Leading and Learning: Building Professional Capacity

This essay discusses the significance of mentoring for graduate registered nurses (GRN's), how it can help to maintain work-life balance among nurses and improve their resilience and develop an action plan for effective mentoring for GRN. The essay also advocates for realistic actions using SMART goals.

Running head: BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
Leading and Learning: Building Professional Capacity
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
Introduction:
Mentoring can be understood as a form of professional relationship between an
experienced professional (called the mentor) and an inexperienced or less experienced
professional (called the mentee) in which the mentor assists the mentee to develop specific
skills, competencies and knowledge which helps them to engage in their work in a more
effective manner (Brody et al., 2016). For graduate registered nurses (GRN), mentorship
helps to learn about specific issues, develop specific professional skills, promote professional
growth through knowledge sharing, develops a safe learning environment and promotes
overall development of the mentee, thus helping them to transform to professional practice
under the guidance (Nowell et al., 2017).
The aim of this essay is to discuss the significance of mentoring for GRN’s, how it
can help to maintain work-life balance among nurses and improve their resilience and
develop an action plan for effective mentoring for GRN.
1. Significance for the GRN:
According to Eller et al. (2014), in nursing profession and especially for graduate
registered nurses, mentorship programs are vital for both professional and personal
development and help to improve the skills, knowledge and competencies of the nurses.
Discussed below is how mentorship programs can be significant for the GRN:
Open communication: Mentorship programs help to establish an open and bidirectional
communication between the mentor and mentee and thus an effective sharing of ideas and
thoughts between the nurses.
Role Modeling and Leadership: Mentorship program helps experienced GRN’s to act as role
models for the inexperienced GRN, taking up the responsibilities of guiding them towards

2BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
their professional development and thus helping in the professional and personal growth of
the experienced nurses.
Independence and Collaboration: Through the mentorship program, the independence of the
experienced registered nurses can be improved by helping the inexperienced nurses and
thereby strengthening their own knowledge. Also it can help in the development of effective
collaboration between the nurses.
Exchange of Knowledge: The mentorship programs can help in exchange of knowledge
transfer of skills and competencies between the nurses as the experienced GRN can share
their ideas, strategies and knowledge with the inexperienced GRN’s.
Respect and Trust: The program also helps in the development of mutual respect and trust
between the nurses as it can foster mutual development of both the mentor and mentee. The
mentee develops respect towards the experience of the mentor and trust their guidance which
can promote their professional growth.
Caring Personal Relationship: Mentorship programs helps to develop a caring interpersonal
relationship between the mentor and the mentee in which the mentor is able to understand the
learning needs as well as challenges faced by the mentee.
Passion and Inspiration: The mentorship programs also help to inspire both the mentors and
mentee to achieve better performance and show their passion towards the profession through
the development of effective relation between the nurses.
(Eller et al., 2014)
2. Critically discuss in relation to work life balance and resilience:

3BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
Mentorship programs can help inexperience GRN’s to develop a work-life balance
and resilience, allowing the nurses to balance their professional responsibilities without
compromising or hampering their personal life and vice versa (Halpin et al., 2017; Ye et al.,
2017). Discussed below is how the mentorship programs can promote better work life
balance among the nurses:
Effective assessment of situations: The program can help inexperienced nurses learn effective
strategies to assess the work situations which might be challenging for the nurse and thus
understand best strategies to address them and take care of their responsibilities more
efficiently (Stubbs et al., 2016).
Prioritizing important work: Experienced mentors can also help the mentees to identify
important tasks over tasks of lesser importance and thus work on the important ones on a
priority basis and void any delays and improve performance (Dhami et al., 2016).
Effective Time Management: The mentors can also teach the mentees on best strategies for
time management through which the mentees can schedule both their professional as well as
personal duties and responsibilities thereby balancing their work and life more effectively.
Through effective time management, nurses can also schedule their breaks and thus relax
between their busy working schedules to overcome stress (Williams et al., 2016).
Improving awareness of the work boundaries: The mentors can also help the mentees to
understand the limits or boundaries of their own abilities and thus ensuring that they do not
take up a work they are unsure about thus avoiding risks of clinical errors and work stress and
therefore improving their resilience to work related stressors (Arora & Rangnekar, 2014).
Supporting personal care: The mentorship programs can additionally help the mentees on
effective personal care strategies such as proper sleep, healthy diet, taking breaks between

4BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
work schedules, staying hydrated and choosing exercise routines to avoid work fatigue and
work stress. These strategies can help the GRN to cope up with the stress of work, and thus
helping to improve resilience among the nurses (Dhami et al., 2016).
Improving Competencies of the GRN: The mentorship programs also help in the development
of the skills and competencies of the GRN through proper guidance from the mentors.
Improving the work competencies additionally helps the nurses to take care of their
responsibilities in a more effective manner and help to develop job satisfaction and thus
improve resiliency among the nurses (Stubbs et al., 2016).
Adapting to work stress: Through effective coping strategies, improvement of competencies
and effective management of time, the mentors can help the mentees to adapt to the stressful
and highly demanding working environment of healthcare thereby improving their resilience
(Smeltzer et al., 2015).
3. Advocate for realistic actions using SMART goals:
SMART goal 1: Achieve work-life balance among Graduate Registered Nurses (Smeltzer et
al., 2015).
Ability of the nurses to implement effective work life balance can be measured
through several aspects such as: improvement in work satisfaction of the nurses, reduction in
work related stress, reduction in overtimes and extended shifts for nurses, reduction of health
related leaves, improvement in taking breaks.
Actions that can be taken to achieve SMART goal 1 includes: Helping to develop
time management skills; helping to prioritize tasks and follow a work schedule; encouraging
to take breaks from work to avoid stress; encouraging participation in relaxation sessions;
encouraging to take personal leaves and attend social events and meet with friends.

5BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
The resources needed for these actions include: whiteboards, electronic schedulers,
calendar, computer, yoga and relaxation rooms and an audio system.
The activities would require 1 to 6 months to complete.
SMART goal 2: Achieve resilience in the professional practice of nurses (Dhami et al., 2016)
Resilience of nurses in their professional practice can be measured through reduction
in work related stress, improvement in work satisfaction, improvement in the employee
retention rates and reduction in clinical errors.
Activities that can be taken to achieve the SMART goal 2 are: Regularly assessing
work related stress, job satisfaction, signs of emotional fatigue, burnout and emotional
depletion among nurses, helping nurses to improve self care, helping nurses to use effective
relaxation techniques to prevent work stress and develop adaptability to stressful work.
The resources needed for the activities include: Assessment and feedback forms,
workshops on self care, handouts and leaflets.
The activities would require 1 to 6 months to complete.

Running head: BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
Conclusion
Mentoring is a strategy through which experienced nurses can help an inexperienced
nurse to learn about the job, develop their professional competencies through effective
sharing of knowledge and information. The mentorship programs helps to develop effective
communication, role modeling and leadership skills, independence, collaboration, sharing of
knowledge, trust, respect, effective interpersonal relations, passion and inspiration among the
nurses. The mentorship program can also help to promote effective work life balance and
resiliency among the nurses through learning about effective situational awareness,
prioritizing work, time management, understanding the work boundaries, effective personal
care and improvement of competencies which can promote job satisfaction and coping with
work stress.

1BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
References:
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2BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY
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Running head: BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY

Running head: BUILDING PROFESSIONAL CAPACITY