Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/265701 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 15480
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Excessive turnover reduces the stock of an organization's human capital. In the public sector, where wage increases are often constrained, managers need to leverage non-monetary working conditions to retain their workers. We investigate whether workers are responsive to improvements in non-wage aspects of their job by evaluating the impact on nurse retention of a programme that encouraged public hospitals to increase staff retention through data monitoring and improving the non-pecuniary aspects of nursing jobs. Employing rich employee-level administrative data from the universe of English NHS hospitals, and a staggered difference-in-difference design, we find that the programme has improved nursing retention within hospitals and decreased exits from the public hospital sector. Our results indicate that a light-touch intervention can shift management behavior and improve hospital workforce turnover. These findings are important in sectors affected by labor supply shortages, and they are especially policy-relevant in the health care context, where such shortages have potentially negative effects on patient outcomes.
Subjects: 
labor supply
workforce retention
non-monetary incentives
hospital care
staggered difference-in-differences
JEL: 
J32
J38
J45
J63
I11
C22
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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