BACKGROUND: Digital work poses cognitive demands on all employees, but the impact is greater for employees with cognitive impairments. Digitalization also has significant implications for employer representatives as they are responsible for the work environment. However, knowledge is scarce concerning employer representatives’ perspectives on identifying needs and support for employees with cognitive impairments working in a digital work environment.

OBJECTIVE: To describe employer representatives’ experiences of work environment management with focus on employees with cognitive impairments working in a digital environment.METHODS:Focus group methodology was used. Six employer representatives with work environment responsibilities participated.

RESULTS: One overall theme “Mastering the interconnected processes in a transformative digital work environment” as well as three themes “Facilitating good digital work conditions”, “Identifying needs and difficulties in work tasks among employees’ with cognitive impairments” and “Pursuing knowledge and collaborations to support employees with cognitive impairments” with subthemes were identified. The themes describe employer representatives’ challenges and efforts to identify fluctuating needs in employees with cognitive impairments and, also, to organize and reduce cognitive demands in the work environment to support them.

CONCLUSIONS: Managing the challenges of an evolving digital work environment and matching individual work ability of employees with cognitive impairments in relation to cognitive demands is an ongoing process. The participants valued cooperation with employees with cognitive impairments but lacked support from expertise. The need to develop and implement a functioning support system for vocational rehabilitation to ensure a sustainable work in digital work environments is indicated.

The purpose of this article is to explore structural preconditions for occupational well-being among blue-collar temporary agency workers within the Swedish manufacturing industry based on managers’ views and expectations of the worker. Through 25 interviews, we investigate how blue-collar temporary agency workers are seen by management using critical realism and the concept of ‘norm circles’ to analyse spatial, relational, sociotechnical and normative structures. We show how structures and norm circles possess alienating or dealienating mechanisms that precondition blue-collar temporary agency workers’ occupational well-being. The findings indicate management’s role as an important gatekeeper in determining structural preconditions for blue-collar temporary agency workers’ occupational well-being. By introducing aspects of skill and acquired skill, along with social aspects changing over time, this article contributes to the existing literature on blue-collar temporary agency workers’ occupational well-being.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to analyse young adults’ positive experiences of learning when entering the labour market.

Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on 13 individual in-depth interviews with young adults (aged 18–28) working within the retail sector in Sweden. The interviews explored the interviewees’ experiences when entering the workforce, focusing on positive experiences of learning.

Findings: The findings highlight the relationship between learning and encounters with others both within and outside work, that is, with colleagues and customers as well as with family and friends. Learning is mostly depicted as informal and as related to work and here, more experienced colleagues, openness, trust and equality as well as self-initiative, responsibility and autonomy are highlighted.

Originality/value: Taking its point of departure in a health promotion perspective, the study reinforces the perspective of workplace learning as an interplay between contextual (work-related) factors and personal factors by highlighting the importance of relationships outside the workplace for understanding the experiences of learning when new at work. Furthermore, the study examines how the learning needs of young adults relate not only to the work itself but to the experience of entering the labour market.

To gain an in-depth understanding of the position of being a young adult and new at work simultaneously, this study examines the doing of age in relation to others in the lives of young adults, rather than focusing on age as a category and/or developmental phase. The study focuses on being a young adult from a critical and relational perspective of age. Based on focus group interviews with young adults, mostly women, working in retail, the aim is to analyse the position of being a young adult while new at work through age-marked relationships. The results reveal how this position can be understood both in terms of security and insecurity. Security arises in the sense of opportunities for learning and leaving responsibilities to older and more experienced colleagues. Insecurity arises in the sense of being exposed to insecure employment, the risk of being allocated less challenging tasks and being judged for failures.

In Sweden, the education sector and the healthcare sector have historically been, and still are, to a large extent state run, with both being publicly funded and delivered: typical in a social democratic system. However, various reforms have led to private actors entering the arena as additional organisations that employ welfare sector professionals. In this chapter, we discuss the learning conditions of welfare sector professionals in relation to the various types of employers and employment settings that currently exist, both public and private. We use two different cases: first, the education sector, where we have seen the introduction and expansion of private employers for teachers, meaning teachers can be employed either by a private or public employer. Second, we examine the case of nurses working in the healthcare sector, which has seen the introduction and expansion of temporary agency staffing, meaning that nurses with different employers work side by side in the very same workplace. Based on a compilation of our own previous empirical research, we discuss ways in which the privatisation reforms amplify differentiation within professions, with a specific focus on conditions for learning.

