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Technological and societal developments have increasingly led to higher education programs and courses being offered online as distance education. This can mean an opportunity to study regardless of time and place and thereby combining work, family life, and studies. However, online distance studies also introduce problems at the societal, organisational and individual levels. Due to the rapid transformation of the higher education system towards a larger share of digitalized courses and programs, one can expect that the related problems will also increase. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate experiences and thoughts about challenges and opportunities related to online studies among second-semester master’s students. Data was collected via interviews and analysed using a phenomenographic approach. The analysis revealed increased demands on the student, remote communication and social interaction, and varying conditions for studying from home. The demands on self-leadership, social skills, and digital competence had increased compared to previous campus-based studies at a lower level. These findings pinpoint the importance of taking into consideration student awareness and support regarding self-regulation of study planning, time allocation, and execution of assignments. It also includes teacher awareness of creating a sense of community and avoiding a mere task orientation despite the online context.

Purpose: The Workplace Dialogue is a digitalized method directed at managers. The purpose of this study was to explore managers’ experiences of using the digital Workplace Dialogue in cases of employee ill-health.

Design/methodology/approach: The Workplace Dialogue provides an easy and accessible method for managers, including text, short films, client examples and concrete guides that provides support in how managers can act in the event of ill-health, for example, by creating dialogue and adjustments at work. A total of five public and private organizations participated in a cohort study, implementing and using the Workplace Dialogue for one year. We interviewed 22 managers to explore their experiences of using the Workplace Dialogue. The interviews were analyzed using Qualitative Content Analysis.

Findings: The experiences of using the Workplace Dialogue are presented in one overall theme: Supports and strengthens managers’ leadership and ability to handle and act on work-related health, and four sub-themes: Requires organizational legitimacy, Facilitates management of work-related health, Strengthens manager–employee collaboration and Contributes to leadership development. The Workplace Dialogue was described as a method that contributed to better work-related health by emphasizing the early identification of problems. Manager–employee collaboration was improved, and responsibilities were made clearer. Using the method enabled personal development among managers. Some prerequisites were pointed out, such as a need for time and support from the organization.

Originality/value: The Workplace Dialogue can support managers in addressing and acting on cases of employee ill-health.

Introduction: The burden of work-related ill health is increasing in working-life. The employer has the main responsibility for securing a healthy work environment, preventing ill health, andfacilitating employees’ return to work after sickness. In organizations, the responsibility for thesystematic work environmental practice is often shared or divided between a first-line managerand a Human Resource (HR) function. The aim of this study was to describe how the workenvironmental responsibility is shared or divided in large and small organizations, and how thiscould impact the organizations’ implementation and use of a health promoting workplaceintervention.

Method: The Workplace Dialogue is a digital method that guides and supports anorganization’s work environmental practice, to discover, act on and adapt work to work-relatedill health. It includes concrete support in the form of text, films, and discussion materials. Thisstudy is based on a one-year intervention which started in 2022 with the Workplace dialoguebeing implemented in five large (two public and three private) and seven small (three publicand four private) organizations. Data was collected six and twelve months into the interventionand was based on focus-group discussions with eight and three HR functions from large andsmall organizations respectively. Interviews included questions concerning how HR functionsexperienced the implementation process, and how they perceived their mandate to influencethis process. Interviews were transcribed and then analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: The preliminary findings indicate that, after the implementation, the practice of theWorkplace Dialogue was more established in organizations where the board of managementwere leading the project. In large organizations where HR functions were not a part of thestrategic board, the implementation was more complicated and dependent on the commitmentof certain individuals. In small companies, a structure for the organization’s systematic workenvironmental practice could be missing, which made the implementation more difficult. AlbeitHR functions overall had positive attitudes towards the Workplace dialogue and were importantresources for managers’ use of it, HR functions’ opinions and actions generally had less impacton securing the method practice in the organizations.

Conclusion: To facilitate the comprehensive implementation of a new health promotingworkplace method, such as the Workplace dialogue, it is crucial for organizations to involve HRfunctions in the strategic management board. Further, to secure the practice of such method,organizations’ management board needs to be involved in and support the implementation anduse of it. However, small companies may have less organizational resources to realise thepractice of a new health promoting workplace method.

