A high turnover among principals may disrupt the continuity of leadership and negatively affect teachers and, by extension, the students. The aim was to investigate to what extent various work environment factors and signs of exhaustion were associated with reported intentions to change workplace among principals working in compulsory schools. A web-based questionnaire was administered twice, in 2018 and in 2019. Part I of the study involved cross-sectional analyses of the associations 2018 (n = 984) and 2019 (n = 884) between occupational factors, signs of exhaustion, and the intention to change workplace, using Generalized Estimating Equations models. Part II involved 631 principals who participated in both surveys. The patterns of intended and actual changes of workplace across two years were described, together with associated changes of occupational factors and signs of exhaustion. Supportive management was associated with an intention to stay, while demanding role conflicts and the feeling of being squeezed between management and co-workers (buffer-function) were associated with the intention to change workplace. The principals who intended to change their workplace reported more signs of exhaustion. To increase retention among principals, systematic efforts are probably needed at the national, municipal, and local level, in order to improve their working conditions.

The Swedish healthcare sector is currently experiencing recruitment difficulties combined with increasing demand for healthcare services.This study accordingly seeks knowledge of the obstacles to and opportunities for retaining older employees in the Swedish healthcare sector. Results of interviews with line managers and human resource (HR) partners indicate that the informants have positive attitudes toward older healthcare workers in general, particularly acknowledging their contributions based on long experience and skill. However, line managers' high workload, the absence of age-management strategies, and universal HR policies not conducive to older workers' individual needs are considered obstacles to retention on an organizational level. To retain older healthcare workers and maintain their ability and motivation, the healthcare sector and especially HR strategies need to be more proactive in addressing these issues, and formalized policies are required in order to benefit from the potential labor reserve that older employees constitute.

BACKGROUND: The ageing workforce has an impact on public health. The aim of this study was to evaluate work-related disorders, work tasks and measures associated with the possibility of working beyond 65 years of age or not.

METHOD: The data comprised two sample surveys based on the Swedish population: the Survey of National Work-Related Health Disorders, and the National Work Environment Survey.

RESULTS: A logistic regression analysis showed that an active systematic work environmental management in the workplace was a statistically significant association with whether individuals could work in their current occupation until 65 years of age (OR 1.7). The final multivariate model stated that whether individuals could work until 65 years was associated with bodily exhaustion after work, frequent feeling of the own work effort being insufficient at the end of the day, experience of the work as restricted and with a lack of freedom, working alone and at risk of unsafe or threatening situations, and generally feeling dissatisfied with the work tasks. Women-dominated workplaces were more highly associated with both male and female employees not being able to work until age 65 (OR 1.6).

CONCLUSION: Deficiencies in the working environment seems to be a threat to the public health. An active systematic work environmental management in the workplace increases the possibility to extend the working life. Tools for managers, like the swAge-model, to easily perform active systematic work environmental controls could therefore be a possible way to decrease the risk of work injury as well as increase the possibility for a sustainable extended working life.

Background: The demographic change affects the retirement age, which has been postponed in many countries. Therefore, the number of senior employees is increasing in the world. However, managers’ attitudes towards their employees’ employability affect the employees’ possibilities regarding whether they can and want to work.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate managers’ attitudes towards their employees’ employability and what factors and measures that affect whether employees can and want to work in an extended working life.

Method: The study population in this study consists of 249 municipality managers in Sweden, from a baseline investigation in a follow up study following the swAge-questionnaire. The data was analysed through the method of logistic regression.

Results: 79% of the managers stated that their employees ‘can’ work and 58% that their employees ‘want to’ work until 65 years or older. Managers believed their employees’ health, physical work environment, skills and competence were associated to if they would be able to work until 65 years or older. Lack of support in the social work environment and lack of possibilities to arrange relocations if needed were associated to whether managers believed their employees want to work.

Conclusions: The results indicate that the postponement the retirement age must be followed by measures in the employees’ work situation in order to decrease demands, increase rotation or change work tasks if needed, as well as increased possibilities to recuperate through reduced workload, reduced work pace and reduced working hours. The results will hopefully contribute to the understanding of needed organisational measures in the process of extending working life.

Background: The labour force is ageing due to the demographic change and the postponement of old-age retirement in many countries.

Objective: In order to increase the possibility for employees to maintain their employability and to keep working in an extended working life this intervention project tested a distance education as a technique to integrate a theoretical model for a sustainable working life for all ages (the swAge-model) as a practical management tool in fourteen municipality managers’ ordinary work situation.

Results: Most of the participating managers had difficulty completing the entire training program in this intervention project due to external circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and re-organisations, and because no extra time during working hours had been allocated to the managers to participate in the intervention project. Despite this, all participating managers appreciated being given the opportunity to participate and take part in the content of the intervention. Everyone considered the theoretical model, the wage model, on which the intervention project was based, to be very useful and to have given them new insights into their managerial duties.

Conclusions: If society and organisations want a larger amount of employees to participate in working life until an older age, they also need to allocate working hours for managers to acquire new knowledge on how to create healthy and sustainable workplaces for all ages, as well as to implement these tools, measures and working methods permanently in the daily organisational work.

