Being the motor, rudder or sinker: Steering work and health from the perspective of politicians

In this research project, we investigate how politicians and board members in municipalities and municipal companies take responsibility for the work environment, health, and safety in the organizations they govern. Despite the fact that these decision-makers have overarching responsibility for the work environment, there has been little research on how they understand and address these issues.

We focus particularly on differences between female-dominated and male-dominated sectors, where working conditions often differ. Through interviews with politicians and board members, we aim to shed light on how their decisions impact the work environment and identify concrete actions to improve working conditions. Our goal is to contribute new knowledge that can help optimize work environment efforts in municipal organizations and make the workplace more sustainable and healthy for everyone.

Project objective

The aim of this project is to investigate how those with ultimate responsibility in municipalities – politicians and board members of municipal companies (hereafter referred to as "the leaders") – understand and address issues related to work environment and health.

In the long term, we hope that the research will contribute to politicians taking a more active role in work environment responsibilities and utilizing the opportunities they have to follow up. We hope this will have an impact on the organization and each individual's work environment, ultimately contributing to reduced sickness absenteeism over time.