An increasing number of academic institutions offer their staff the option to work fromother places than the conventional office, i.e., telework. Academic teaching and research staff arerecognized as some of the most frequent teleworkers, and this seems to affect their well-being, workperformance, and recovery in different ways. This study aimed to investigate academics’ experiencesand perceptions of telework within the academic context. For this, we interviewed 26 academics fromdifferent Swedish universities. Interviews were analyzed with a phenomenographic approach, whichshowed that telework was perceived as a natural part of academic work and a necessary resourcefor coping with, and recovering from, high work demands. Telework was mostly self-regulatedbut the opportunity could be determined by work tasks, professional culture, and management.Telework could facilitate the individual’s work but could contribute to challenges for the workgroup.Formal regulations of telework were considered a threat to academics’ work autonomy and totheir possibility to cope with the high work demands. The findings provide insight into academics’working conditions during teleworking, which may be important for maintaining a sustainable workenvironment when academic institutions offer telework options.

BACKGROUND: The complex position of a first line manager is characterized by heavy workload and contradictorydemands. Little is known about how first line managers experience demand and control in their work.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to explore experiences of demand and control among first line managers withinpsychiatric and addiction care.

METHOD: In the present study, interviews with ten managers in for-profit psychiatric and addiction care in Sweden wereanalyzed with a phenomenographic approach.RESULTS: The managers experiences of demand and control implied varied and extensive responsibilities for a wide rangeofprofessions; regulation by organizational, economic, and political frameworks; creating balance in their work; and handlingthe emergence and consequences of acute crisis. These experiences of demand and control involved high and contradictorydemands together with coexisting high and low levels of control. Many of their work characteristics could be described interms of both demand and control.

CONSLUSION:The first line managers experiences ofdemand and control are more complex than implied by the job demandcontrol theory. Our results suggest that the organizational position and branch should be considered when identifying healthhazards in the work environment of first line managers.

The aim of this study was to determine if psychophysiological activity, postures andmovements differ during telework (i.e., work performed at home) and work performed at the con-ventional office. We performed twenty-four-hour pulse recordings and accelerometry measurementson 23 academic teaching and research staff during five consecutive workdays, with at least one day oftelework. Additionally, we conducted salivary sampling during one day of telework, and one day ofoffice work. Heart rate and heart rate variability indices, postural exposure and cortisol concentrationwere analyzed using repeated measures analysis of variance with Workplace and Time (i.e., before,during and after workhours) as within-subject effects. We found a significant interaction effect ofWorkplace and Time in heart rate variability indices and in the number of transitions between seatedand standing postures. This shows more parasympathetic activity among academic teleworkersduring telework than office work, which may indicate more relaxation during telework. They had anoverall sedentary behavior at both workplaces but switched between sitting and standing more oftenduring telework, which may be beneficial for their health.

As the development oftechnical aids for telework has progressed, work has become moreflexible in time and space. Among academics, the opportunity to telework has beenembraced by most, but it is unclear how it relates to their health and well-being. The aimof this study was to determine how frequency and amount of telework is associated withperceived health, stress, recuperation, work-life balance, and intrinsic work motivationamong teaching and research academics. An electronic questionnaire was sent to juniorlecturers, senior lecturers, and professors at Swedish public universities. It included theGeneral Health Questionnaire, Work Stress Questionnaire, items for assessing recupera-tion, the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction at Work scale, and parts of CopenhagenPsychosocial Questionnaire, as well as questions about the frequency and amount oftelework performed. In total, 392 academics responded to the survey. Multivariateanalysis of variance showed significant differences between groups of academics withdifferent telework frequency (p < 0.05). Univariate analyses of variance showed thatratings of stress related to indistinct organization and conflicts were higher amongacademics that telework several times per week or more than among academics thattelework less than once per month. In regression analyses ofassociations between amountof telework (in hours per week) and the dependent variables, no significant effectswere found. Although it cannot be concluded whether stress is a cause or an effectof frequent telework, the findings warrant further attention to academics whotelework frequently.