Due to the global demographic change many more people will need to work until an older age, and organisations and enterprises need to implement measures to facilitate an extended working life. The aim of this study was to investigate organisational measures and suggestions to promote and make improvements for a healthy and sustainable working life for all ages in an extended working life. This is a qualitative study, and the data were collected through both focus group interviews and individual interviews that included 145 participants. The study identified several suggestions for measures and actions to increase employability in the themes: to promote a good physical and mental work environment; to promote personal financial and social security; to promote relations, social inclusion and social support in the work situation; and to promote creativity, knowledge development and intrinsic work motivation, i.e., based on the spheres of determination in the theoretical swAge-model (sustainable working life for all ages). Based on the study results a tool for dialogue and discussion on employee work situation and career development was developed, and presented in this article. Regular conversations, communication and close dialogue are needed and are a prerequisite for good working conditions and a sustainable working environment, as well as to be able to manage employees and develop the organisation further. The identified measures need to be revisited regularly throughout the employees' entire working life to enable a healthy and sustainable working life for all ages.

Background: While poor mental health and psychiatric disorders attributed to stressful work conditions are a public health concern in many countries, the health consequences of the occupational stress experienced by school principals is an understudied issue. Although current data is lacking, some research suggests that principals have a stressful work situation that eventually may lead to burnout and exhaustion disorder, thus negatively affecting the ability of principals to function as leaders. To gauge the situation in Sweden, and as a basis for future preventive actions, we examined to what extent principals displayed signs of exhaustion and whether the prevalence rates of exhaustion differed across school levels, length of work experience as a principal, and gender.

Methods: Principals (N = 2219; mean age 49 years [SD 7 years]; 78% women) working at least 50% in pre-schools, compulsory schools, upper secondary schools or adult education completed a cross-sectional web survey entailing two validated inventories: The Karolinska Exhaustion Disorder Scale (KEDS) and the Lund University Checklist for Incipient Exhaustion (LUCIE). Data was analysed using traditional non-parametric methods. Gender stratification achieved covariate balance when analysing school level and length of work experience.

Results: Altogether, 29.0% of the principals met the exhaustion criteria in KEDS. The prevalence rates for the four LUCIE-steps of increasing signs of exhaustion were: no signs of stress, 48.8%; weak signs of stress, 25.6%; clear signs of stress but no exhaustion, 15.4%; possible exhaustion disorder, 10.2%. Compared with male principals, female principals reported more signs of possible exhaustion disorder in both LUCIE and KEDS. School level was not associated with reports of exhaustion symptoms in neither LUCIE nor KEDS. Among male principals, length of work experience was associated with exhaustion symptoms in KEDS.

Conclusions: A large group of Swedish principals working in pre-schools, compulsory schools, upper secondary schools or adult education displayed a symptomatology of signs of exhaustion that if sustained might lead to poor health. This observation suggests that education authorities, or other relevant stakeholders, ought to take some form of preventive action. However, effective combinations of individual, group, organisational, and/or societal preventive activities remain to be identified and tested.

Background: The leadership of principals is important for school, teacher and student related outcomes. To be capable of doing their work (i.e., having sufcient workability), school principals need proper organisational preconditions, motivation, and good health. It is therefore concerning that some studies suggest that principals have a work situation that risks taxing their health and reducing their workability. However, few studies have examined the psychosocial working conditions of principals and no study has gauged principals’ workability. Accordingly, we decided to examine Swedish principals’ workability and their perceptions of eight demanding and five supportive managerial circumstances as well as the associations between managerial circumstances and reports of excellent workability.

Methods: The participants comprised 2219 Swedish principals (78% women) who completed a cross-sectional web survey in 2018. A brief version of the Gothenburg Manager Stress Inventory (GMSI-Mini) gauged managerial circumstances. Workability was assessed with the workability score (0–10; WAS). Unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression analyses were used to examine associations between managerial circumstances and reports of excellent workability (WAS≥9). Covariates were: length of work experience as a principal, school level, self-rated health, and general self-efcacy.

Results: The results showed that circa 30% of the principals reported excellent workability. The GMSI-Mini results showed that role conficts, resource defcits, and having to harbour co-workers’ frustrations were the most frequently encountered managerial demands. Meanwhile, cooperating co-workers, supportive manager colleagues, and a supportive private life were the most supportive managerial circumstances. Adjusted logistic regression analyses showed that role conficts and role demands were associated with an increased likelihood of reporting less than excellent workability. In contrast, supportive managerial colleagues, a supportive private life and supportive organisational structures were associated with an increased likelihood of reporting excellent workability.

Conclusion: Circa 30% of the participating principals perceived their workability to be excellent. Reducing role demands, clarifying the principals’ areas of responsibility and accountability in relation to other actors in the governing chain (role conficts), striving for increased role clarity, and striving to find ways to separate work and private life, seem to be promising intervention areas if increasing principals’ workability is desired.