Global labor market shifts have spurred the need for innovations and adaptations in workplace norms. This evolution demands a workforce with technical and soft skills to meet sustainability and industry advancements. The paper aims to elucidate the complex challenges related to the ambition to develop a socially sustainable, competitive, and green industry subjected to an accelerating pace of change. It outlines the findings of a Delphi study conducted in Sweden, which integrated workshops, interviews, and surveys with experts from various sectors to identify 14 key challenges. These challenges were synthesized into five themes: innovative competence supply management practices, resilient organizations and production systems, analytics for improvement and learning, socially sustainable work, and green transformation practices. The study provides a set of propositions within these themes, offering a strategic roadmap for future research to foster the growth of industries that are socially responsible, competitive, and committed to environmental sustainability. A practical implication of the study is the recognition of the larger competence ecosystem of which industrial companies are a part. This community must work together to create the knowledge needed to manage the shift to a green, sustainable, and digital working life. 

Background: The use of welfare technology is gaining ground in municipal eldercare and is increasingly being integrated into everyday routines. However, the meanings that eldercare personnel attach to welfare technology in the care of older recipients, and thus the domestication of welfare technology, remain largely underexplored. This study explores how eldercare personnel understand and ascribe meanings to welfare technologies in their daily work, with the aim of understanding their domestication. Methods: The empirical material comprised 181 photographs, each paired with corresponding text, from 61 participants across four municipalities in southern Sweden. The empirical material was thematically analysed, focusing on different categories of welfare technologies and their ascribed meanings. In our coding “convenience” and at times “inconvenience” were interpreted as recurrent patterns. Their repeated presence across various contexts and the meanings ascribed to different welfare technologies prompted deeper interpretive engagement, leading us to adopt it as a key theme. In the final step, the codes were synthesised through the lens of “convenience” to better understand the meanings participants attached to welfare technology in eldercare work. Results: The participants ascribed meanings to welfare technology that resonate with broader societal and cultural understandings of technological solutionism, while aligning with national policies promoting welfare technology as a means of supporting safety, activity and independence for older adults. Welfare technology was often understood as both convenient and an act of care. Our analysis uncovered different dimensions of “convenience”, which we labelled as: “remote surveillance convenience”, “logistics convenience”, “communication convenience”, “safety convenience”, “comforting convenience” and “activation convenience”. Yet, in some cases, welfare technology was also seen as a hindrance to care, being inconvenient due to its inflexibility, technical difficulties and the tendency to create duplicate tasks. Conclusion: This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the domestication of welfare technology in eldercare. Our study found that eldercare personnel engage with and interpret welfare technologies by ascribing meanings related to perceived convenience — a concept not widely explored in this context. Welfare technologies were often seen as convenient substitutes for physical proximity and relational care, such as “remote surveillance convenience” through cameras and “comforting convenience” via robotic pets. However, convenience, while central to the participants’ experiences, should not be understood as inherently “good” or positive but as part of the domestication process, shaped by socio-technical contexts and the political economy of eldercare, which prioritises effectiveness and efficiency. By shedding light on these dynamics, our study examines how the domestication of welfare technology is shaped by and reinforces broader discourses of technological solutionism, raising questions about its long-term impact on care practices.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a radical transition to work from home. Recent studies have focused on the individual employee’s cognitive, physical, and mental resources, lacking the interactions between human, technology, and organization (HTO), and teams handling of the radical transition. This study explored the sensemaking processes of the narratives of teams’ radical transitions to work from home. Chronicle workshops with seven teams and 13 semi-structured interviews with managers were thematically analysed in narratives and through HTO interactions. The narratives showed how crisis boosted development of efficient human - technology interactions and increased possibilities for individuals’ work-life balance and flexibility. Organizational priorities and strategies were not adapted in time to support sensemaking processes of the teams. Thus, the study indicates that interactions between human and organization could have been accelerated during COVID-19 to support sensemaking and development of remote leadership practices for a sustainable post-pandemic work-life.   