Adopting a theoretical perspective that acknowledges both formal and informal learning as crucial and emphasises reproductive and developmental learning as complementary, this article analyses and discusses temporary agency nurses’ experiences of working and learning, focusing on conditions for workplace learning. This provides opportunities to address questions about conditions for the integration of work and learning in a work situation characterised by flexibilization and individualisation. More specifically, among individuals moving between different organizational contexts rather than working at ‘a’ (single and stable) workplace provided by the employer. By presenting findings based on a thematic analysis of 21 interviews with individual temporary agency nurses working in Swedish health care, both opportunities and challenges for workplace learning is highlighted. While opportunities for informal learning linked to the movement between various client organizations as well as to nursing as common ground and as valued and recognized competence, is identified, at the same time, challenges connected to both formal and informal learning, are also illuminated. Regarding informal learning, challenges in terms of varied and general support and feedback as well as scarce opportunities and low expectations for the temporary agency nurses’ participation in development work in daily work/at client organizations, is identified. The findings thus also illuminate a risk for temporary agency nurses adjusting to prevailing working conditions rather than engaging in developmental learning. Regarding formal learning, challenges in terms of few opportunities for planned learning activities, is identified. All in all, the findings illuminate conditions for workplace learning for temporary agency nurses as clearly dependent not only on the offers of specific temporary work agencies and client organisations, but also on temporary agency nurses’ interest in and views regarding responsibility for learning, and thus highly varying.

Background:

In present research protocol, the project entitled “A sustainable working life for young adults—leadership, learning, and insecurity” is presented and discussed. The study which aims to describe and analyze the expectations of young adults in the retail workforce in terms of leadership, learning and development and how these aspects can be understood from a health promotion perspective. The project is limited to young adults (18–28 years) employed in a retail setting.

Methods:

The project is based on qualitative data collected through focus group interviews and individual interviews made during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in year 2020 what here will be reflected upon.

Discussion:

It is concluded data collection carried out during the ongoing spread of the coronavirus, may be significant to what interviewees highlighted in the interviews, but also to what was not discussed in the interviews. It may be the case that the increased focus on the coronavirus meant that other issues that are important to young adults as they establish themselves in the labor market were overshadowed.

Purpose - Positive examples of situations in which young adults new at work experience feeling secure in the role as novice in the work force are here focused. The aim is to analyze how young adults who are new to the labor market express having a sense of security in the workplace. The long-term goal is to strengthen the conditions for the health and wellbeing of workers entering the retail labor market.

Design/methodology/approach - Thirteen individual in-depth telephone/video-interviews were conducted with young adults (aged 18–28) working within the retail sector in Sweden. Using a thematic interview schedule, the interviews focused how the interviewees contextualizing stories on being novice at the labor market. The study is based on those parts of the material in which stories on feeling secure was expressed.

Findings - The analysis resulted in two themes: A sense of security is related to carrying out work safely and a sense of security is related to receiving support. The first theme illuminates how work is structured and safety training respectively contributes to a sense of security and the latter reveal how social support from a variety of sources (managers, colleagues and others outside the work environment) contributes to a sense of security when new at work.

Originality/value - Using a health promoting perspective, the study complements the existing perspectives of challenges faced by novices as they enter working life. Also, the study highlights the importance of including relations outside the workplace when searching for the understanding of the experiences of being new at work. The study indicates that focusing on the sense of security by well-structured work, safety training and social support might contribute to the strive for a sustainable working life for young adults.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss conditions for workplace learning (WPL) in relation to temporary agency staffing (TAS), focusing on temporary and regular nurses’ experiences of social relations.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were gathered using qualitative semi-structured interviews with five agency nurses and five regular nurses. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.

Findings

Similarities and differences regarding conditions for WPL among “temps” and “regulars” emerged, pointing towards both challenges and opportunities for WPL on various levels. Moreover, although challenges stood out, the context of professional work provides certain opportunities for WPL through, for example, knowledge sharing among nurses.

Research limitations/implications

Results are valid for the interviewees’ experiences of WPL conditions. However, the findings may also have currency in other but similar workplaces and employment circumstances.

Practical implications

Client organisations and temporary work agencies could benefit from developing management and HR strategies aimed at strengthening the opportunities for WPL, related to professional work, to ensure that these opportunities are leveraged fully.

Originality/value

This study adopts a WPL perspective on TAS in the context of professional work, which is still rare.