Job Satisfaction Among Saudi Nurses: Recruitment and Retention

Background and Problem Statement

Organizations in the public and private sectors rely for their success and performance on technical, financial, and human resources. Each resource plays an important role in implementing strategy and provides certain types of benefits. Human resources represent the most critical asset that organizations draw upon in their attempt to reach their objectives. It is therefore important to focus on employees' job satisfaction, as it is a key factor affecting productivity, costs, and organizational practices.

This area is of particular importance to the Saudi Arabian nursing field because of its direct implications for the quality of health care. It should represent a focal concern of governmental practices as well as those of hospital managers. Extensive research in the field provides important information on assessing Saudi Arabian nurses' job satisfaction and its impact on recruitment and retention, though findings across studies sometimes differ, pointing to the need for further substantiation.

In Saudi Arabia, nursing care is delivered mainly by expatriate nurses, who contribute approximately 70% of the nursing workforce in Ministry of Health hospitals — a figure that rises to 96% in the private sector (Almalki et al., 2011). Recently, however, the Saudi government has deployed efforts to retain nurses as part of a broader strategy to increase the proportion of Saudi nationals in the nursing profession. Every year, hundreds of Saudi nurses graduate from nursing schools and join the workforce in primary health care centers, secondary hospitals, and tertiary hospitals across the country. Yet meeting the demands of nursing care has remained a persistent challenge for the Saudi government. There is also evidence of high nursing job turnover among Saudi nurses (Gieter et al., 2011). Literature suggests that job dissatisfaction is one recurrent factor — among numerous others — contributing to the intention to leave the nursing profession, and it has been shown to negatively impact both recruitment and retention of Saudi nurses (Currie and Hill, 2012). In the Saudi context, relatively little has been revealed in the literature about this issue, which leaves substantial room to better understand the problem and suggest appropriate solutions.

Purpose of the Study

This study assesses job satisfaction among Saudi nurses and its impact on recruitment and retention.

Research Objectives

The study pursues three primary objectives:

1. To identify factors contributing to Saudi nurses' job dissatisfaction.

2. To assess nurses' satisfaction at an overall level and regarding different aspects of their work.

3. To develop strategies intended to enhance the number of Saudi nurses in the healthcare workforce and minimize the rate of Saudi nurse turnover.

Research Questions

1. Are Saudi nurses satisfied with their nursing career?

2. Does the level of job satisfaction indicate the intent to leave the nursing career among Saudi nurses?

Limitations of the Study

The study aims to investigate job satisfaction levels among Saudi Arabian nurses in three hospitals. Although the research questions, hypotheses, and questionnaire are designed in accordance with previous research, the sample cannot be considered representative of the entire population of nurses in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the study's limitations — determined by its sample size — mean it is best suited to reinforcing or challenging findings from existing studies and addressing less-studied issues that influence the relationship between nurses' job satisfaction and hospital managers' recruitment and retention practices.

Significance of the Study

The limited sample size does not allow for extrapolation at the national level. The study's significance lies in its attempt to investigate areas less addressed by previous research and to provide information for further national-level research on the impact of certain recruitment and retention practices on Saudi Arabian nurses' job satisfaction levels. In other words, the study intends to validate or invalidate certain hypotheses that can provide important information in analyzing how nurses' job satisfaction levels can be improved and how improvements can support efficient recruitment and retention processes.