Nursing shortages are an international issue and are particularly evident in perioperative care, critical care and emergency services. The solution commonly adopted to tackle this problem is to increase the recruitment of nurses to replace the loss, whereas efforts to try and retain existing staff have only sporadically been mentioned. Furthermore, while retention programmes have occasionally received attention from some nursing scholars, they often fail to investigate the real needs of nurses. This article discusses three practical solutions adopted in Hong Kong, which could potentially alleviate difficulties with staff retention. It is hoped that the collaborative efforts of different professionals and nursing scholars will help to solve nursing shortages in the foreseeable future.