Exploration of Onboarding for director of nursing position at Illinois community colleges.

This study explores the onboarding practices for the director of nursing program position at Illinois community colleges, which have become hubs for educating and training health care professionals in Illinois and throughout the nation. Previous research has confirmed that onboarding is a proven and effective means of introducing new employees to their roles and improves retention. It is important to ensure that those hired as directors of nursing, not only are the most qualified candidates, but fully understand the scope and responsibilities of this unique position as they assume the role. Onboarding is an important step in this process. Directors of nursing provide overall direction, management, and compliance efforts for these programs. It is concerning that director of nursing program vacancies are increasing, as the nursing shortage experienced through out the country affects all areas of nursing. These vacancies are due to retirements, as well as turnover from the lack of role clarity resulting in job dissatisfaction. Results of this study indicate that formal onboarding programs are not available for newly hired directors of nursing. Illinois is fortunate to have a group that informally supports these individuals. It was common for the new directors of nursing programs who participated in this study to engage in informal mentoring; this was done by administrators at higher levels in t he organization. Yet, these mentors did not fully understand the complexity of the role. Much of this understanding occurred gradually and, in some cases, incidentally rather than intentionally. Thus, a formal structured onboarding program that includes formal mentoring, must be developed for new directors of nursing programs . Feldman’s seminal research on organizational socialization provides a sound and well-regarded framework for a formal, intentional, and systematic onboarding program. Finally, the research indicated that succession planning is needed to ensure a cadre of qualified individuals is available to take on these critical roles. Many terms are used to identify the director of nursing program position: academic chair, coordinator, program leader, program administrator, assistant dean, dean of nursing, and director of nursing . This paper use s the term director of nursing programs , which encompasses the other titles.