Proactive Strategy to Improve Staff Engagement

Staff engagement improves outcomes for an organization. In the ever-changing world of health care, it is a challenge for a nurse leader to motivate nursing staff to be involved in the organization’s initiatives. Such initiatives can promote culture, structural empowerment, and professional growth, ultimately leading to clinical excellence. Leader visibility, 2-way communication, and promotion of recognition called the VCR (Visibility, Communication, Recognition) strategy can lead to robust staff engagement. Application of the VCR strategy improved participation of nursing staff in the shared governance activities of a mid-sized Magnet®-recognized health care organization. VCR has become a focused strategy to improve staff involvement, resulting in meaningful and sustainable engagement.