Eleven nurses who graduated from Hillsborough Community College in 1980 accepted jobs at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa. Thirty years later, ten of them are still there.
The group’s collective longevity is an oddity at a time when almost half of all nurses report plans to change jobs within the next two years. Frustrated by work conditions and overwhelming workloads, 49% of nurses surveyed in 2005 said they intended to change positions. Other surveys have found that nurses switch jobs for personal reasons as well — to accommodate changing family responsibilities or to move to another city. Few nurses today remain with their initial employer ten years, much less thirty.
The Hillsborough/St. Joseph’s nurses, though, are content with the jobs. While many of them have switched positions in their thirty years of employment, all of them express satisfaction with their employer.
How long have you been with your current employer? Do you still work with the same core group of nurses?