Arizona is facing serious shortages in two professions we depend on every day: teachers and nurses. While education and healthcare may seem very different, I believe the reasons people are leaving these professions have a lot in common.
Arizona’s annual teacher turnover rate is about 14%, twice the national rate. Arizona is also struggling with a significant nursing shortage.
We often respond by asking: How do we recruit more teachers? How do we graduate more nurses?
Those are important questions, but perhaps we should also ask: Why are experienced professionals leaving?
Both jobs have changed dramatically.
Teachers are expected to do far more than teach. They deal with extensive documentation, testing requirements, technology, behavioral issues, data collection and responsibilities that were once handled by support staff.
Nurses face a similar problem. In addition to caring for patients, they spend significant time charting, documenting, coordinating care, navigating technology and performing administrative duties.
Organizations may eliminate support positions to save money, but the work doesn’t disappear. It gets transferred to someone else—often the teacher or nurse.
There is another similarity: administration needs to have their backs.
Teachers need to know administrators will support reasonable classroom discipline and listen to their professional judgment. Nurses need supervisors who understand the realities of caring for too many patients while meeting increasing administrative demands.
Accountability is important, but accountability and supporting employees can coexist.
Arizona certainly needs competitive salaries, strong training programs and new people entering both professions. But recruitment alone won’t solve these shortages.
We need to focus on retention.
Before adding another form, meeting, program or administrative requirement, perhaps leaders should ask one question:
Does this really need to be done by a teacher or a nurse?
Let teachers teach. Let nurses care for patients. And create workplaces where good professionals want to stay.
