Understanding salutogenic approaches to managing intensive work: Experiences from three Swedish companies

Recent research has highlighted the risks involved in work intensification; i.e. the risk of human resources being consumed, incurring higher risks of emotional ill health such as burnout among employees. At the same time, there are some indications that individual employees are being left to themselves to manage work tasks in intensive work environments.

This article explores how strongly engaged people master intensive work through coping and job crafting in a salutogenic way.

The article is based on 34 in depth interviews of persons in various professions within research and development departments in three Swedish companies.

The interviews indicated that employees generally experienced work as almost constantly intense. We identified two strategies for mastering intensive work; i.e. an active strategy and a cognitive strategy, involving elements of both coping and job crafting. The specific elements of these strategies determine whether salutogenic processes are present.

The results suggest that it is the specific elements of the coping and job-crafting strategies that determine whether or not salutogenic processes occur, and that organisational support is an important supplement to the individual processes for mastering intensive work.