Retention for the New majority: safety and the Gen Z nurse. 911Cellular | May 11, 2026 Gen Z has reached a tipping point in health systems. By crossing the 30% threshold in the general population, this generation has moved from adapting to workplace norms to redefining them. As of mid-2025, Gen Z is the second-largest generational group working as RNs in health systems, and the only generation whose relative numbers are still growing, at about 13% per year. Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers, by contrast, are all shrinking. Bedside nursing already faces a serious retention problem. Understanding why Gen Z nurses stay, leave, or disengage is fundamental to adapting in the years ahead, and safety is at the center of that conversation. Where Gen Z Is Working, and Why It Matters In an effort to better understand these trends, the American Organization for Nursing Leadership partnered with Laudio to produce the Spring 2026 report, Engaging and Retaining Gen Z Nurses: Trends and Strategies. Gen Z nurses are not clustering in lower-acuity units while they find their footing. Gen Z RNs are already entering high-acuity specialties such as transplant, step-down units, and critical care at a higher rate than their overall workforce representation. These are environments defined by clinical intensity and high stakes. They are also environments where patient violence, behavioral escalations, and critical incidents are more frequent and more severe. Gen Z's willingness to lead and to stay is dependent on feeling prepared and protected, not exposed and on their own when a situation turns dangerous. In a critical care unit at 3 a.m., that assurance is not a soft perk. It is a prerequisite. A Generational Divide in Safety Sentiment This is where the retention conversation gets personal, and where healthcare leaders need to pay close attention. Veteran nurses were largely taught, by culture if not explicitly, that violence and physical threat are part of the job. A patient grabs you, a family member gets aggressive, a situation escalates, and you manage it and move on. That mentality shaped entire generations of nursing practice. It also produced extraordinarily high rates of trauma, burnout, and workforce departure. Gen Z is not buying it. This generation entered the workforce expecting that their employer has a legal and ethical obligation to protect them from harm. They are less willing to accept patient violence as an occupational inevitability, and they are more likely to factor an organization's safety track record into their decision to stay or leave. When a hospital's response to a violent incident is a shrug and an incident report filed three days later, Gen Z nurses notice. And many of them start looking for the exit. The generational gap here is not about toughness. It is about expectations. Earlier generations were conditioned to absorb risk quietly. Gen Z sees that same risk clearly and asks why no one has fixed it yet. Building a Safe-to-Work Experience The AONL-Laudio report draws a distinction hospital leaders should act on: the goal is no longer simply a secure perimeter. Organizations must move beyond badge access and security desks to build a system that actively protects staff before, during, and after each shift. That means weapon detection at entry points, visible security presence on high-acuity units, and rapid response protocols for behavioral escalations. It also means giving nurses a reliable way to call for help the moment a situation starts to turn. A nurse who is alone in a room with an aggressive patient does not have time to find a phone, radio, or pull station. The ability to quickly and discreetly summon assistance is a basic expectation for this workforce. So is knowing that the alert actually reaches someone who can take action. That last part is where many hospitals fall short. Getting help to the right place quickly requires more than a button. It requires a system behind that button, one that routes the alert, tracks the response, documents the incident, and gives leadership the data to identify patterns before the next one happens. Gen Z nurses may not know the technical term for that infrastructure, but they know whether it exists on their unit. They feel the difference between an organization that has invested in it and one that has not. Meeting the New Standard Today's hospital leaders are managing competing priorities, limited budgets, and a workforce crisis. But the data is pointing in a clear direction: the generation now filling your highest-acuity units has a different baseline expectation for what protection at work looks like, and meeting that expectation is increasingly tied to whether they stay. The good news is that the gap is closable. Giving nurses a reliable, immediate way to call for help, backed by a system that routes the response, tracks the outcome, and surfaces patterns over time, is the kind of visible, concrete investment that Gen Z nurses notice. It signals that leadership takes their safety seriously as an operational commitment, not just a policy on paper. A generation that views physical safety as a professional right now makes up nearly a third of your nursing staff, and that share is growing. The organizations that meet them where they are on this issue will be better positioned to recruit, retain, and build the stable workforce that acute care demands. Curious about how much your organization is spending on workplace violence? Uncover the cost using its free Workplace Violence Calculator.

