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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.