How can hospitals engage their current employees in the recruitment of qualified nurses? A referral bonus and self-determination perspective.

AIMS: To investigate the impact of promising a referral bonus and an autonomous referral request on nurses' referral likelihood and the quality of their referrals. DESIGN: We applied a 2 × 2 between-participants factorial design with referral bonus and autonomous referral request as experimental variables. METHODS: In May 2019, 110 nurses working in Belgian hospitals were shown a fictitious e-mail with a request from their employer to look for potential new-hires and filled out an online survey measuring referral likelihood and quality. RESULTS: Promising a referral bonus did not affect nurses' referral likelihood and quality. Instead supporting self-determination theory, nurses exposed to the autonomous request were more likely to refer and assure referral quality than those exposed to the controlling request. CONCLUSION: Hospitals can increase nurses' referral likelihood and quality by framing their referral request in an autonomy-supportive way. IMPACT: Recruiting nurses are more important than ever in the current Covid-19 crisis. Our findings offer practical insights on how hospitals can engage their employees in the recruitment of nurses (i.e. through framing referral requests in an autonomy-supportive way).