Project background
Systematic safety and health work is important to ensure safe and healthy workplaces and a good psychosocial work environment contributes to better health and lower sickness absence among employees. At the same time, we have little knowledge on the association between the systematic safety and health work and the quality of the psychosocial work environment. Norwegian enterprises report that they perceive the concept, psychosocial work environment, as both broad and complicated with many different perspectives and how to understand and handle psychosocial work factors.
We also have limited knowledge on how the work environment legislation influences the systematic safety and health work. In a 2023-report from the Norwegian Labour Inspectorate, the need for a clarification of the present legislation on psychosocial working environment, along the lines of legislation in Sweden and Denmark, was highlighted. In June 2025 Stortinget passed such a clarification of the Working Environment Act which provided clearer requirements regarding the psychosocial work environment. The purpose of this clarification, which passes in to force 1. January 2026, is to provide better guidance on, and increased awareness of what enterprises need to address in order to have a satisfactory psychosocial work environment.
The purpose of the project
This project therefore aims to investigate whether the clearer legislation facilitates the systematic safety and health work for leaders and employees and how the systematic safety and health work is associated with the psychosocial work environment.
In order to investigate this the project will conduct yearly surveys from 2025 and through 2028. These will be conducted in enterprises recruited form both the public and private sectors. The employees of the recruited enterprises will be the respondents. The survey will include questions on psychosocial work factors, focusing on those mentioned in the new legislation, self-reported health and how the systematic safety and health work is conducted in the enterprise.
Project lead and project group
Bjørnar Finnanger Garshol (project lead)
Live Bakke Finne
Morten Birkeland Nielsen
Håkon Johannessen
More information is to be found on the Norwegian project site.