Does the Perceived Effectiveness of the New Graduate Nurse Orientation Impact Retention in the Acute Care Medical Surgical Setting?
Abstract
New graduate nurses are the largest source of registered nurses available for recruitment to fill the vacant positions within the nation's healthcare facilities (Welding, 2011). Current research suggests that although these nurses complete an orientation program, many are unable to function independently and ultimately resign their position within one year of hire. The purpose of this study was to examine the new graduate nurses' perception of their orientation experience and how it relates to employee satisfaction and retention. An exploratory, retrospective, descriptive design was utilized to examine employee satisfaction among a subgroup of new nursing graduates hired between January 2009 and March of 2010. Instrumentation for the study consisted of the Halfer-Graf Job/Work Environment Satisfaction Survey which was originally developed to determine sources of professional fulfillment and perception of the work environment over time. The Likert scale questionnaire revealed a majority of study subjects surveyed to be content with their overall orientation experience with an average retention rate of 88.8%.