An analysis of Glassdoor reviews from current and former nurses revealed there are four key factors most influential in shaping nurses' overall job satisfaction: compensation, workload, toxic culture and organizational support.
That is according to a report — "The Real Issues Driving the Nursing Crisis" — published Oct. 18 in MIT Sloan Management Review. The research is based on an analysis of 150,000 Glassdoor reviews written by U.S. nurses since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic through June 2023. Each review was evaluated to see whether it mentioned one of 200 topics and whether nurses spoke positively or negatively about the topic. The topics were ultimately clustered into two dozen broader themes.
The four aforementioned factors emerged as the most powerful predictors of nurses' overall satisfaction. The authors also identified 200 of the largest healthcare employers in the U.S., and they calculated how highly nurses rated their organization and senior leadership on Glassdoor.
Four more notes from the report:
- Among nurses who quit, toxic culture was more than twice as predictive of overall satisfaction than compensation or workload.
- When researchers compared which factors best predict how nurses rated their employer before and after the pandemic, toxic culture experienced the largest gain in relative importance post-COVID-19.
- On average, nurses working for staffing agencies were more satisfied than other nurses, the authors found. "While staffing agencies rate higher on many key topics — including honest communication, resolving issues efficiently and building trust — hospitals and healthcare systems are stronger when it comes to learning and development, benefits, colleagues and opportunities for promotion," the report said.
- The authors categorized nurses' comments about managers into nearly 50 leadership traits. The second most frequently cited trait "described managers as being unaware of the challenges that nurses struggle with in the workplace." Overall, comments were more often negative among nurses' comments on how managers understood their work at the bedside.