Travel nurses are happier: Here's why
Travel nurses report greater career satisfaction in their assignments on the road than in their previous staff positions, according to new survey data.
Nomad Health, a digital marketplace for healthcare staffing, recently distributed a short survey to a group of travel nurses to better understand the pros and cons of these positions. The data acquired revealed that 76% of travel nurses report greater satisfaction in their roles in comparison to previous staff positions.
Participants’ responses pertaining to what they value most in their nursing career revealed a myriad of factors for their reported job satisfaction, but a few common themes emerged.
For starters, travel positions in healthcare are known to come with higher compensation; this was observed in the survey’s responses to be a top motivator for nurses seeking to enter the industry. In fact, 84% of nurses seeking travel positions cited money as their biggest motivator.
Additionally, it is standard for housing stipends and reimbursement of travel expenses to accompany these positions on top of their base compensation; these were ranked as the two most important offerings relative to compensation packages the respondents consider when deciding whether to accept an assignment.
“Freedom and flexibility” also were held in high regard by respondents, with 71% ranking it just below compensation as their biggest motivator in pursuing travel work. “Sense of adventure” and “work/life balance” followed behind at 39% and 28%, and the “ability to focus on patients, not politics” closed out the top five motivators at 22%.
“This validated what we’ve long known at Nomad Health: Traveling can help clinicians avoid burnout,” the company said in a release related to the results. “Long shifts, hospital politics, and challenging patient-to-staff ratios are all major contributing elements to burnout. In fact, we see these factors as top motivators driving clinicians to start traveling.”
Many of the respondents (41%) indicated that they would never return to a staff position after completing their first travel assignment, and those who did take staff positions again did so most often for reasons related to family responsibilities.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.