ConnectRN’s “unResignation Letter” initiative is a nursing movement stemming from an open letter urging healthcare facilities to consider nurses’ mental health, work-life balance, and flexibility. It encourages nurses to recommit to the profession, including those who have resigned and those considering leaving.
The multi-channel initiative launched in January with a double-page spread in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and a video to quickly garnered 1,000 signatures from nurses and CNAs who are recommitting to the profession in just a few days.
The campaign launch kicked off just as thousands of NY-based nurses prepared to strike on January 9 and runs through March.
The impetus for the campaign is that nurses have left the profession in droves over the past few years, with recent estimates pegging that number to be well into the hundreds of thousands nationwide. While this has largely been due to the Covid-19 crisis, the need for better working conditions for nurses existed long before the pandemic.
A recent survey conducted on behalf of connectRN also revealed that 50% of nurses still in the profession were considering leaving by the end of 2022. Meanwhile, over half of the nurses polled felt they always had to be on call, while 90% felt their patient care suffered due to the nursing shortage.
Key statistics from the survey include:
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- 9 in 10 believe the quality of patient care often suffers due to nursing shortages
- 55% feel guilty taking a break because they think they must always be on call
- 6 in 10 blamed staff shortages as to why they feel like they don’t have control over their careers
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Daily Nurse spoke with Jen Reddy, CMO at connectRN, about the unResignation Letter campaign and the growing movement of nurses standing up for themselves for better treatment.
Jen Reddy is the CMO at connectRN
ConnectRN’s unResignation Letter initiative launched in the New York Times right before the nursing strike in New York City. So why was this the right platform to begin this conversation?
This conversation deserves a big platform. Some of the most significant announcements are made there. And this conversation about how nurses want to be seen, valued, and heard is familiar. But what’s happening in the media is it’s easy to pin the current staffing shortages crisis on COVID. So we wanted to go a little bit deeper. We learned that if you’re a nurse working over the last three years, nurses have been battling for their worth for a long time, even during the previous ten years. And they get taken for granted. And while we all can speak to nurses in our lives, whether they’re people who have cared for us, in our families, or heard stories, we all need them so desperately.
When it comes to a nurse having a shared voice or having a seat at the table, it’s challenging even in this age of social media with strong voices on LinkedIn and influencers. It’s so different now because you can have those conversations. But we wanted to start it in the New York Times. And we wanted it to be about empowerment and nurses feeling like I did not want to quit. This reminds everyone reading this that this is who I am, I’m not a hero, but this is who I am. I’m somebody who wants to care for other people. And in trying to care for other people, I have lost myself by not being able to take a break because I feel guilty about leaving my patients by not having a schedule that works for my family. I just heard on NPR that nurses sometimes have to choose whether they can work or take care of their kids after school. So we’re trying to figure out how to have that conversation.
What is the concept behind the unResignation Letter?
The letter is a collection of all these conversations we’ve had with nurses over the past few years where they’ve talked about what it means for them to still be a nurse and why they’re passionate about it. And why it’s become difficult for them to keep doing it and have the life they want. We all get to sign off at whatever time we sign off from work and maybe walk our dogs and take care of our kids or go and meet somebody for a drink or for coffee that’s like virtually impossible for them. So part of that letter highlighted the clickbait that isn’t always discussed. I’d like to have four days off a month to return and feel my best self. I want to take a break 30-minute break and finish my lunch. I want more flexibility around my schedule to pursue X, Y, and Z. These are not crazy things. So the New York Times was step one. Then we have all of these different videos that drove to a landing page called on unresignationletter.com. And we’ve had thousands of nurses sign it. And we’re still running that media. And we’ve also had thousands of nurses sharing it and commenting. One of the things that I think is interesting is that it doesn’t matter if you’re a CNA or an RN. This resonates. It’s a universal truth that we’re speaking to. And I’ve had some wonderful conversations on LinkedIn with our friends I’ve never met before, who want to connect with me because they want to make sure that their story is seen too. And that’s been fulfilling.