Laudio wins "Health Administration Innovation Award" in 10th annual MedTech Breakthrough Awards program. Landmark 10th annual Awards program recognizes the most innovative digital health and medical technology solutions worldwide. BOSTON, May 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Laudio, an Ascend Learning brand and a leader in frontline healthcare workforce solutions, today announced that it has received the "Health Administration Innovation Award" in the 10th annual MedTech Breakthrough Awards program conducted by MedTech Breakthrough, an independent market intelligence organization that recognizes the most innovative companies, technologies, and products in the global digital health and medical technology market. Laudio's AI-powered leader operations platform was purpose-built for healthcare's frontline leaders, helping streamline their core daily work, automate administrative tasks, and operationalize system-wide goals in a practical, sustainable way for leaders. Integrating data from HR platforms, EHRs, and other core systems, Laudio provides frontline leaders with an efficient, centralized workflow hub - encompassing employee and patient rounding, team professional development, quality and safety, and more - that reduces complexity and frees up capacity. Replacing siloed systems and data overload, the platform surfaces organized, actionable insights to today's busy leaders and provides AI-driven recommendations for high-impact leader actions that help them sift through the noise and prioritize their time effectively. In addition to streamlining leaders' work, Laudio is also helping health systems drive consistency in leader best practices across the frontline, from performing new hire check-ins to completing patient rounds - behaviors that drive a wide range of key organizational outcomes across employee engagement, patient experience, quality and safety, and more. "Today's frontline leaders are managing growing teams and tasks while continuing to contend with fragmented workflows that slow them down and distract from higher-value uses of their time. At Laudio, we're changing that, with AI-powered technology that simplifies, prioritizes, and scales leaders' work - freeing up capacity for the human connection at the heart of healthcare," said CJ Floros, COO of Laudio. "We are dedicated to innovating for these critical, yet often under-resourced roles and honored to receive this recognition from MedTech Breakthrough." Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, the MedTech Breakthrough Awards program has spent a decade recognizing the companies driving meaningful progress and improving patient care across the global health and medical technology industry. The program spans a wide range of categories - including Telehealth, Clinical Administration, Patient Engagement, Electronic Health Records (EHR), Virtual Care, Medical Devices and beyond - honoring the innovations reshaping how care is delivered worldwide. This year's program drew a record-breaking number of nominations from leading companies and startups across more than 20 countries, reflecting the growing global impact and momentum of the digital healthcare industry. "Laudio is redefining how healthcare organizations invest in human infrastructure," said Steve Johansson, managing director, MedTech Breakthrough. "Laudio's platform fosters higher retention, enhances patient experience, and operationalizes leadership practices that align workforce well-being with effective performance across the health system. Laudio helps make meaningful engagement both consistent and scalable." About Laudio Laudio, an Ascend Learning brand, empowers healthcare leaders to drive large-scale change through everyday human actions. Laudio's AI-enhanced platform streamlines workflows for frontline leaders, strengthens interpersonal connections, and aligns C-suite objectives with frontline efforts, boosting operational efficiency, employee engagement, and patient experience. Laudio makes it possible for patients, frontline workers, and health system leaders to thrive together. Discover how at www.laudio.com. About Ascend Learning Ascend Learning is a leading healthcare and learning technology company. With products that span the learning continuum, Ascend focuses on high-growth careers in a range of industries, with a special focus on healthcare and other licensure-driven occupations. Ascend Learning products, from testing to certification, are used by physicians, emergency medical professionals, nurses, allied health professionals, certified personal trainers, financial advisors, skilled trades professionals and insurance brokers. Learn more at www.ascendlearning.com. About MedTech Breakthrough Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the MedTech Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence and innovation in medical & health technology companies, products, services and people. The MedTech Breakthrough Awards provide a platform for public recognition around the achievements of breakthrough healthcare and medical companies and products in categories that include Patient Experience & Engagement, Health & Fitness, Medical Devices, Clinical Administration, Connected Healthcare, Medical Data, Healthcare Cybersecurity and more. For more information visit MedTechBreakthrough.com. Tech Breakthrough LLC does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its recognition programs, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with award designations. Tech Breakthrough LLC recognition consists of the opinions of the Tech Breakthrough LLC organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Tech Breakthrough LLC disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this recognition program, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.