Title
Decision Making Process Of Early-Career Nurse Workers in Recruitment and Retention 

Project Management
Jana Bartakova

INS-Team
Jana Bartakova
Valeria Escudero Lopez
Diana Trutschel
Michael Simon

Externe (offizielle) Projektpartner 
Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse occidentale, HES-SO (Christie Derek) 
Universität Basel, Swiss TPH (Günther Fink)

Location of Data Selection
German- and French-speaking part of Switzerland

Duration
2025 bis 2027

Description
Background
Nursing workforce shortages remain a major challenge for healthcare systems worldwide. One contributing factor is the loss of nurses during the early stages of professional practice. Existing evidence remains fragmented, as most studies focus primarily on job satisfaction or turnover intentions and assess stated preferences without examining the trade-offs or decision-making processes underlying nurses’ attraction to and retention within the profession. A better understanding of these mechanisms is essential for developing sustainable workforce strategies.

Overall Aim: 
To investigate how organizational and institutional factors shape the attraction and retention of early-career nurses in Switzerland. The project focuses on understanding the implicit preferences, decision-making processes, and trade-offs that newly graduated nurses make during the transition from education into clinical practice.

Methods:
EMPOWER follows a multi-phase methodological development process. The current preparatory phase focuses on the rigorous development, linguistic and cultural adaptation, and piloting of questionnaires: discrete choice experiments (DCE), career trajectories and socio-demographic. This includes literature review, expert workshops, cognitive testing, and advanced statistical experimental design modelling approaches. The resulting questionnaires will be designed to identify and quantify the relative importance of job characteristics and the trade-offs early-career nurses are willing to accept. Future phases will involve nationvide longitudinal data collection with sequential mixed-methods design.

Expected Outcomes & Conclusion: 
The project will generate robust evidence on the job characteristics that most strongly influence recruitment and retention decisions among early-career nurses. Findings will support healthcare organisations and policymakers in designing evidence-based and sustainable workforce strategies aligned with the expectations and priorities of the new generation of nurses.