arbete och hälsa  |  vetenskaplig skriftserie
isbn 91-7045-629-1 issn 0346-7821 http://www.niwl.se/
nr 2002:1
Small enterprises in Sweden
Health and safety and the significance of intermediaries
in preventive health and safety
Ann-Beth Antonsson,1 Lena Birgersdotter1
and Sten Bornberger-Dankvardt2
National Institute for Working Life
1. IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute
2. Örebro University Hospital,
Dep. of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
ARBETE OCH HÄLSA
Editor-in-chief: Staffan Marklund
Co-editors: Mikael Bergenheim, Anders Kjellberg,
Birgitta Meding, Bo Melin, Gunnar Rosén and Ewa
Wigaeus Tornqvist
© National Institut for Working Life & authors 2002
National Institute for Working Life
S-112 79 Stockholm
Sweden
ISBN 91–7045–629–1
ISSN 0346–7821
http://www.niwl.se/
Printed at Elanders Gotab, Stockholm
Arbete och Hälsa
Arbete och Hälsa (Work and Health) is a
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Preface
This report is the Swedish part of the SALTSA B project, Health and safety in small
enterprises in Europe: The significance and sustainability of the translator function of
intermediaries in preventive health and safety. The aim of the entire project has been;
• To give an overview of health and safety in small enterprises in some countries
within the European Union based on available information and literature. As a back-
ground, the existing infrastructure relevant to health and safety in small enterprises
is described. This report describes the situation in Sweden. Other reports have been
written for Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
• To describe and to some extent also evaluate examples of intermediaries who have
supported successful and sustainable improvement of health and safety in small
enterprises. In this report, Swedish regional safety representatives have been chosen
as one example and Growth Potential Objective 4 has been chosen as the other
example.
• This Swedish report is also written to give an overview of the current situation in
Sweden regarding small enterprises and health and safety. In an international
perspective, comparisons can be made with the situation in other countries e.g.
regarding the prevalence of small enterprises in different sectors, their economic
situation and the existing supportive infrastructure in terms of legislation, organi-
sations and social security. The present status of health and safety as reflected in
statistics is presented and discussed. Finally the intermediaries which have been and
still are very important to health and safety in small enterprises are discussed both in
relation to the extent of contacts they have with small enterprises as well as what
kind of health and safety related issues they usually deal with in these contacts. The
presentation is limited by the information available from publicly available sources.
Project leader for the SALTSA B project is Ph D David Walters, Southbank University
in London. The SALTSA B programme is funded by the National Institute for Working
Life. This report for which Ph D Ann-Beth Antonsson at the Swedish Environmental
Research Institute has been the project leader is funded separately by the National
Institute for Working Life.
Based on the national reports, a book describing small enterprises in Europe and the
role of intermediaries has been written by David Walters. This book, Health and Safety
in Small Enterprises. European Strategies for Managing Improvement was published in
2001 by SALTSA in the Series “Work and Society”, No 31.
