Nurses are the center of healthcare. We are filled with expectations, stress, and caring for the most vulnerable population. What about our leadership's health? Have you ever felt that asking the nurse to do one more thing will push them over the edge? How can we as leaders provide encouragement while still instilling accountability? Welcome back to Leading Nursing together, where we dive into the most pressing issues facing nursing leadership today, and how we can lead with vision, integrity, and compassion. I am your host, Michelle Hoen, and today we are addressing one of the most critical challenges facing our workforce today. Nursing, wellbeing, and stress reduction. Stress is all around us. I too needed time to process my own stress and come back stronger with a clearer mindset. This episode is for our. Executive nursing leaders, our CNOs, our A CNOs directors and managers who are navigating complex demands while trying to support a workforce under significant strain. Let's explore how we can lead sustainable, meaningful change to reduce stress, prevent burnout. And foster an environment where nurses feel valued, supported, and able to thrive. Let's start with a reality check. Nursing burnout is costly. nursing Burnout is costing healthcare systems millions annually in turnover and reduction in productivity according to a national data. the average cost of a nurse turnover. Per nurse is upward of$50,000, and the emotional toll of repeating stress is uncalculable. More than 70% of nurses have reported symptoms of compassion, fatigue and moral distress, and many are considering leaving the profession altogether. Wellbeing is no longer a nice to have. It's a workforce imperative and patient safety issue. As leaders, the question becomes how do we build systems, structures, and cultures that support nursing wellbeing? Not as an initiative, but as a strategic core. Let's look at actionable strategies nursing leaders can implement today to reduce stress and foster resilience. First, and of course, foremost is proactive staffing and workload management. Ensuring appropriate staffing ratios to reduce chronic overload is super important. We also need to monitor acuity adjusting staffing in real time. We can no longer look at the simple ways of doing staffing. We need to truly look at the turbulence that happens on the units, and also look at staffing a different way. It might be that we have to start looking at different types of shifts, different ways to bring in nursing at different times to ensure that we have the right amount of staff. During the times that we need the staff. this begins by building flex teams or resource pools to support high acuity. During those search times, Empower leaders at every level to address staffing challenges early with transparency and support. There are now AI predictive analytics that can help us with that if you have the software. If not, you can do that on your own by looking and understanding what your turbulence is on your unit. Normalizing break and recovery time. Leaders must create a model and protect that. Break time. Encourage units to use the buddy system. Encourage ways of having shared governance, create how breaks can happen within your unit. Invest in some of those spaces. Even if they're small wellness rooms that can provide the needed respite and demonstrate that leadership values this recovery, psychological safety and support. Next, we need to be looking at the psychological safety and supportive culture. This begins with having a no blame culture. When nurses feel safe to speak up even about their stress or emotional fatigue, errors have a tendency to lesson and our patients are gonna be taken care of. Better offer debriefing sessions, offer pure support groups or allow them to be able to understand where they can access their mental health resources. And then of course, you as the leader need to understand what is going on with your staff. This is simple. Ask them how they are doing, but really listen. Don't make it a quick conversation and walk away. Understand what is causing them stress, understand what their burnout looks like. Everyone's gonna have a burnout that looks differently. Make sure you understand that. Make sure you understand the generational gaps and differences because that matters too. And then recognize and show purpose, frequent authentic recognition is so important. We should be looking at this on a daily basis, showing the nurse all the stuff that they are doing right, encouraging them to continue to do their work. Recognize not only their performance, but their resilience, their teamwork, and their acts of compassion. And reinforce the connection between the nurses' daily work and the organizational purpose. When people feel that their work matters, they become more engaged and their wellbeing will improve. So we have some short term strategies, but what does some of those long term investments or organizational strategies look like? This starts by building that wellbeing in your strategic plans. Incorporate the wellbeing within your organizational goals with metrics and ownership and accountability. Make sure that you as leaders are holding yourselves accountable and making sure that wellbeing is your top priority. Some examples though that could be used, is looking at wellbeing index scores, retention rates, PTO utilization is important. And then of course, sick leave patterns. If you are constantly seeing certain things happening, you should probably reach out to someone and try to figure out how to help you. As leaders also need to develop resilience as leaders and executives, we need to provide our leadership. With training and emotional intelligence, stress management and coaching skills encourage leadership rounding with a purpose focus, not just on the performance, but on the wellbeing touchpoints. If we can coach, mentor, and develop, this goes a long way for our culture. And then another great way of looking at things is leveraging our data to drive our change, conduct regular staff wellbeing surveys, identify some of those hotspots or those trends, use data to inform resource allocations, policy changes, and wellbeing investments. So here's the truth. Culture starts at the top. If leaders are stressed, unavailable, or disengaged, that permeates on the entire organization. But if our leaders are present, empathetic and proactive, they can create a ripple effect of resilience and care. So ask yourself, how do I model wellbeing? Do I take breaks? Do I encourage feedback? Do I prioritize my own mental health? Do my staff feel seen? Not just as workers, but as people? Let's remember a healthy workforce starts with a healthy leadership. So let's commit together to lead in ways that honor the humanity of our profession that protects and empowers our nursing teams. that drives excellence through compassionate leadership. Thank you for being a leader who cares deeply and leads boldly. Until next time, stay well and continue to lead with your heart.