25 per cent of Norwegian workers say they have lost influence

Around one in three workers in the public sector and in publicly owned companies say they feel they have lost influence in the workplace, according to the 2022 Medbestemmelsesbarometeret, an annual survey measuring how much influence workers have in working life. 

The OsloMet’s Work Research Institute (AFI) carries out the survey on commission from the Norwegian Civil Service Union (NTL), the Norwegian Medical Association and the Norwegian Police Federation. The first survey was carried out in 2016.

AFI researchers Inger Marie Hagen and Elin Moen Dahl are responsible for the 2022 edition. The results were presented on 24 January at the Oslo House of Literature.

The main findings

Workers’ influence has been stable since 2016, both in terms of having influence over their own work, the way work is organised and on a corporate level.

But when asked whether they feel they have been given less or more influence on issues that are important to the individual worker over the past three years, more people said they have less or a lot less influence than those who answer that they had more or much more influence. This is true for all four sectors (public sector, state-owned companies, private sector and municipalities).

• One in four workers said their influence over important issues had fallen in the past three years. 
• One in four workers in the public sector and in state-owned companies said their influence had fallen.
• One in five workers said their influence has increased.
• There is a strong correlation between leadership and workers’ representatives’ experience of influence. Openness increases their influence while formal leadership models and control reduce influence.

AFI researcher Inger Marie Hagen has been the project’s leader and was surprised that so many said they felt they had lost influence in recent years. She points especially to the results from the public sector and state-owned companies. 

The two AFI researchers to the left, Inger Marie Hagen and Elin Moen Dahl, are responsible for the 2022 edition.  Kjersti Barsok, President for the Norwegian Civil Service Union, top right, calls the results disappointing. Kristin Utne from the Norwegian Medical Association, bottom right, believes workers's representatives often enter the processes too late to gain influence.

“A third of them said they had less influence now than three years ago, and that is quite a big change,” she says.

Meanwhile, one in five said they had gained influence. 

Workers’ representatives and influence

The researchers say the level of influence felt by workers is linked to the leadership models, the way a company is organised and the role of workers’ representatives.

There is a strong correlation between leadership models and workers’ influence. There is an equally strong correlation between leadership models and workers’ representatives’ perceived influence. 

• Nearly one in five – 19 per cent – said workers’ representatives had much less or less influence, while only seven per cent said more or much more. 
• Workers said they were happy with the work that workers’ representatives do.
• Work environments, working hours and workers' joint decision-making and participation were top of the list of issues that workers wanted workers’ representatives to focus on.

“This means workers feel they have lost influence themselves and that workers’ representatives have lost influence too,” says Hagen.

Pay before climate

For the first time, the Medbestemmelsesbarometeret has looked at how well prepared the social partnership has been at dealing with two extremely topical issues: digitalisation and the climate crisis. 

The researchers point out that everyone agrees that the climate crisis is the largest challenge facing us, but at the same time the survey shows that climate issues rarely figure high on the agenda among leaders, workers’ representatives and workers. 

• Nearly six in ten workers said they were willing to change the way they work because of climate issues, but only one in ten was willing to forgo wage increases in order to make the company more climate-friendly. 
• Many felt workers’ representatives should concentrate more on wages and working conditions than on fighting for climate issues for instance during collective bargaining. 

“We should not read these results as if people are not interested in climate issues. It looks like the social partners might not have found out exactly how they should work with climate issues in their normal cooperation forums,” says Hagen.

A sign of hopelessness?

The labour market is facing considerable demands for digitalisation. This survey asked workers whether their working day had become more or less influenced by digitalisation in the past three years. 

• Half answered that their job had become more influenced by digitalisation.
• Two in five workers said digitalisation led to a lot of frustration.
• Nearly two in five said digitalisation led to greater differences between workers.
• Two in five said digitalisation meant more time was spent writing reports.

Yet despite this, the results show there is little engagement from both members and workers’ representatives, and that digitalisation and technological development rarely feature when leaders and workers’ representatives meet.

In an opinion piece in the online paper Dagens Perspektiv, the researchers ask:

"Is the lack of interest due to the fact that digitalisation processes are running so smoothly that workers’ representatives should use their energy on other things? Or are these answers a sign of hopelessness among members and workers’ representatives, an indication that they lack the knowledge and skills to enter into these processes?

Could it be that this is also the case for many leaders and that the digitalisation processes are being controlled by external consultants who sideline both leaders and workers’ representatives? 

“The state needs to shape up”

Kjersti Barsok, President of the Norwegian Civil Service Union (NTL) finds some of the results disappointing, while Kristian Mollestad, deputy leader for the Norwegian Association of Researchers, argues the report should be a wake-up call.

Kristian Mollestad is the deputy leader of the Norwegian Association of Researchers.

“It is worrying when state employees are the ones who feel they have lost influence in the past three years. The government has clearly stated that it wants stronger cooperation between the social partners and more trust-based leadership. Yet things are going in the wrong direction in the state sector where the government wields the most influence over labour market policy. That is simply not good enough. The state must shape up as an employer,” argues Mollestad.

Kristin Utne from the Norwegian Medical Association thinks workers’ representatives often join processes at a late stage and never gain real influence in important decisions.

“In the health sector it is often too late when someone higher up has decided to for instance introduce new digital tools from the USA, where the provider puts severe limitations to what the individual can do in terms of criticising the solutions or come up with suggestions,” explained Utne during the launch seminar.