Competitive employer positioning through career path analysis: the case of the Swiss nursing sector

BACKGROUND: The global shortage of nurses has caused strategic employer positioning and strengthened employer branding to become progressively relevant addressing the increased competition in the recruitment of nurses. This study provides competition-oriented strengths-and-weaknesses profiles for nurse attraction and attrition for the major types of healthcare institutions to advise on competitive employer positioning. METHODS: We applied bivariate weighted logistic regressions with cluster-adjusted standard errors to evaluate 4844 employer changes of 3011 nurses participating in the nurses at work study, whereby the reasons to quit (RQs) acted as both predictors of the former and the follow-up type of employer. For each employer type, we introduce a coordination system allocating each workplace criterion along its push and implicit pull characteristics, given through the specific odds ratios, to derive different strategic implications for an organisation’s competitive nurse recruitment. RESULTS: Depending on the employer type, workplace criteria were variously acting as push or pull factors in nurses’ career decisions. CONCLUSIONS: Nurses’ career choices are affected by experienced and presumed workplace characteristics associated with specific employer types. Becoming aware of these associations and experiences, employers should leverage workplace criteria with relatively strong pull or/and weak push characteristics by intensified communication measurements and criteria with relatively weak pull or/and strong push characteristics should be enhanced to a competitive level. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12960-021-00586-z.