Hospitals are places of healing where patients should feel they are in the hands of competent professionals. When hospitals have difficulty retaining staff, it can be hard to foster trust with patients or provide them proper care. Solving nursing staff retention issues has only one solution.

Pay Them What They’re Worth

Nursing is no easy job. It requires a high level of education and comes with the stress of long hours, unruly patients, and frequent understaffing. It’s no wonder nurses are quitting in droves. The best way to improve nursing staff retention is to increase their salaries to reflect their worth.

While these increased salaries will cost a good deal, that amount pales in comparison to the costs of high rates of turnover, which can run a hospital as much as $7 million a year. Not only that, but travel nurses are paid as much as three times the rate of permanent nurses and are only a temporary solution.

Many of the other issues nurses face—adequate staffing, feeling undervalued, too many responsibilities—would also disappear with fair pay. Turnover would decrease, leading to higher staff retention and reduced responsibilities. Nurses would also feel more valued with a raise.

By increasing nursing pay, hospitals can show they respect their staff and have their best interests in mind.