Introduction Public sector organizations in Sweden are currently undergoing a transformation, moving away from the new public management model and hierarchical structures towards increased flexibility, cross-collaboration, and collective leadership approaches. This shift is a response to various trends and external factors, including the COVID pandemic, advances in AI technology, and ongoing climate and social crises, necessitating greater agility, trust, swift responsiveness, and collaboration. The transition to this new paradigm is also driven by a governmental decision to introduce trust-based leadership in the public sector (Tillitsdelegationen, 2019). Trust-based leadership promotes the idea that employees, entrusted with expertise and experience, know best how to provide superior services for citizens (Bringselius, 2021). However, research reveals a gap between policies promoting trust-based leadership and its actual implementation in practice. Purpose The paper aims to present preliminary findings from two ongoing research projects in collaboration with various stakeholders in the Swedish public sector. It seeks to outline how managers and employees, from diverse work environments in the public sector, perceive the need for transformation and enhancement at individual, team, and systemic levels. The ultimate goal is to transition from traditional hierarchical structures to shared leadership and self-leadership practices, fostering more sustainable conditions in hybrid work environments. Methodology Multiple organizations, including four Swedish municipalities, two governmental authorities, a research institute, and a research funding agency, participate in the research. Each organization participates with one to four distinct pilot teams (14 in total). These represent diverse work contexts, ranging from school kitchens and organizational development departments to back-office administrators, preventive eldercare, technology researchers, and various others. Data collection involves different methods: individual interviews with managers overseeing 14 pilot teams, focus group interviews with employees from eight pilot teams, and a photo voice study. The latter includes collecting photos and reflective narratives, followed by group analyses through workshops. Preliminary Results The conference presentation will delve into commonalities and differences in perspectives between managers and employees. It will explore how transitioning requirements vary based on roles or work contexts in the public sector. Current results highlight areas crucial for sustainable hybrid working, with a focus on shared leadership. Employees emphasize the need to clarify shared purpose, goals, and vision, increase trust, and improve communication skills. Participants also stress the importance of strengthening team engagement, encouraging risktaking, and developing the capacity to navigate complexity through cross-collaboration. Recognizing and building structural enablers at the organizational level is also recognized as important. Additionally, participants underscore the significance of cultivating self-leadership skills to foster sustainable conditions in hybrid work and advance shared leadership development. Challenges include establishing conditions for improved work-life balance, allocating time for reflection, enhancing time management, and prioritizing tasks aligned with the broader purpose of work. Developing self-regulation rituals that contribute to motivation, wellbeing, and ongoing learning at work are emphasized, moving away from a focus on short-term deliverables

Eldercare is facing current demands to develop due to changing demographics with increasing populations of elderly over the ageof 85 combined with smaller populations of young people able to provide care and contribute to care via their taxes. The need for development of quality and safety was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Swedish government subsidies aimed at developing municipalities responsible for publicly managed eldercare have only been evaluated to a limited extent and the realisation of visions of future eldercare is shrouded in mystery. The study aims to explore the development work and strategies in Swedish municipal eldercare organisations, specifically in terms of alignment between democratic visions at political and strategic levels and operationalisation at operational levels. 28 interviews with development leaders were conducted in 14 Swedish municipality organisations between March and October 2021. The interviews focused on supporting roles and functions, responsibilities and collaborations, visions and operationalisations, and the follow-up and evaluation of eldercare development. A thematic analysis resulted in the main theme “top-down handling of unmanageable alignment” and the subthemes “shaping a highroad for change;” “sticking to visions, hopes, and respect for practice;” and “self-serving focus on politics.” The quality of alignment strategies and putting the strategic vision into practice were related to organisation size and resources. A gap between strategic and operational levels was accentuated in terms of inconsistent responsibilities in following through with development projects and development being characterised by top-down initiatives and resources at the strategic level but strained implementation abilities at operational levels. Peripherally located change agents with legitimacy at multiple organisational levels are suggested to ease top-down as well as bottom-up drive, which could increase a vertical alignment of visions and practice.

