workforce
They want to break free
How do we create a more
engaging nursing workforce
to attract and retain staff?
Dan Levitt interviewed by Conor Burke
M
y kids will kill me for this,” Dan
Levitt tells the audience at his
Australian Healthcare Week talk.
“AY-OH,” he sings. The tickled crowd
responds in kind.
“AYYYY-OOOHHH,” he continues and
goes on to complete the attempt at a
Freddie Mercury impression.
30 agedcareinsite.com.au
Nobody is quite sure why he has done
this, but he is an engaging speaker, and
engagement is a recurring theme in his
talk on the global challenge we face as the
nursing workforce ages.
One way the nursing sector can retain
nurses as well as attract people to the
profession is to keep them engaged,
happy in their job and looking forward to
the start of every day, he says.
Levitt, a professor, writer and
gerontologist, is concerned that in a world
where we have more seniors than children,
and where approximately one quarter of
nurses worldwide will leave the workforce
in five years, workplaces are not putting
enough effort into their culture.
He is also concerned with the ways
that we can make nursing an attractive
occupation. Investing in nurse education
is one way Levitt believes we can keep
nurses in the job, as well as looking to
develop trust in the leadership teams –
nurses often leave jobs because of their
bosses, he tells the crowd.
Combating workforce shortages
by accommodating older nurses with
more flexible schedules is another fix,
he suggests.
The executive director at Tabor Village
aged care facility in Canada, Levitt talks
extensively on societal attitudes towards
ageing. He wants us to think about the
way in which we speak about older
citizens and what we think older people
are capable of.
Aged Care Insite caught up with Levitt
after he spoke to hear more about how we
can fill the nursing ranks.
ACI: Why do you think engagement is
so important for keeping the nursing
workforce strong?
DL: One of the things we see in the
workplace, certainly in healthcare more
than anywhere else, is a workforce that is
tired. Perhaps they’re disengaged, maybe
morale is a challenge. We don’t always
have the best image of healthcare from
the media – certainly in aged care right