This simplified review paper focuses on showing a roadmap of how separate but planned efforts can constitute totally new modes of worklife ability, centered on a university-level educational and developmental cooperation between academic life and business life, between private and public actors. The globalization of work life requires the education to be provided in a proactive, practical, multidisciplinary networked school of worklife ability that offers guidance and supports a holistic approach to development. Cooperation and interaction in this context mean that the subjects and ideas for research and training arise naturally from practical work life; by means of analyses and harmonisation, practical experiences, work, everyday life at workplaces, and identified needs are refined into both new worklife abilities and material for theoretical work. All such things are included in the pursuit of mastering work-life-ability-related issues from the very first manoeuvre all the way to a unique internationally operating network.

View full abstract

The investigation provides comprehensive and detailed information on the current state of elderly care work. Involving detailed insights are provided by comprehensive three-part cross-sectional studies. These were carried out among elderly home care service employees working in private homes and among employees working in a large municipal elderly people’s nursing home. Research findings show that employees in elderly home care service and employees in elderly people’s nursing home are working in very different working cultures, work environments, and conditions. Furthermore, the requirements set for employees by the work itself, the work-related strain, and the prerequisites for carrying out the work vary considerably. In the employees’ view, their skills are not being utilized properly, human resources are not being used correctly, staffing does not match the realities and necessities in the workplace, and the tasks performed at work put a strain on employees both physically and mentally. The correct allocation of human resources to daily work tasks are rated as the most important group of factors affecting work. An ineffective working culture, excessive strain caused by the work, and lacking management and leadership of work activities, together with the employees’ unwillingness to continue in their current job, presented themselves as serious issues in the work communities that were examined. The work organizations’ functional and communications procedures at nursing home for the elderly and the cooperation between management and staff are at the top of the list of priorities, and immediate action should be taken. The desire to keep working in elderly care and elderly care work’s ability to attract workers are low in young workers who are new to the field or are planning to enter the profession. As elderly care work undergoes changes the transition requires managers and supervisors who are competent in leading, guiding, and ensuring competence in a goal-oriented and proactive manner. Managing expertise and know-how, delegating appropriate resources based on actual needs, and promoting the personnel’s experienced wellbeing at work arose in the examined work organizations as key goals in the renewing development of leadership methods. When these goals are realized, also the employees’ chances of performing at a high level in their work is realized so that work results provide mental pleasure and satisfaction to both the employees and the elderly to whom care is given. Employees’ willingness to cooperate is reflected in overall responsiveness to the studies and their exceptionally high response rates, which enable reliable results. Thus, the credibility of the research findings is good. The study shows the agility and the versatile use of the novel working culture inquiry as a tool for several workforce and working environment developers, including when they design and implement well-being measures in care settings.

View full abstract