Contents
Preface
1. Facts about small enterprises 1
1.1 Definitions of small enterprises 1
1.2 Number of small enterprises – time trends 1
1.3 Small enterprises and economy 4
1.4 Small enterprises in the global setting 4
1.5 In what sectors are small enterprises active? 5
1.6 How are small enterprises owned? 7
1.7 Employees in small enterprises 7
1.8 Which organisations are small enterprises attached to? 9
1.9 Support networks for small enterprises 10
1.10 How are changes in society affecting small enterprises? 12
2. Facts about health and safety in small enterprises 14
2.1 Hazards and risks in small enterprises 14
2.2 Health and safety regulations relevant to small enterprises 15
2.2.1 Safety representatives 15
2.2.2 Systematic work environment management 15
2.2.3 Occupational Health Services 16
2.2.4 Social insurance 16
2.2.5 The duty to leave information 17
2.3 Fatalities, injuries, diseases and absence 17
2.4 Cost of injuries, ill-health and absence 20
2.5 Other measures of health and safety 20
2.6 Small enterprises opinions about their health and safety 21
2.7 Health and safety information and training in small enterprises 21
2.8 Information sources used by small enterprises 21
3. Strategies on health and safety in small enterprises 23
3.1 Public strategies 23
3.2 The social partners strategies 24
4. The main actors and evaluation of their activities 26
4.1 The Swedish Work Environment Authority
and the Work Environment Inspectorate 26
4.1.1 The Work Environment Inspectorate 26
4.1.2 Evaluations of the Work Environment Inspectorate 28
4.1.3 Enforcement actions from authorities 29
4.1.4 Systematic work environment management 29
4.2 Occupational Health Services 29
4.2.1 Affiliation to Occupational Health Services 29
4.2.2 The development of OHS 30
4.2.3 Financing of OHS 30
4.2.4 Extent of OHS 31
4.2.5 Service provided by OHS 31
4.2.6 Evaluation of OHS 32
4.2.7 Small enterprises’ opinions on OHS 33
4.2.8 The Örebro model – support to OHS from an SSE Unit 35
4.3 The Swedish Worklife Fund, ALF 37
4.3.1 The Work Life Fund, 1990-1995 37
4.3.2 Evaluation of the Fund 38
4.4 Prevent 39
5. Experiences from two successful health and safety initiatives
in small enterprises 41
5.1 An overview of different approaches 41
5.2 Successful and sustainable 42
5.3 Regional Safety Representatives, RSR 43
5.3.1 Background to RSRs 43
5.3.2 The aim of RSR activities 44
5.3.3 The extent of RSR activities 45
5.3.4 Evaluation of RSR activities 46
5.3.5 Discussion 48
5.4 Growth Potential Objective 4, GPO4 50
5.4.1 Background to GPO4 50
5.4.2 What are they doing in GPO4 projects? 51
5.4.3 The extent of GPO4 activities 51
5.4.4 Evaluation of GPO4 activities 53
5.4.5 Discussion 55
6. Discussion 57
7. Conclusions 60
Sammanfattning 61
References 62
11. Facts about small enterprises
1.1 Definitions of small enterprises
In Sweden the most commonly used definition of small enterprises, when discus-
sing health and safety, are enterprises with less than 50 employees. This is also the
limit where enterprises are required to have a safety committee, which is a com-
mittee of employers and employees representatives meeting at least four times a
year to plan and follow the work regarding health and safety issues in the enter-
prise (Arbetsmiljölagen chap. 6, § 8). The presence of a safety committee is
supposed to affect the working environment positively and thus the absence of a
safety committee contributes to the greater problems small enterprises are
supposed to have with health and safety.
Other definitions of small enterprises are also used in Sweden. Small enter-
prises have been defined as enterprises with less than 200 employee’s (Proposition
1977/78:40) including smaller enter-prises with less than 50 employees and
medium-sized ones with 50-200 employees.
In this report a limit of 50 is normally used. In some cases other limits are used
and in these cases the limit is indicated within the text. As the trend in Sweden is
towards downsizing and the division of enterprises into many smaller enterprises,
it should be noted that in general when talking about small enterprises, the small
enterprises that are part of a group or owned by holding enterprises are usually
included.
1.2 Number of small enterprises – time trends
During the 1990s, the number of private small enterprises has increased steadily.
The largest increase has been in one-person-enterprises (Lundström et al. 1998).
In 1998 Sweden had 803 600 active private enterprises. 157 100 of these, were
active in the agriculture sector. More than 99 per cent of the active private enter-
prises had less than 200 employees. In 1998, excluding the agriculture sector 760
enterprises had more than 200 employees (Linder 1999).
During 1997 2.3 million people were working in the private sector in Sweden.
Of these, 1.5 million worked within enterprises with less than 200 employees.
Statistics from 1993, 1996 and 1998 on the number of private enterprises in
Sweden are compiled in table 1.
In table 2, the development from 1984 to 1993 is described. In this table the
number of enterprises is given per million inhabitants and broken down by size.
Ta
bl
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1.
 
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2
3Table 2. Number of enterprises in the entire private sector per million inhabitants and
broken down according to size. Numbers are given for 1984 and 1993. Numbers are
corrected for enterprises belonging to groups. Note that enterprises with 0-1 employee are
excluded (Johansson 1998).
