Appreciative management in healthcare and its connection with intention to work outside Estonia

. Creating an attractive workplace in healthcare is an issue many countries will try to resolve because of a global shortage of healthcare professionals. This study aimed to describe how healthcare staff in Estonia assessed appreciative management and its connection to the country and workplace in which they would choose to work outside Estonia. A quantitative descriptive study was conducted via an electronic survey among healthcare staff. Over half of the respondents (53.7%, n = 151) had no intention of leaving the workplace; over three of five (64.4%, n = 181) did not intend to leave the profession within a year. Systematic management, equality, and promotion of well-being at work were weakly connected to moving to another country. The more systematic management, equality, and promotion of well-being at work, the less the respondents considered moving. Appreciation of know-how had no statistically significant connection to considering moving to another country. In conclusion, only a few healthcare professionals were willing to leave their workplace or their profession. Appreciative management may be one issue to further promote workplace attractiveness and reduce turnover. The workplaces in healthcare are part of their country and environment, meaning their international reputation is important when one wonders where to live and work. This study implied that most of the healthcare professionals were willing to stay in their workplace and/or profession in Estonia, positively acknowledging which factor to base healthcare development on in Estonia.