Tomorrow's Nurses: Are We Ready For Them?

Georgia Nursing, Feb-Apr 2004 by Wieck, K Lynn

Faced with a nursing shortage unlike any we have seen before, nurses are scrambling to deal with day-to-day staffing crises. The problem at hand makes it difficult to focus on the nursing problems of tomorrow or five years from now. But we have to plan for tomorrow if we want it to be better than today. And tomorrow's nurses will present some unique and formidable challenges for nursing.

Nursing as a Career Option

First, we have to face the fact that tomorrow's nurses will be relatively few in number. The emerging workforce, those young people between the ages of 18 and 35, is the smallest entry pool of workers in the U.S. since the 1930s. There are 77 million Baby Boomers and only 44 million of the generation sometimes called the Twenty-somethings. So already we can plan on about half as many nurses in the next generation as we have now. How will the self-indulgent and progressively unhealthy, aging Baby Boomer generation be cared for then? Let's consider a couple of vital questions.

Will these emerging workforce members see nursing as a viable career choice?

The job market they are entering is in one of the best economies in history. The dot-com industry is seductive and lucrative. Twenty somethings can make lots of money, work at home, be their own bosses, and be in contact with the world. Can professional nursing offer those kinds of incentives?

Will Boomer parents encourage their daughters and sons to consider professional nursing as a career choice?

More and more nurses are saying that they would not recommend a nursing career to their own children. They believe the pay is too low and the work is difficult and unappreciated. They want better for their own children. How about nonnurses? What kinds of real, nurse role models do they see? The most famous and visible nurse in America today just married a man she had never seen before millions of television viewers, divorced him just as quickly and publicly, and then posed nude in Playboy magazine. How many parents, when faced with an innocent, wide-eyed nine-year-old who says, Mommy, I want to be a nurse when I grow up will say, "Honey, wouldn't you rather be an astronaut or an engineer who builds great big bridges?"

An additional recruitment challenge revolves around the entry-level pool itself. The Demerging workforce is different. Ask anyone who manages, teaches or works with those in it. They think differently, they work differently, and they want different things than what we are used to providing. Corporate America is wringing its collective hands trying to figure out what to do about its young workers. While many think they are a huge problem to be solved, I wish to make the case that they may instead be the much-needed solution.

Who is the Emerging Workforce?

According to Bradford and Raines, the emerging workforce has some characteristics which are poorly understood and almost totally unaccepted by the hard working, nose-to-the-grindstone, overachievers of the Baby Boomer generation. Those in the younger generation often lack basic skills "such as math, grammar, reading, and the ability to write a complete sentence. They want to command instant value when they get into the workplace instead of starting at the bottom and working their way up like we did. They want as much as possible as fast as possible. They believe that they have a right to have fun and flatly reject the workaholic lifestyle they witnessed in their parents. They tend to be cynical and largely concerned with themselves. Most are the products of divorce, so they tend to accept the idea of living together before marriage, and they plan to marry later and for keeps. They tend to be very optimistic about life and to expect good things to happen to them.

During their lifetime, which has only been the last 20 years or so, they have witnessed a rising crime rate. The technology advances in the movies they saw for entertainment were so real, it was often hard to separate fact from fiction. Their lifetime has seen increasing family instability and a society without idealism. During the last decade of their lives, they have experienced leaders who lie and politicians who cheat. They have had few role models who have exhibited the core values traditionally treasured in nursing: truthfulness, honesty, trust, faithfulness, respect.

So, if they are that bad, why bother? There are two reasons to bother. One, there are many in the emerging workforce who are hard working, intelligent, and loyal. And two, there is no other choice.

In fact, the Emerging Workforce has many positive attributes which fit nursing as a career choice if nursing was just marketed differently.

* The Emerging Workforce is the most well-traveled generation in history. As the global economy becomes a reality, they are particularly well-positioned to guide nursing as a global force to solve many of the world's health problems. Yet we rarely use the challenge of eradicating AIDS in Africa or decreasing infant mortality in poor, southern U.S. teenagers to attract young, idealistic, would-be researchers into nursing.