Nurse Satisfaction Survey

What is a Nurse Satisfaction Survey?

A is a feedback-gathering tool explicitly designed to get feedback from nurses regarding their roles and levels of satisfaction with the institutions they work for. With 2 out of 3 nurses leaving the profession due to burden, it is vital that nurse satisfaction is evaluated in today's climate.

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These surveys aim to pinpoint the issues nurses experience daily, what they think of their employers, immediate managers, co-workers, their salaries, and more. This is so employers can gauge the satisfaction levels of their nurses and see what can be done to maintain or improve them.

Improving Nurse Satisfaction

A survey is a great way to start improving nurse satisfaction, as with the information, you can identify any trends and gaps.Use the information to develop metrics, improvement action and plan, as well as ways to measure effectiveness of efforts overtime. This may involve creating dashboards and analytics processes to track satisfaction overtime more systematically.

One of the most important ways to improve nurse satisfaction, is simply to listen to their concerns. Beyond the survey, it is important that you are aware of issues and challenges that nurses are facing.

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Here at Carepatron, we have a Nurse Satisfaction Survey sample you might want to use for your practice!

How to use this Nurse Satisfaction Survey

Our Nurse Satisfaction Survey sample is straightforward and easy to use! On your part, you simply need to issue copies of it to your nurses from time to time (perhaps on a monthly basis, or maybe every mid-year and end of the year; it’s up to you).

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On the part of the nurses, they simply need to do the following:

General Information

The first thing they will do is simply fill in the following fields:

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• Their full name
• Their nurse ID #
• The date they fully accomplished this survey
• Work email address
• Contact number

Rating their role and their workplace

Second, they just need to rate aspects of their role and workplace with the following designations:

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• Highly Satisfied
• Satisfied
• Neutral
• Unsatisfied
• Highly Unsatisfied

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These are the items that they will rate:

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• Are you satisfied with your role as a nurse here?
• Are you satisfied with your junior co-workers?
• Are you satisfied with your senior co-workers?
• Are you satisfied with co-workers at the same level as you are?
• Are you satisfied with the facilities here?
• Are you satisfied with your immediate supervisor/manager?
• Are you satisfied with your salary?
• Overall, are you satisfied with your workplace?

Yes or No questions

The next part is filled with simple YES, NO, or NOT SURE questions:

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• Do you think there is job security in your workplace?
• If there is a lack of job security, do you feel pressured by the lack of it?
• Is your workplace’s mission and vision clear?
• Is your workplace able to follow its mission and vision?
• Are there opportunities for promotion in your workplace and are the requirements clear?
• Are the rules and regulations as well as the chain of command of your workplace clear?
• Are there enough people working at your workplace?
• If there are not enough people working at your workplace, do you feel pressured?
• Are there times when you find it hard to deal with patients?
• Are there times when you find it hard to deal with a patient’s relatives?
• Are you getting enough support from your co-workers?
• Are you getting enough support from senior co-workers?
• Are you getting enough support from your supervisor/manager?
• Are you being respected by your co-workers?
• Do your co-workers listen to feedback?
• Do the managers at your workplace/department listen to your feedback and concerns?
• Are you proud to be a nurse/are you proud of your work?

Sentence answers

The last part of this survey is the best place for nurses to provide in-depth feedback. They just need to answer two questions:

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• What were the most challenging things you had to do during the past quarter or the last six months?
• What do you think were the most rewarding experiences you’ve had during the past quarter or the last six months?

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Then the last box is an Additional Comments box. This is where they can provide feedback and even explain their answers to some of the items above.

Read the survey answers. Take them seriously.

It’s only fitting that you and your staff read the responses the nurses gave, especially the Additional Comments box, because that’s where they are likely to provide in-depth feedback. Double down on what they deem good or great, and adjust accordingly for the aspects considered not good.

When would you typically issue a Nurse Satisfaction Survey?

