Utmaningar i den psykosociala arbetsmiljön - en studie av HR-arbete i ideell sektor
The purpose of this study is to conduce to the understanding of what challenges the HRdepartmentfaces in the work with the psychosocial work environment in nonprofit organizationsin Sweden. A particular focus in the study is on how the certain features of the nonprofit sectoraffect and tend to contribute to these challenges. In both Swedish and International research thereappears to be a lack of studies that deal with the psychosocial work environment in the nonprofitsector, which is one of the main reasons for this study. International research show, among otherthings, that employees in this sector have a higher degree of work satisfaction than in othersectors. Especially, they value the sense of making a contribution to the society, to get feedbackon their work performance as well as they expect a high level of co-determination. A Swedishstudy that looks at the psychosocial work environment in the Swedish Church shows a frequentlack of feedback on work performance. It also shows that goals and expectations on workperformance tend to be vaguely expressed and that conflicts are becoming increasinglycomplicated because of the employees? expectations that conflicts should not take place at all inthe organization. In this study six semi-structured interviews were conducted with HR-managersin six nonprofit organizations. The organizations widely differ in the type of work that theyperform, from sports and environmental issues to trade unions and religious interests. Theinterviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed through the use of two theoretical models,Antonovskys (1987) Sense of Coherence and the demand-control-support model created byKarasek and Theorell (2006). The results of the analysis show that HR faces five main challengesin the work with the psychosocial work environment. The first of these challenges is to make surethat the workload of the employees in the nonprofit sector doesn?t get too high and that necessarytime for recovery is provided. The second one is to clarify information on goals and guidelines forthe employees work. The third challenge is to improve the managers? skills on giving feedback onwork performance. The fourth challenge found is to restrain the employees? involvement and tomake sure that the employees keep a holistic perspective in their work, which will improve theirsense of coherence. The last challenge for HR in the nonprofit sector is to make sure that theirorganizations correspond to the employees? high expectations on the employer. Finally, throughusing prior research, these challenges are related to the fact that the organizations are a part of thenonprofit sector.