Employer branding for clinics, schools and hospitals that struggle to keep staff

Open the resignation letters and exit notes from the last year before you write a word of careers copy. Look for lines like these, which are invented examples: "the timetable was full and the meetings ran past five", "I learned my week's duty the night before", "the doctor spoke to me in front of patients". Fewer exit notes mention perks than mention the roster. Clinics, schools and hospitals lose staff over the week more than over the year: the roster, the person who supervises it, and whether there is a visible step beyond the current post. A candidate looking you up wants those answers, so put them on one page and in one walk-through.

Sort your last ten exits into three piles

You need no software for this. Write each leaver's stated reason in a line. Then place it in one of three piles. The schedule covers roster, timetable, overtime and notice of changes. The people pile covers a supervisor, a senior, a doctor or a principal. The path covers no next grade, no training and no feedback.

One pile usually turns out larger than the others. That pile is what your page leads with, and also what you fix before you publish. If the people pile is the biggest and it traces to one person, the page will not help you yet. Have the difficult conversation first.

What each group checks before accepting

Do not write one page for everyone, because they look for different things.

A nurse or ward attendant checks the shift pattern, how handover is done, how many patients one person looks after on an ordinary day, and whether night duty rotates fairly. A teacher checks the timetable load, whether marking and meetings spill past school hours, and who they report to. A clinic coordinator or receptionist checks opening hours, breaks, and whether doctors treat staff with courtesy.

None of these is a perk. Each can be a plain sentence, and few employers write them down. Pick the group you lose fastest and write that section first. Check each line with a person who holds the job today, before it goes anywhere public.

What the one-screen page says

Keep one screen of facts per role family, under headings candidates would type: "Teaching at our school", "Nursing at our hospital", "Front office at our clinic". Write each line the way you would say it to a candidate across a desk.

Use only numbers from your own records, and drop any line you cannot back up.

For example: a day school in Shivamogga

Take an invented case. A private day school loses four teachers in two years, each after one session. The principal puts it down to the town. The exit notes sort into piles quickly: the schedule pile holds three of the four. Teachers learned in June that they would also take a Saturday remedial class, and meetings ran to six o'clock without being in the timetable.

The mistake was to promise "a supportive team" in the advert and say nothing about the Saturday class or the meeting hours. The new page states the periods per week, the Saturday class in the first term and the meeting day, with the vice principal's name as the person to ask. New teachers also get a mentor for the first two terms. The school does not claim that nobody will leave, and the fix has a price: ending meetings earlier meant dropping the long Friday review that two trustees liked, and the mentor's hours come off their own teaching load.

What about rules in regulated work?

Nursing, teaching, medical practice and school management are regulated in India, and the rules differ by state and body and change. Do not quote registration, ratios, pay bands or service terms as settled fact. Describe your own practice. Tell candidates to check requirements with the relevant council, board or regulator. Your own adviser can tell you what you may publish.

When a careers page will not help

If your pay sits clearly below the town's for the same post, the page brings people in. The first pay slip sends them out. If the problem is one senior who corrects juniors in front of patients or parents, a page only covers for that person. And if you recruit through a trust or a government process with fixed terms, you have less to say, so use the page for the working week only.

The walk-through

The walk-through matters as much as the page. Invite shortlisted candidates at the end of a shift, not in the middle of a rush. Let them see the staff room and the handover, and let them speak to someone doing the job now without a senior in the room. A nurse who says "the first month is hard, but my senior sits with me for the first two nights" is more believable than a brochure.

Sort the exit notes, then print two facts

Sort your last ten exit reasons into the three piles. Write the one fact you can print today from the biggest pile, such as how the roster is published or who new joiners report to. To decide between building trust and buying reach, see employer branding or recruitment advertising. The employer branding hub covers the rest. When you want a second view of the page, employer branding is the service for it, and you can tell us what you need.