Future of work – Work environment and occupational health. A modified Delphi survey of work environment experts in Norway and Denmark

To explore the challenges and opportunities the Nordic work environment will face in the future, we conducted a Delphistudy, i.e. a survey of experts on the Nordic world of work. The aim was to collect, describe, and evaluate agreement on viewpoints that experts expressed about which work environment challenges and opportunities will be particularly pertinent the coming decade. The focus was on the psychosocial work environment in particular, since it is relevant to all workers. The study gathered views from 52 experts located in Norway and Denmark, representing the social partners, labour inspection authorities, consultants, researchers and occupational health professionals. For the initial data collection, open‐ended questions were presented about the expected developments during the next decade for work and the work environment. Findings were thenstructuredbytheresearchersaccordingtoestablisheddriversofchange;1)Technology,2)demography, 3) globalization, and 4) climate change. Additionally, the themes 5) skills/competence and 6) political, social and cultural developments were constructed to cover content reflected by the collected statements. An open theme denoted 7) ”other statements” was also added. Agreement was generally high among the experts, with few controversial views forwarded. With regard to 1) technology, automation and robotization were highlighted as important developments, but there was slightly less agreement about potential consequences for the [...]