This report presents the findings of a Delphi study coordinated by Linköping University (LiU) in collaboration with RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and the Chalmers University of Technology. The study was carried out in 2022 as part of a Vinnova-funded planning project aimed at establishing an interdisciplinary research environment to prepare an application for a new competence centre focused on building a long-term, sustainable Swedish industry. The Delphi study aimed to identify key challenges related to the ambition to develop a socially sustainable, competitive, and green industry subjected to an accelerating pace of change. The Delphi study was based on an interactive research approach to facilitate the cocreation of knowledge for the dual purpose of advancing long-term theory development and innovation processes. The consortium and its reference groups consist of industrial companies (such as AstraZeneca, Ericsson IndustryLab, Rimaster, Saab Aeronautics, Scania, Volvo GTO and Volvo Cars), intermediaries and educational actors (such as Skill, IUC Sverige and Linköping Science Park), labour market organisations (including IF Metall, Industriarbetsgivarna, Unionen, and Teknikföretagen), governmental agencies (the Office for Sustainable Working life), and researchers from LiU, Chalmers, and RISE. There are key industrial targets forming the starting point for the Delphi study that also guide policies and investments in strategic agendas for the industrial stakeholders. For the Swedish industry to be resilient and sustainable, new competence and organisational abilities are required to decrease the dependency on fossil energy in production. Transformation towards electrification, circular economy, and digitalisation are key enablers, and these transitions are ongoing and accelerating at a fast pace. Furthermore, new and constantly emerging targets require organisational resilience, like managing new requirements and targets within energy consumption and supply of competence. The findings of this report include a total of 14 identified challenges. To organise and create conditions for flexible work for all To successfully manage crises and drastic external events To successfully drive and contribute to the green industrial transformation To facilitate employee-driven innovation and organisational learning To attract, develop and retain employees with the right skills To take advantage of and exploit the opportunities of digitalisation To create inclusive workplaces and utilise diversity To organise competence development To collaborate with external parties to ensure the availability of competence To design for socially sustainable work considering efficiency and good health in a dynamic environment To organise the creation of added value for and together with customers and suppliers To systematically drive continuous improvement work in parallel with long-term development work To develop leadership that creates better opportunities both for a climate-neutral footprint and a competitive industry with good working conditions To transform research- and policy-based knowledge into practice The 14 challenges were further analysed according to perceived importance and ability and presented in a priority matrix. According to the priority matrix, the 14 challenges were then synthesised into six main research themes: A. Innovative competence supply practice, B. Resilient organisations & production systems, C. Analytics for improvement & learning, D. Socially sustainable work, E. Green transformation practices, and an open and undefined research theme labelled as Future challenges. The research themes are also presented together with six main analytical and theoretical perspectives in a matrix that can be used to intersect and interweave the research themes to guide the research agenda in a potential future research program.

Syftet med litteraturgranskningen var att kartlägga; kunskapsläget kring socialsekreterares arbetsmiljö i allmänhet, samt identifiera interventioner och aktiviteter för att stärka socialsekreterares möjlighet att i trygghet utöva sitt uppdrag korrekt utan påverkan i synnerhet. Via de svenska databaserna Swepub och GU supersök identifierades 15 publikationer, varav 5 inkluderades i analysen. För engelskspråkiga publikationer gjordes sökningar i Scopus, där 69 lästes i sin fulltext. Efter genomläsning inkluderas 44 stycken. Av de inkluderade publikationerna dominerade kvantitativa studier baserade på enkätdata. Förhållandevis få studier redogjorde för någon form av insats för att stärka tryggheten. Teoretiska referensramar som användes bland publikationerna var teorin om Exit- Voice och krav- och resursmodellen relaterat till olika hälsoutfall där samband mellan arbetsförhållanden och tankar på att sluta, arbetstillfredsställelse, utmattning samt upplevelsen av förändring av ens egna medkänsla med klienter kunde fastslås. De vetenskapliga artiklarna beskriver problem och faktorer som påverkar tryggheten i professionen på olika systemnivåer. Dels finns resultat på individuell medarbetarnivå, på arbetsgrupp- och yrkesprofessionsnivå, i relation till andra myndigheter samt på övergripande samhällsnivå som relaterar både till påverkan, hantering och konsekvenser för tryggheten i yrkesprofessionen. De krav som uppstår kan påverka i en nedåtgående spiral men det finns också stöd och resurser som kan stärka tryggheten för att balansera krav och grundläggande förutsättningar i yrket. Det traditionella arbetsmiljöarbetet kan behöva kompletteras med proaktivt arbete för att stärka förmågan att hantera oförutsedda händelser. Här tycks öppenhet i organisationen och professionsstärkande åtgärder vara viktigt både för individens, professionsteamets och organisationens hållbarhet.