Since this particular Nurse Satisfaction Survey template revolves around how a nurse feels regarding their job, colleagues, commanding officers/managers, compensation, and workplace environment, there are two appropriate times when it would be best to issue this.

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The first would be during their onboarding process. If they are new to your workplace/department, it would be great to know their first impressions and current feelings about their work, colleagues, and environment. This is so you know if new nurses tend to acclimate quickly or not and if your workplace environment is kind to newbies and makes them feel at ease.

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The next best time to issue this is during their mid-year or end-of-the-year evaluations. You want to know how your nurses feel about your workplace, especially the non-junior nurses since they have been around the longest. Their feedback will likely be the most valuable because you can determine the factors that made them stay this long and what can be done to ensure they stay with you and your workplace for far longer.

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While these two may be the best times to issue this survey, it might be best to issue it at regular intervals (e.g. monthly or quarterly). It’s up to you. Just make sure that you issue this once a year so you can actually track changes in their answers (if any).

Who can use this Nurse Satisfaction Survey?

In general, nurse satisfaction surveys can be used by any organization that employs nurses. This includes hospitals, clinics, private practices, and nursing homes. Any manager, owner, or founder of such organizations should issue this to their nurses to gauge how they feel about being employed by them and how they feel about their work. Remember that the happier your nurses are, the better they will be able to do their work. And vice versa.

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This is a useful tool for those who make it a point to ensure that their nurses are happy with their work and working environment, especially if they want to keep on improving in the hopes that they are able to make the nurses stay with their organization for as long as possible. Policymakers within your organization will also find this to be beneficial because they can create or revise policies to ensure that the nurses are treated right (and they should be treated right!).

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As for who will engage with the survey the most, well, the nurses will be the ones doing that since they will be giving their honest thoughts about the work that they do, their colleagues, the people who run their workplace, and the workplace as a whole. If you are a nurse, do not hold back on feedback because it might change your workplace for the better.

Why are nurse satisfaction surveys important to hospitals and clinics?

Just to build up the previous section, it’s important for hospitals and clinics to have these surveys to find out the general level of satisfaction of their nursing staff.

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If the level of satisfaction is favorable, then that’s great! Nursing staff members are more or less happy with their roles and employers.

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If not, well, that’s something that needs to be addressed. If nurses are generally unhappy and unsatisfied with their workplace and its different aspects, this will reflect in their work. This will also reflect on you and the workplace because if the nurses are unhappy, it could lead to two unfavorable outcomes:

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• The quality of their work will deteriorate. This may affect patients because the quality of care they receive from unhappy and unsatisfied nurses won’t be good. This will ultimately affect the workplace, especially your image and clinical outcomes.
• Nurse attrition. If nurses are generally unhappy and unsatisfied at their workplace, nothing will prevent them from leaving. If all your nurses leave, what are you going to do?

What are the benefits of using nurse satisfaction surveys?

These surveys are beneficial for several reasons. With accurate nurse feedback, you can determine what aspects of your workplace require improvements. Our survey template allows nurses to expound on why they answered the survey the way they did. They can provide in-depth feedback regarding their work, patients, income, colleagues, managers, equipment, etc. And you and other higher-ups in your organization must listen to them.

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Take note of what is common in everyones’ feedback. What are they satisfied with? Keep up with that. What are they unsatisfied with? Better find ways to improve or work through whatever it is they’re complaining about.

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If their complaints point to a solution where you must invest in something (better equipment, maintenance, etc.), consider investing in it.

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Nurse Satisfaction Surveys will open up opportunities for you to have constructive conversations with your nurses, as well as opportunities to make improvements to your workplace.

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Using nurse free satisfaction surveys allows you to reduce turnover and increase retention – which is vital in these times of nursing shortages. As hospitals currently lose over $7 million from nurse drop outs, it is important to reduce burnout. Not only does this help the nurses, but it also improves the patient experience.