May 15, 2015

National Nurses Week Can Enhance Morale, Improve Engagement and Express Appreciation

A guide to organizing Nurses Week events

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By Kelly Hancock, MSN, RN, NE-BC

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Each year, from May 6 through May 12, Cleveland Clinic’s 12,000 nurses join their colleagues nationwide to celebrate the American Nurses Association’s (ANA) National Nurses Week – a week of recognition and celebration, devoted solely to the professional nurse.

Hospitals and healthcare organizations throughout the nation often hold celebrations and honorary receptions or banquets, state and city proclamations, seminars and more.

For nurse leaders, this national celebration presents an ideal opportunity to show your nurses and nursing staff members how much you and your organization appreciate them and their contributions—from delivering high-quality patient care to advancing the nursing profession and positively impacting society. It also presents opportunities for enhancing employee morale and improving engagement.

Many organizations begin planning for National Nurses Week as soon as the current year’s events close. As National Nurses Week 2015 has just concluded, there is no better time than the present to begin strategic planning for next year.

As you launch this planning phase, take into consideration how your organization’s Nurses Week events and activities can not only effectively showcase your deep appreciation for your nursing team, but also positively impact overall employee morale and engagement.

Form a committee, hold a post-mortem and set goals

If you don’t already have a National Nurses Week strategic planning committee formed, start one.

At Cleveland Clinic, our steering committee is co-chaired by our marketing and communications liaisons, along with our lead nursing representative from our systemwide image and brand council. Your committee should encompass representatives from each of your organization’s key areas. For health systems, include nursing team members from all hospitals, outpatient clinics or family health and ambulatory surgery centers, as well as home health.

Upon committee creation, outline a written description to guide the chair (or co-chairs) and members. The description should summarize the committee’s purpose, its composition and specific duties.

Assemble your committee sometime within the next two weeks to hold a post-mortem discussion to determine aspects of your organization’s 2015 Nurses Week events and activities that were successful or unsuccessful. Use this analysis to help formulate parameters and establish realistic goals and objectives for National Nurses Week 2016 that showcase appreciation and have the potential to enhance morale and improve engagement.

For example, one objective could be to successfully host one nursing recognition event at each of your organization’s locations during the week. A second objective may be to use a combination of electronic and printed communications to communicate the week’s events and activities in a way that also allows team members to provide feedback and suggestions.

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Schedule a follow-up session approximately two weeks from your post-mortem discussion to collaboratively compile your strategic plan, determine necessary meeting frequency (once per month is recommended), outline a future meeting schedule, and create a calendar of due dates for effective execution. Additionally, determine meeting expectation by ensuring each meeting consists of a committee chair overview, a strategic focus for discussions, prioritized agendas, meeting evaluations, and next steps.

Let the ideas flow

Once you’ve completed this process – or if you already have it in place – use your post-mortem results to begin brainstorming. As a nurse leader, the celebration and excitement that comes with National Nurses Week creates a strong connection to enhancing morale and improving engagement.

At Cleveland Clinic, we’ve been holding celebratory events and activities to honor our nurses during this special week for many years. However, in 2015, our efforts to emphasize employee morale and engagement were significant. While we are still compiling the statistical results, below includes a selection of our known 2015 Nurses Week successes, and the strategies we utilized for execution, for your consideration as you look to generate ideas for next year.

Ensure consistent messaging through a variety of communication channels

With 12,000 nurses comprising our health system, internal nursing communication initiatives often encompass a combination of video, electronic, printed and in-person delivery. This year, we showcased our nurses and their efforts through each appropriate channel, including:

  • A highlight in our biweekly e-newsletter and a variety of promotions on our nursing Intranet site – from banner messages to event coverage, things to do, and featured videos and stories
  • Specialized email messages to nurses highlighting inspirational quotes, articles, activities and more, with a short survey in the final communication to gather feedback
  • Printed posters and banners of key messages on nursing units, in break rooms, etc.
  • A customizable PowerPoint package containing key messaging for all nurse leaders to use at their local Nurses Week keynote addresses and events
  • Featured highlights in health system leadership and physician communications

Deliver something new and unique

Each year, as the executive chief nursing officer, I distribute a video message to the nursing enterprise thanking our team for their contributions, hard work and dedication to excellence. In 2015, we also created an honorary nursing appreciation video to reinforce our leadership messaging and present a new and unique way to tell our nurses just how much they mean to our organization, our profession, our industry, and our patients.

Hold specialized recognition events and initiatives

In addition to several fun and engaging events and activities, such as an annual diversity run/walk event, nurses night out and the opportunity for one of our nurses to throw the first pitch at a Cleveland Indians baseball game, our organization hosts localized Nursing Excellence Awards ceremonies at each of our regional hospitals during National Nurses Week.

Part of an enterprisewide event that is held in the fall, the local Nursing Excellence Awards ceremonies honor nurses from each Cleveland Clinic regional hospital and our family health centers with roughly nine different awards entailing categories such as lifetime achievement, outstanding clinical support, nursing leadership, novice nursing and others that align with Cleveland Clinic’s professional practice model such as quality and patient safety, research and evidence-based practice, and more.

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Spread the word to patients, visitors and community members

There is no better time than National Nurses Week to grow or further build your marketing brand. In 2015, our Cleveland Clinic nursing marketing messages appeared more than 7 million times in various channels, such as:

  • Banners, posters and digital signage in and around health system locations
  • Local electronic, print and broadcast advertising and public relations on billboards, newspapers, radio and television stations
  • A variety of Cleveland Clinic’s social media channels, including Consult QD, Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn
  • The health system’s on-hold phone messaging system
  • Featured articles in our electronic and print publications and healthcare industry and consumer websites and social media channels
  • Local organizations through community partnerships
    • NOTE: For more information on how Cleveland Clinic’s nursing organization has succeeded in this area, read about our ongoing partnership with Panera Bread and the team at Covelli Enterprises.

Additionally, anyone – patients, family and community members, colleagues, and others – could send Cleveland Clinic nurses balloons, e-cards, flowers and other gifts throughout the week.

Enhance morale and improve engagement

Whether big or small, your effort as a nurse leader to express your appreciation during National Nurses Week for your organization’s nursing staff is certain to leave a lasting impression.

The nursing profession has a long and important legacy in our nation’s history and as leaders, it is our responsibility to highlight and recognize all that our fellow colleagues do, not only during National Nurses Week, but each and every day. Take this opportunity to use National Nurses Week as an exciting platform to not only show how much you value your nursing teams, but to explore new ways to positively impact employee morale and improve engagement to foster an ongoing environment of positivity and team building.

Kelly Hancock is the Executive Chief Nursing Officer of the Cleveland Clinic Health System, and Chief Nursing Officer of Cleveland Clinic Main Campus.

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