Alternative work arrangements: Reshaping the future of nurses’ workplace communication and relationships

Abstract

Aim: This commentary advocates a research agenda for studying how alternative work arrangements (AWAs) affect nurse management and leadership.Background: AWAs mitigate burnout and the distributional imbalance of nurses.However, scholarship has shed limited light on how AWAs shape nurses' workplace communication and relationships.Evaluation: Peer-reviewed nursing and management scholarship. Key Issue: As healthcare systems in many countries move toward team-based care, communication becomes even more important for effective coordination and collaboration among healthcare team members. Conclusion: Researchers should invest greater resources to understand the influence that AWAs have on different organizational settings as well as on the relational coordination among nurses and their managers. Implications for Nursing Management: Because care delivery and workplace relations depend heavily upon effective collaboration, researchers must update scholarship on AWAs to inform nurses and their managers on how they may strategically and effectively adapt their communication to evolving work environments that undergo frequent changes in nursing staff and teams.

How do nurse managers describe clinical nurses' work arrangements? A qualitative study

“…The data reveal that the typology is fluid because nurses can switch among work arrangements to achieve what they desire from working as nurses. That insight empirically supports the notion that work arrangements can reflect work motivations, which may influence whom and how nurse managers mentor (Gan, ). Nurse managers invest much of their time and resources in mentoring nurses (Kodama & Fukahori, ; Sveinsdóttir, Ragnarsdóttir, & Blöndal, ).…”

“…As temporary arrangements increase the likelihood of temporary employees developing transactional rather than relational interactions with their employers (Van Breugel et al, ), nurses' experience of work time shapes the way they relate to their colleagues and vice versa. For instance, although nursing researchers have studied mentoring extensively and have reported that Millennial nurses in particular want ongoing mentoring and flexible careers (Hale, ; Jamieson, Kirk, Wright, & Andrew, ), the nursing scholarship sheds limited light on how alternative work arrangements affect mentoring as a communicative behaviour (Gan, ). As Millennial nurses will have increasingly diverse nursing career options (Jamieson et al, ), researchers should invest greater effort into understanding Millennial nurses' thoughts about alternative work arrangements.…”

A scoping review of the nursing workforce's changing demography: Supporting Baby‐Boomer nurses

“…Furthermore, because Baby-Boomer nurses' replacement-Generations X, Y and Z-also values workplace flexibility (Christensen, Wilson, & Edelman, 2018), hospitals are using flexible staffing alternatives to curb both nursing shortage and to retain less experienced nurses (Koppel, Deline, & Virkstis, 2017;Leineweber et al, 2016). Because nursing is a versatile profession that allows nurses to pursue different work arrangements and to take different career paths (Gan, 2019a(Gan, , 2020a, the introduction of flexible working conditions for nurses both mitigates and complicates the staffing problem.…”

How do nurses' work arrangements influence nurse managers' communication? A qualitative study

“…Staffing is a common concern among international nurse managers because staffing not only affects the placement of nurses and the organisation of nursing teams (Cupit, Stout‐Aguilar, Cannon, & Norton, ; Holm‐Petersen, Østergaard, & Andersen, ; Jooste & Prinsloo, ; Maenhout & Vanhoucke, ; North et al, ), but it also influences how nurses relate to and support one another (Feather, Ebright, & Bakas, ; Gazaway, Anderson, Schumacher, & Alichnie, ; Gittell, ; Holland, Cooper, & Sheehan, ; McCabe & Sambrook, ). Despite the burgeoning interest in how managers communicate and support their nurses (Brunetto, Farr‐Wharton, & Shacklock, ; Hartung & Miller, ; Marx, ; Rouse & Al‐Maqbali, ; Timmins, ), the literature offers limited insights into how the proliferation of nurses' varied work arrangements affects the mentoring and support that nurses receive from their managers (Gan, ; Jones, ). Scholars have essentially neglected to understand nurses' alternative work arrangements as a managerial communication concern (Kunie, Kawakami, Shimazu, Yonekura, & Miyamoto, ).…”

“…For instance, a nurse who works on a low census unit will have a different experience than a nurse working on the same shift but with high acuity patients; one can also conceive possible differences in workload and responsibilities among shifts based on whether nurses receive adequate support such as onsite nurse educators and nursing assistants (West, Rudge, & Mapedzahama, ). As the delivery of patient care at many international healthcare systems becomes increasingly team‐based (Gan, ), the proliferation of nurses' work arrangements nuances the collaboration and trust among nurses as well as between nurses and their managers. Thus, alternative work arrangements complicate the calculus of whether, how and whom the nurse managers mentor.…”