Working environment and productivity

Book excerpt: Globalisation and demographic trends underline the twin challenge of the Nordics with productivity stagnation and a decreasing work force. Increasing productivity and the work force will be an answer to both. A good work environment can do both: If less people have to take sick leave as result of bad work environments, this will contribute to increasing the work force. Also, for some time, a relationship between work environment and productivity has been hypothesised. Happy, healthy workers, in short, are more productive than not-so-happy and not-so-healthy workers are. This report is based on the most comprehensive empirical study of the cohension between working envi-ronment and productivity. It confirms the hope of many, i.e. that improvements in working environment and improved productivity are highly correlated. The results are robust across time and the investigated countries.