Introduction
Ask a nurse manager (NM) to describe their ideal role and the answer is strikingly consistent: they want to develop their people, remove the friction that slows down their teams, and be present on the unit where patient care happens. Ask them to describe their actual workday and you get a different picture, dominated by administrative tasks and meetings that stray from the mission of leading a clinical team.
The nurse manager role is vital to the operations of any health system, but according to Nursing Catalyst’s 2024 span of control research, NMs increasingly report feeling overburdened at work. Much of this burden relates to headcount: nurse managers who oversee more FTEs work longer hours every week and burn out faster than those who oversee fewer FTEs. Holistic solutions exist, aside from changes in headcount, to right-size the NM role. To redefine the role successfully, it is crucial to understand what nurse managers think about their roles in order to identify the necessary changes and gain buy-in where it matters most.
Key Takeaways
Ninety percent of nurse managers surveyed agreed: the NM role has expanded greatly, with more tasks added to their plates while nothing else is taken away.
There is a misalignment in how nurses want to spend their time and how they actually spend their time, leading to dissatisfaction and burnout for talented workers.
Nurse managers want to focus their time on doing what they believe is most important: people management.
Nursing Catalyst developed a framework to support the redesign of the NM role. For this to succeed, leaders should include nurse managers in this redesign process from the start.