Sustainable Working Lives

The purpose of this volume is to describe the impact of the increased demand for flexibility on employees and its impact on their individual work life trajectories and health. The volume offers concrete examples of interventions aimed to find innovative ways of sustainable work careers for today's workers. We focus on the school to work transition, job insecurity, job loss and re-employment and retirement. The interventions described offer strategies for implementing support in employment contracts, increasing preparedness of individual employees with public education programs or developing work arrangements and support systems in work organizations.

This book presents a realistic perspective on the paradoxes employees face when navigating work and personal responsibilities for career success. The author answers the critical question of how to achieve sustainable and rewarding work–life integration from a perspective of "both/and" rather than "either/or." While most books focus on a fragmented, hyper-effective view of women and leadership, this book advances the need for an integrated approach. Its Competing Values Framework acts as an organizing model that aligns personal competency with organizational capability, helping readers to identify important leadership roles and competencies, break societal barriers, and choose the right set of behaviors to fit their personal and professional goals. In-chapter text boxes provide personal insight from real employees both entering and established in leadership positions, offering a varied perspective on the challenges and resolutions available to women in management. As men become more engaged with their families, they too will find this book a useful tool. Students in diversity management, women and management, career development, leadership, and organizational behavior classes will benefit from this realistic and sustainable alternative to the "have it all" model.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This thought-provoking book provides a detailed exploration of work–life balance, considering the perspectives of specific groups such as parents, academics, the self-employed, and migrants. Moreover, it sheds more light on the dynamics of self-care, childcare as well as informal care. Collaborative and interdisciplinary in its approach, featuring researchers ranging from quantitative to interpretative scholars, it highlights the importance of a sustainable work–life balance and the instruments needed to improve this.

A sustainable working life that prevents work-related health problems and facilitate inclusion of young workers is vital to ensure the health, safety and work participation among young workers in the Nordic countries. This report provides Nordic statistics, scientific knowledge and discussions on how to achieve a sustainable work life for young workers in the Nordic countries. Under the Swedish presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2013, the focus was on youth and young workers' working conditions. As part of this focus, the Nordic Council of Ministers commissioned this report. The report shows that an inter-disciplinary and comprehensive approach is essential to ensure a sustainable work life among young workers. Six characteristics are emphasized as important: the characteristics of the worker, the workplace, the work task, the employment, the education and the youth.

In many industrialized countries, there is a sharp increase of the aging population due to a decrease in fertility rate and an increase in life expectancy. Due to which, the age dependency ratio rises and may cause increased economic burden among working age population. One strategy to combat this problem is to prolong peoples working career. A sufficient work ability is a requirement for a sustainable and prolonged employment. Work ability is primarily a question of balance between work and personal resources. Personal resources change with age, whereas work demands may not change parallel to that, or only change due to globalization or new technology. Work ability, on average, decreases with age, although several different work ability pathways exist during the life course. Work-related factors, as well as general lifestyle, may explain the declines and improvements in work ability during aging. A sustainable work ability throughout the life course is a main incentive for a prolonged working career and a healthy aging. Work ability and work-related factors, are therefore important occupational and public health issues when the age of the population increases. This Special Issue, “Sustainable Work Ability and Aging”, includes in all 16 original articles and one opinion paper, organized in three sections. The research topics cover wide aspects of work ability, from determinants, older employee´s coping with their work, methodological issues as well as results of interventions on promoting work ability.

Since the first edition of this book was published, the subject of sustainability has risen to the forefront of thinking in almost every subject within business and management. Tackling the latest developments and integrating practical perspectives with rigorous research, this new edition sheds light on a vital aspect of working life. Current trends reveal that increasing intensity at work has major consequences at individual, organizational and societal levels. Sustainability in work systems thus requires a multi-stakeholder approach, emphasising a value-based choice to promote the concurrent development of various resources in the work system. This sustainability grows from intertwined individual and collective learning processes taking place within and between organizations in collaboration. In exploring the development of sustainable work systems, this book analyzes these problems, and provides the basis for designing and implementing 'sustainable work systems' based on the idea of regeneration and the development of human and social resources. The authors, who are leading researchers and practitioners from around the world, consider the existing possibilities and emerging solutions and explore alternatives to intensive work systems.

A sustainable European workforce has become increasingly relevant in our present day and age. Flexibility and job insecurity are omnipresent; organizational workforces are displaying growing diversity with respect to age, gender, ethnicity and family status; and Europe’s welfare states are delegating more and more responsibility for the well-being of workers to employers. Now more so than ever, organizations need to consider investing in workers to improve their performance and level of satisfaction. These investments can take many forms, including flexible work arrangements, training plans, child-related policies and health programs. The crucial question is how to make this happen. Why do some organizations invest more and others less in their employees? Why do some employees make use of these investments and while others do not? Why do such investments sometimes improve employee performance and satisfaction and sometimes not? This book addresses precisely these questions. The book contributes a new, large-scale survey of 259 organizations, 869 work units, and 11,011 employees in six diverse economic sectors in the Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and UK to study the causes and consequences of organizational investments. This book appeals to undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and lecturers in the fields of Sociology, Business and Management, and Organizational Studies. It will also be useful for practitioners of Human Resource Management and others interested in workforce sustainability.

"Work is central to people's lives and the course of their life. The opportunities and chances an individual can have in their life are significantly connected to work. Individuals' work is also crucial for organizations, companies and for the whole of society. There is a constant need to make changes and readjustments of working life since these can deeply affect the individual and their employability. To make working lives more healthy, sustainable and attractive, being aware of the measures and changes that can be achieved in practice are of crucial importance. This book bridges the gap between the theories and explanatory models offered in research and actual work environments and workplaces. This book constitutes a theoretical framework that visualizes the complexity of working life and increases the knowledge and awareness of individuals, companies, organizations and society regarding different factors and patterns. It aims to support individual reflections and joint discussions into daily operations on the individual, organizational and societal level. This book contains practical tools to use in daily working life that analyze possible risks in the work environment when planning measures and actions for health promotion. These practical tools are derived from the four spheres for action and employability in the SwAge model. Developed by the author, the SwAge model (Sustainable Working Life for All Ages) is a theoretical, explanatory model that explains the complexity of creating a healthy and sustainable working life for all ages. By using the SwAge model as a comprehensible framework, the reader will be able to visualize the complexity of factors that affect and influence whether people are able to and want to participate in working life and in the work environment, thereby contributing to increased employability. Sustainable Working Lives and Environments is an essential read for students, researchers, work environment engineers, ergonomics and human factor specialists, occupational health and safety practitioners, business managers, HR-staff, leadership decision-makers and labor union professionals"--