The extensive needs for developments of eldercare addressing working conditions, care quality, influence, and safety was highlighted during the pandemic. This mixed-method study contribute with knowledge about capability-strengthening development work and its importance for trustworthy managerial work, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Questionnaire data and narratives from first-line managers immediately before (n = 284) and 16 months into the pandemic (n = 189), structured interviews with development leaders (n = 25), and documents were analyzed. The results identify different focuses of development work. Strategic-level development leaders focused the strengthening of old adults' capabilities. While operational-level leaders approached strengthening employees' capability. First-line managers' rating of their trustworthy managerial work decreased during the pandemic and was associated with their workload, development support and capability-strengthening projects focusing employees' resources. The study demonstrates the gap between strategic and the operational levels regarding understanding of capability set and needed resources for strengthening capabilities and trustworthy, integrated managerial work regarding safety, influence, and quality conditions for old adults and employees. Copyright © 2022 Dellve and Williamsson.

För att svara upp mot utmaningarna inom det organisatoriska och sociala arbetsmiljöområdet och främja ett hållbart arbetsliv har Scania utvecklat dialogverktyget Work Balance. Det är forskningsbaserat och avser ge stöd och struktur åt chefer att föra djupare och regelbunden dialog med medarbetare kring upplevelser av arbetssituationer. Dialogen är strukturerad inom de fyra ämnesområdena Hanterbarhet, Begriplighet, Meningsfullhet och Återhämtning, och avses användas på frivillig basis i grupp eller individuellt. HELIX har i samarbete med Scania genomfört en lärande utvärdering av Work Balance. Syftet med denna utvärdering var att identifiera möjliggörare och hinder för användningen av Work Balance samt att ta fram förbättringsförslag som underlag för Scanias vidareutveckling av dialogverktyget. HELIX-forskare intervjuade 44 medarbetare, första och andra linjens chefer ur produktions- och kontorsmiljö, från sex produktionsenheter i fyra länder. Dessa använde eller hade valt att inte använda dialogverktyget. Resultaten visar en över lag positiv syn på Work Balance, på frivilligheten i användningen, relevansen, anpassningsbarheten, flexibiliteten och det varierade användningssättet. Men vid en produktionsenhet där verktyget inte fungerat som önskat har användningen avbrutits. Implementeringen varierade avseende tydlighet i information och träning i verktyget. Användningsförutsättningarna varierade kraftigt beroende på tidigare erfarenheter, kultur och mognad hos team och chefer att vara öppna och sätta ord på känslor. Användningen varierade även mellan produktionsenheter. Vid regelbunden användning var man mycket nöjd, men andra som inte sett nyttan hade slutat använda Work Balance. I produktion var teamen större, tiden mer begränsad, språk och frågor kändes mer abstrakta och användningen upplevdes svårare än i kontor. Högre chefers efterfrågan av användning tenderade ge en mer uthållig användning. Upplevda effekter var; öppnare klimat, bättre kommunikation, ökat samförstånd och tidigare identifiering av problem. Många trodde på en indirekt positiv koppling mellan Work Balance och nyckeltal. En enklare version av Work Balance efterfrågades, men också bättre hantering av identifierade problem, där mer stöd och utbildning till chefer och team behövs. En väl utvecklad förbättringskultur torde vara en bra grund för en utvecklad dialog där Work Balance kopplas till andra verktyg eller metoder som används i teamets kärnprocesser.

The current state of work–life transformation will see more white-collar work being performed remotely using digital management systems. There is, however, a lack of research on factors and resources contributing to sustainable work when working remotely using digital management systems. The aim of this study was to study the conditions and resources connected to digital management systems and remote work, and their associations with sustainable work, in terms of process quality, trust, and sense of coherence, when working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. An analytical cross-sectional study was performed. Questionnaire data from white-collar employees (n = 484) in two private companies were analyzed with regression models, focusing on the importance of the conditions and resources connected to digital management systems and remote work, stratified by working from home or at the office. The results showed digital conditions and resources being associated with indicators of sustainable work. Furthermore, the results showed that social work relations were additional important explanatory factors for sustainable remote work. This study contributes to the development of a new post-pandemic work–life balance by concluding that sustainable remote work needs to be ensured by functional digital management systems and adequate leadership supporting the development of a positive team and learning climate. © 2022 by the authors.