Getting into nursing: Recruiting for contemporary practice

Abstract

As identified by Johnstone in her Foreword, nursing needs to adopt a futurist lens when examining workforce matters. Inayatullah (2004) describes 'Futures thinking (theories, methods, tools and processes)' as having numerous uses:* The provision of tools to understand the world and analyse the alternatives ahead of us* The creation of strategy through the use of mapping exercises* The provision of mechanisms for building capacity to thrive through adaptation to any one of a number of futures* Taking us to the edge of the unknown in order to create new options for the future* A means for transformative social innovation.According to the International Council of Nurses (2006), there are five 'mutually connected and interrelated' areas to be addressed in response to the global nursing shortage:* Macroeconomic and health sector funding policies;* Workforce policy and planning, including regulation;* Positive practice environments and organisational performance;* Recruitment and retention; addressing incountry mal-distribution, and out-migration; and* Nursing leadership.The papers in this volume provide a snapshot of nursing's identification of issues related to these areas and describe some of the strategies that are being implemented to address recruitment and retention in nursing. We have structured the volume around three concepts: 'Getting In', 'Being In' and 'Staying In' the nursing workforce.The papers in the first section of this volume address issues related to 'Getting In' to nursing. They highlight the challenges in appreciating nursing in all its facets, roles and functions; promoting realistic yet still attractive views of nursing; recruiting in competitive national and international labour markets and educating for both current and future practice.Parker and McMillan begin by noting that nursing is part of a global community that, in theory, should be characterised as 'partnership and collaboration across disciplines and countries and with communities and industry.' The paper proceeds to identify the challenges inherent in recruiting across the globe including depleting workforces, imperialism, a lack of relativity and limited tolerance of different approaches to teaching, learning and practising nursing. The paper concludes with a set of key questions for consideration that should shape policy and protocols and highlight the complexities of international recruitment.Parker and McMillan's work presents a broad brush overview of the issues inherent in a global nursing recruitment market and emphasise the need to acknowledge and respond to social, political, cultural, historical and economic contexts as integrated wholes both within and between countries.On a less global scale, in a case study of 'sociodemographic and economic change', BirenbaumCarmeli comments upon the interrelationships among society, labour markets and professional training in Israel. She takes a more holistic view of motivations for selecting nursing as a career than the individual motivation, to examine 'ties between the demand structure for the profession and broader socio-demographic and economic processes'. She nests recruitment into nursing within long standing and implicit cultural and ethnic norms, traditions and histories.These two papers highlight the tensions among individual aspirations and opportunities for upward mobility as afforded by a career in nursing, and social need for nursing services and raise moral questions about recruitment into nursing. …