. It's empowering for everyone involved." Dickerson adds that she and her nursing team have been intentional at identifying multiple modes of communication to engage all generations of nurses. "We use social media, e-mail, in-person discussion, video, and illustrations," she says. "These opportunities for feedback have led to positive changes in staffing, workflow processes, and innovations our nurses can see."
In its 2014 study examining the challenges of managing an intergenerational workforce, the American Hospital Association's Committee on Performance Improvement called on nursing leaders to find new ways to understand the attributes of each generation and "create a mosaic of opportunities and expectations in this blended environment".2 A high level of understanding, coupled with a determined focus on collaboration and communication, can promote cohesion and improve patient care.
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