Work Environment — Nordic Labour Journal

Changes to IT affect systems as well as the social environment

(Dec 06, 2010) Many businesses and organisations change their IT systems, yet in 70 percent of cases the change ends in failure with regard to time, budget or function. There have been many studies of what went wrong. Einar Iveroth chose to study what went right in the cases that succeeded.

Why Swedes are aware of integration issues

(Dec 03, 2010) What is it that the trade unions and employers in Sweden do to make them top a ranking of awareness of integration issues made by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)?

Nordic region's anti-social dumping drive

(Nov 26, 2010) The fight against some Eastern European workers' bad working conditions in the Nordic countries depends on better information.

Hillevi Engström: more social responsibility needed in working life

(Nov 24, 2010) Once the leading star of Swedish Police, Hillevi Engström is now in charge of whipping working life into line. She wants to use her role as Minister for Employment to challenge businesses to take social responsibility. In return she offers economical incentives and an improved education system.

Work environment key to Swedish competitiveness

(Nov 03, 2010) The work environment is often associated with risks, but now the Swedish government wants to turn the phrase on its head and highlight the positive sides. A good work environment can improve workers' health, lift the business and improve competitiveness. Those are some of the conclusions from the government's national action plan for the work environment which it presented in September.

Swedish work environment tempts Chinese

(May 10, 2010) Oscar Berger is Sweden's Counsellor of Labour Market Affairs in Beijing. His job is to study the Chinese labour market and employment issues for the future - including Chinese competence and labour immigration.

New convention improves marine working environments

(May 05, 2010) Shipping is the most global of all businesses. One reason for introducing a new Marine Labour Convention is to create a more even playing field for the shipping companies. Shipowners should no longer be able to save money by cutting wages or neglecting the working environment.

Focus on ill health means less absence

(Feb 09, 2010) If you at an early stage enter a dialogue with workers who are ill, you reduce the level of sick leave. That's the experience in the Høje-Taastrup municipality west of Copenhagen.

Sick leave in Finland: municipalities on the right track

(Feb 09, 2010) Many Finish municipalities have managed to turn the trend of ever increasing levels of sick leave. As the country's largest municipal employer, the City of Helsinki is developing ways of helping people on long-term sick leave to get back to work.

The constant hunt for ways to limit sick leave

(Feb 09, 2010) Levels of sick leave vary a lot between the different Nordic countries, yet it seems it gets harder and harder to qualify for sickness benefit - whether the level of sick leave rises or falls. There is no agreement among researchers on what really lies behind these variations, nor on what policies actually work.