NURS 625 Week 5 Strategic Planning Group Project: Topic Selection Example

Strategic Planning Group Project Topic Selection: Keeping Experienced Nurses Aged 55 and Older at Cumberland Valley Health

Selected Topic

Our group has chosen a human resources management topic: a strategic plan to retain experienced registered nurses aged 55 and older at Cumberland Valley Health, a three-hospital system with 1,140 registered nurses. Retention of late-career nurses fits the course's human resources category directly, and it also touches fiscal management, because each experienced nurse who leaves early must be replaced at a cost that includes recruitment, orientation and months of lower productivity.

The Problem in Our Organization

According to the system's workforce report for the last fiscal year, 31% of Cumberland Valley's registered nurses are aged 55 or older, and 22% are 60 or older. Human resources projects that 118 nurses will reach full retirement eligibility within the next three years. Last year, 61 nurses aged 55 and older left the system, and exit interviews show that 38 of them retired earlier than they had planned, most often citing physical workload, inflexible twelve-hour schedules and a feeling that their experience was no longer valued. The system's nursing finance office estimates the cost of replacing an experienced medical-surgical nurse at roughly $56,000, which means early departures among this group cost about $2.1 million last year. The loss that worries the units most, however, is not money but judgment: on several night shifts, the most experienced nurse in the building now has fewer than five years in practice.

Operational Goal

The strategic plan will aim to reduce voluntary early departures among registered nurses aged 55 and older by 30% within two years, from 38 to no more than 27 per year, while keeping at least 80% of eligible nurses who choose to stay in roles that use their expertise, such as precepting, resource nursing and virtual mentoring.

Why This Topic Is Realistic

Recent research suggests that late-career nurses respond to changes an organization can make. Ejebu et al. (2026) conducted a discrete choice experiment with 1,988 nurses aged 45 to 54 in England's National Health Service, asking them to choose between hypothetical job packages. All eight job attributes mattered, and the most valued were supportive work relationships, compassionate leadership, flexible working patterns and manageable workloads. Nurses were willing to give up about 5.9% of their annual income for a cohesive team and 5.3% for flexible working, which suggests that non-pay changes may hold experienced nurses as effectively as raises.

Qualitative evidence points the same way. Johanson et al. (2026) interviewed 12 registered nurses aged 50 and older who continued in staff roles and found three themes: a positive internal mindset rooted in calling, compassion and relationships; resilience in the face of challenges; and sustaining well-being as a condition of staying employed. The authors concluded that retention requires several coordinated strategies, including supportive leadership, structured mentorship, recognition, learning opportunities and benefits that make retirement a choice rather than an escape. Both studies support our direction: a plan built around flexibility, workload, recognition and leadership rather than a single bonus.

Scope and Limits

The plan will focus on registered nurses aged 55 and older in inpatient, perioperative and emergency roles across the three hospitals, since that is where early departures and their effect on shift experience are greatest. It will not address pension design, which is set at the corporate level, or recruitment of new graduates, which another system committee already oversees. Keeping the scope this narrow should let the group write objectives that the nursing division can actually own, with costs that fit within one budget cycle, and it leaves room to extend the plan to ambulatory nurses later if the first two years succeed.

Fit With Strategic Planning

Harris (2018) describes strategic planning as a process that moves from an understanding of the organization's environment and position to a clear direction, measurable objectives and action plans with owners and resources. Our topic fits that process well. It begins with internal data the system already collects, it can be examined against external trends in the nursing workforce, and it leads to objectives that can be assigned to nursing leadership, human resources and finance. The next stage, the outline and annotated bibliography, will set out the plan's components and add at least five recent sources on phased retirement, flexible scheduling, mentoring roles and the experiences of older nurses.

Group Roles

Each member will lead one part of the work. One member will gather internal workforce and cost data; one will lead the literature review and annotated bibliography; one will draft the environmental assessment and objectives; and one will draft the action plan, budget and evaluation. All four members will review the outline before submission and share the narration of the final presentation.

References

Ejebu, O. Z., Jaffry, S., Turnbull, J., Huxley, C., & Pollard, E. (2026). What retains experienced NHS nurses: Results from a discrete choice experiment in England. Health Policy, 173, Article 105719. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2026.105719

Harris, J. M. (2018). Healthcare strategic planning (4th ed.). Health Administration Press.

Johanson, L., Frangieh, J., Priode, K., & Hughes, V. (2026). Experiences and retention perspectives of registered nurses aged 50 and older: A qualitative descriptive study. Nursing Outlook, 74(5), Article 102892. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2026.102892