Discuss how nurse leaders serve as advocates for their employees. Describe how advocacy for employees affects patient care and outcomes. Nurse Leaders as Advocates for Their Employees Discuss barriers caused by an organizational culture that can be encountered by nursing leaders that can make them feel powerless.

Nurse Leaders as Advocates for Their Employees

A nurse leader oversees a group of nursing practitioners working together. The role of nurse leaders is to encourage, guide, and motivate their employees to work together toward achieving their own goals and the goals of the organization that they are working for (Stamps et al., 2021). A nurse leader ensures that the working environment of the team that they are leading is conducive, healthy, and secure. The leader ensures that the team has all the resources required to carry out their tasks. For instance, there should be adequate amounts of protective gloves, gowns, and shoes.

A nurse leader ensures that every member of the team they are leading is aware of the tasks they are supposed to perform. Nurse leaders can clearly and accurately describe to each team member the role they are supposed to play. For a nursing team to work effectively, every team member should be aware of their role in the team. A good nurse leader inspires and encourages the team members to work together towards a common goal willingly.

Another way in which nurse leaders advocate for employees is by working to reduce the turnover rates of registered nursing practitioners. They keep up with the latest information on nursing turnover, improve the work environment, advocate for paid overtime, and encourage team members to join mentorship programs for registered nurses (Persaud, 2018). Furthermore, they communicate the workplace needs of the team members to higher-level management.

Advocacy for employees creates a healthy and secure work environment that creates a positive attitude among the employees. Positively motivated employees have higher productivity (Abu et al., 2019). That means that healthcare services provided to patients are safe, effective, and of high quality. Quality healthcare services greatly improve patient outcomes.

References

Abu Yahya, O., Ismail, S., Allari, R. S., & Hammoudi, B. M. (2019, January). Correlates of nurses’ motivation and their demographic characteristics. In Nursing forum (Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 7-15). https://doi.org/10.1111/nuf.12291

Persaud, S. (2018). Addressing social determinants of health through advocacy. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 42(2), 123-128. https://doi.org/10.1097/NAQ.0000000000000277

Stamps, D. C., Foley, S. M., Gales, J., Lovetro, C., Alley, R., Opett, K., … & Faggiano, S. (2021). Nurse leaders advocate for nurses across a health care system: COVID-19. Nurse Leader, 19(2), 159-164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mnl.2020.07.011