Is the unResignation Letter the beginning of a more significant movement in nursing that needs to happen?
I don’t think it will ever be quiet because it’s just beginning a conversation. We also did a collaborative piece in Fast Company, which I’m profoundly proud of, and that featured some nurses we work with who contributed, and it was just significant for us.
Nurses are signing the unResignation Letter and creating awareness about important issues impacting nurses, but ultimately, what is the goal of this initiative?
The stories are significant because they’re very impactful. And the signatures and having this growing into what I see as a movement. It’s an initiative that’s not going to stop tomorrow. It’s something you know, it will keep going.
From the connectRN perspective, what is your ultimate goal for the initiative?
Whether you work for connect RN or with us, as a company and brand, this conversation is important to clinicians. And so our ultimate goal was to build awareness for these nurses, telling us how they want to be seen, heard, and valued. And so this isn’t really about follower count. The best thing we could have done was put this in the press and start a conversation. So what I thought was lovely was that a couple of nurse influencers on LinkedIn reposted it. So I go into our posts and see how many people reshared them and put their own stories on top of it. And one night, I was in tears, looking at how this resonated. We had some nurses say, I’ve been thinking about how to put this together in my way. And you nailed this because I couldn’t figure out how to put it together. So the fact that it resonates, and that it might change the way they advocate for themselves, how they interact with each other, or the choices they make as nurses to our company, and to me, that is quite valuable.
That’s the best thing when someone can read something and be motivated and inspired. And then feel the need to write their story on top of it and share it. You’re creating the engagement. And that’s the most important part. So we set up a landing page for people to visit, and in two weeks, we had over 60,000 people go to that landing page to learn more about it, whether or not they signed. We think that some people were nervous about putting their names in there. I don’t blame them. Some nurses say, hey, I don’t want to get in trouble for this. Maybe I’ll be seen as somebody who’s causing a problem by signing it. But it’s about how far and wide we can push this conversation because it’s important to us.
How do nurses benefit from connectRN?
ConnectRN is not for everyone. We keep amazing human beings who are nurses in the game. And keeping them in the game means that they need to have options. And all we’re saying is that options, actually take them off, bring them back off the bench versus telling them there’s only one way to work. So, if you are a nurse who also wants to be an entrepreneur, that’s amazing. If you want to be an influencer, amazing, and if you want to have multiple revenue streams, amazing. We’re not here to tell people how to work or how not to work. We want to be a platform where they feel like they can be seen and heard. I will tell you a lot of the nurses we work with have other revenue streams, or they have life moments that they have to take care of. So those are the things that we think are important.
What’s next for connectRN and the unResignation Letter movement?
Nurses Week is coming up in May. We are working on another initiative to continue this thread of listening to nurses. A significant part of our brand DNA is that when you listen to nurses, you can innovate, you can support, you can, you can champion, and without that, we don’t exist.
All of the people that we showcase and listen to nurses’ work are nurses who were talking about what it means to be a nurse and why they still want to be involved. So they were the precursor to the unResignation Letter. And their stories are about hope and commitment and what they love about nursing, and that’s what we hope to accomplish, and the unResignation Letter is that there are still nurses who love what they do. However, they need some help being able to do it.
Nurses want to work together with people at the administrative level to make lasting change. The change will come, and people will fight and claw, and they will make that change happen. So why be adversarial about it? Embrace it. I don’t know how anyone could argue about the importance and necessity of good nursing management in change management. We’re still going through COVID at a time when the government had to intervene. But I feel slightly hopeful that that nursing strike was so short. This movement, these nurses having a voice, nurse influencers, whether you love them or hate them, top voices on LinkedIn, the channels for which nurses can express themselves didn’t exist ten years ago, and I do think that there is a movement, whether it’s the unResignation Letter or not, it’s time to listen to nurses. We need to let them co-create what the future looks like. For us, it’s just having the conversations that matter to them and being a platform for them to do it.
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