Healthcare Traveler just released the results of their February online survey that asked nurses what age they were when they started their first travel nursing job? Here are the results:

28% 40-49
20% 30-39
19% 20-29
17% 50-59
15% I am not yet traveling.
2%  60-69

This made me think about how these vastly different generations interact with each other in the hospital workplace. That led me to this great article about the tension that can happen when all these different approaches to nursing, technology and life are working together in the same environment.

Each of these different nursing generations have unique work ethics, social backgrounds and opinions that shape their work life and even reasons for nursing. Although these differences can be beneficial to an environment, they can also be detrimental if each different generation doesn’t know how to work with the each other. So here are two articles that describe all of these generations and offer advice on how to deal with them in a nursing setting, Understanding Multigenerational Nursing Staff and Tips in Leading a Multigenerational Nursing Staff.  

It seems like travel nursing would be a great way to help with this issue, it can really lessen the politics of a hospital and expand the knowledge of all travelers, whether it is a new nurse learning from older nurses or an established nurse getting exposed to new technologies and philosophies. 

I would sure love to hear your input on how you deal with a multi-generational nursing work environment.