Influences over Italian nurses’ job satisfaction and willingness to recommend their workplace

Abstract

Nurses' perception towards job satisfaction and willingness to recommend their workplace are relevant to a number of areas including the quality of nursing care delivery. Hence, an increasing number of scholars seek to understand the factors that influence these two concepts. Yet, inclusiveness and openness to innovation are under-investigated. The paper focuses on the relative importance that factors like propensity towards innovation, working conditions and inclusion have on nurses' job satisfaction and their willingness to recommend their workplace. A large sample of nurses was extracted from the organizational climate survey carried out in all healthcare authorities of nine Italian Regions through the years 2016-2018. Descriptive and multilevel regressions were carried out to investigate the factors that influence nurses' job satisfaction and their willingness to recommend the hospital in which they work in, analysing both overall and in specific age classes. When recommending a workplace, nurses tend to recommend units showing higher propensity to innovate (OR 2.83), while the most important factor related to job satisfaction is the encouragement after a failure (OR 2.23). Inclusiveness is a key factor for both job satisfaction and willingness to recommend, whilst innovation prone organizations appear to be the most attractive for nurses. The levers mix is slightly different among the age classes. Findings identify the levers to be used in order to attract nurse workforce and increase nurses' job satisfaction. These levers are partially different for young and senior nurses.