Recruiting & Retaining Company Staff In Singapore: Best Practices

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Good Practices On Recruiting & Retaining Clinic Staff in Singapore

By Medinex Specialist Centre Team

June 23, 2025

By Medinex Team

Table of Contents

1. What Should You Do to Attract and Retain Medical Staff?

The professionalism and service excellence of your staff play a critical role in your clinic’s success. Your clinic staff’s engagement with patients throughout their treatment journeys shapes their patient experience. As such, it is important to adopt good practices to increase your ability to attract and retain high-performing clinic staff.

Current Challenges in Healthcare Recruitment

Before we delve into some of the recommended practices on recruitment and retention of medical staff, let us highlight some of the specific challenges facing healthcare recruitment in Singapore.

(Source: Prevalence of burnout among healthcare professionals in Singapore. July2022 Annals of the Academy of Medicine Singapore 51(7):409-416 by Kok Hian Tan MBSS, Boon Leng Lim MBBS, Zann Foo BSc (Hons) Mgmt, Joo Ying Tang BEng (Hons) EEE, Mabel Sim BEng (Mechanical), Phong Teck Lee MBChB, Kok Yong Fong MBBS)

2. Good Practices for Recruiting Medical Staff

Persistent manpower shortages and increasing demand for healthcare professionals resulted in a highly competitive medical staff recruitment landscape in Singapore. As a result, companies must find ways to stand out against other recruiters to attract the top talents. Consider some of the following good practices to improve your recruitment success.

Building a Strong Employer Brand online

A professionally managed website and social media presence on key platforms are crucial to connect with the online-savvy Millennials and Gen Z talents.
Besides highlighting business-related information on your online platforms, you should also present positive aspects of your work culture, company values, work environment as well as employee testimonials.
Be intentional in using social media platforms to celebrate your employees’ achievements and successes at work. Present the more humane side of your company by highlighting charitable or sustainability-related company activities.

Make a compelling offer

While attractive monetary compensation remains one of the key reasons for employees to join a company, other work considerations are becoming increasingly important in recent years.
In putting together your offer, you should also consider these company perks for greater appeal.
- Availability of training and development opportunities.
- Flexible work arrangements.
- Mental wellness programmes.
- Diversity and inclusion practices.
- Sustainability policies.

Effective recruitment strategies

Crafting Compelling Job Advertisements with stronger appeal.
- Highlight your clinic’s mission and unique aspects of the company culture, values, and practices.
- Showcase growth opportunities (CME, training, career pathways)
- Competitive salary and benefits.
- Use general job portals with strong healthcare sections such as Jobstreet, MyCareersFuture, LinkedIn, indeed, JobsDB for more generic positions. You may need to consider specialised healthcare recruitment agencies or headhunters for more specialised or senior positions.

Effective Screening and Interviewing

It is important to establish a structured Interview Process for different type of positions.
- Behavioural questions to assess soft skills and cultural fit.
- Technical assessments (for staff/employees, practical scenarios).
- Panel interviews for diverse perspectives.
Implement reference checks through verification of past performance and professional conduct, as well as credential and background verification.
- Nurses: Singapore Nursing Board (SNB) registration, educational transcripts, practice licenses.
- Doctors: Singapore Medical Council (SMC) registration, specialist accreditation (SAB), verification of qualifications and good standing certificates.
- Administrative Staff: Relevant qualifications, experience, and character references.

3. How To Retain Your Medical Staff

It is not uncommon for medical staff to move on after a few years of working. The common push factors may include a lack of further prospects, learning or simply a preference for a different type of job/industry or the heavy workload, stress and burnout. While it may not be possible to address all these issues, we put together a list of areas which you can consider adopting to reduce attrition.

Comprehensive Onboarding Program
- Provide company orientation, values, policies and job-specific training and mentorship, as well as bonding activities to integrate the new hires with the team.
Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
- Supporting mandatory CME requirements and provide opportunities for skills upgrading and specialisation training in a structured manner ensuring equal access for all new hires.
Positive & Inclusive Work Environment
- Advocate fair and respectful treatment across all levels of employment with clear avenues for employees to highlight concerns and issues. Implement work-life balance initiatives and transparent recognition and reward programs.
Performance-based bonus and awards
- Besides keeping the basic salaries of your employees on-par with the industry, it is also important to incorporate performance-based components.
- Performance-based annual bonus on top of the 13^th month can be implemented based on annual performance appraisal. E.g. Ratings above B are entitled to additional bonus.
- Monthly employee awards recognising good attitude and performance in the form of gift cards or dining vouchers can be great morale boosters for the staff.

4. Review and Improve Your HR Recruitment and Retention Practices

Whether you are just starting or you have been running your clinic for quite some time, it is important to consistently review your recruitment and retention policies to ensure your clinic’s competitiveness. Today’s Millennial and Generation Z workforce have different expectations and motivations compared to earlier generations. It is important to recognise this and be proactive in making changes to your policies to attract new high-performance healthcare professionals.

A comprehensive review and redesign of your HR recruitment and retention practices requires professional expertise and experience. Ad hoc or reactive approaches may result in contradictory policies that are difficult to monitor and implement. Medinex Specialist Centre is the Trusted and Valued Partner in helping Medical and Healthcare businesses start, sustain and succeed. Get in touch with us now!

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1 Farrer Park Station Road, #12-20, CONNEXION, Singapore 217562, WhatsApp: +65 8023 3505 Email: contact@medinex.com.sg

1 Farrer Park Station Road, #12-20
CONNEXION, Singapore 217562

Tel: +65 8023 3505

Email: contact@medinex.com.sg

1. What Should You Do to Attract and Retain Medical Staff?

Persistent Manpower Shortages

Workload and Burnout

Attrition and Retention Challenges

Increased Demand for Healthcare Professionals

2. Good Practices for Recruiting Medical Staff

3. How To Retain Your Medical Staff

4. Review and Improve Your HR Recruitment and Retention Practices

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get in touch with us now to set up your medical clinic, practice and business.

Fill in the form below and let us help you.

Partner with us to develop something extraordinary