Entire private sector Manufacturing industry
Number of employees
in enterprises
1984 1993 Change
%
I984 1993 Change
%
2-4 5705 7232 27 683 741 8
5-9 2574 2933 14 450 439 -2
10-19 1340 1360 1 321 246 -23
20-49 705 696 -1 2l9 l71 -22
50-99 210 191 -9 78 58 -26
100-199 92 85 -8 39 26 -33
200-499 54 54 0 22 23 5
500+ 39 35 -10 19 16 -16
When interpreting the numbers in tables 1 and 2, one has to keep in mind that the
total economy in Sweden has gone through rapid changes during the 1990s. In
1990 a recession in the Swedish economy started, which initiated vast changes in
Swedish enterprises. Unemployment rose from about two per cent to about eight
(Statistics Sweden 1999) (or 11-12 per cent: Numbers vary depending on what
they reflect and especially depending on whether people in various kinds of labour
market policy programmes are included or not). The recession was quite severe
during the first years of the 1990s, but from about 1994 onwards the Swedish
economy has developed quite well and the unemployment rate was around six per
cent in the beginning of 2000 (ibid.) and had decreased to four per cent in
November 2000.
During the recession, many large enterprises downsized and divided their
activities into several smaller enterprises within a group. Thus the numbers above
also reflect this development amongst large Swedish enterprises. Additionally,
many people and activities were out-sourced and many of those that were out-
sourced started their own enterprises. In many cases they worked part time as
consultants for their former employers. This may, to some extent, explain the
increase in the number of enterprises without employees in table 1.
When it comes to the creation of new jobs, the newly established small
enterprises created about 65 000 new jobs annually between 1990-93 and an
additional 118 000 were created by expanding existing establishments. This
corresponds to 75 per cent and 64 per cent respectively of all jobs created in these
ways during a period when about half of all privately employed people were
employed in small enterprises. About 75 per cent of all jobs that disappeared due
to the closure of establishments disappeared from the small enterprise sector. 52
per cent of the reduction took place in the small enterprise sector. As a whole, 67
per cent of the job increases took place in the small enterprise sector and only 30
per cent of the job losses took place amongst small enterprises. This trend
increased as the economy improved during 1994 (Persson 1997). Analyses have
shown that for the small enterprise sector, the recession struck later and less
severely and when the economy improved, jobs were created earlier and to a
larger extent than in large enterprises (ibid.).
4Table 3 shows the number of new shareholder owned enterprises and the
number of such enterprises that were wound up during the period between 1992
and 1998.
Table 3. New and wound up shareholder’s enterprises between 1992 and 1998.
1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
Enterprises regis-
tered during the
year
19 006 19 567 22 849 22 230 9 215 13 162 13 430
Enterprises wound
up during the year
9 151 15 870 18 199 16 791 15 225 28 563 24 706
Registered enter-
prises in existence
at end of year:
in operation
winding up
290 852
40 147
294 906
43 268
299 801
46 112
307 991
41 616
300 900
38 287
268 374
21 335
270 920
6 299
Even if the numbers in table 3 relate to the total number of share holder’s enter-
prises, there is no doubt that the vast majority of registered and wound up enter-
prises are small ones.
1.3 Small enterprises and economy
The figures from 1996 show that small and medium-sized enterprises (those with
less than 250 employees) accounted for about half of the employment in the total
business sector and 37 per cent of the value added (gross profit before deprecia-
tion plus labour costs). Additionally they accounted for 32 per cent of the invest-
ments in tangible assets. Only three per cent of the total exports came from these
enterprises and only one per cent of research costs (Statistics Sweden 1996).
A comparison of international and Swedish enterprises active in Sweden, shows
that of the Swedish enterprises, the small ones (1-49 employees) invested most.
The smallest enterprises (0 employees) were the most profitable ones.
1.4 Small enterprises in the global setting
In table 4, the number of Swedish and international enterprises, of various sizes,
active within Sweden, are accounted for. Even though there seem to be some
uncertainties in the figures, it seems obvious that the vast majority of small enter-
prises (1-49 employees) are purely Swedish. There seem to be about twice as
many small Swedish enterprises having affiliated foreign enterprises as there are
small foreign enterprises affiliating with Swedish companies. When it comes to
large enterprises, the vast majority of employees work in enterprises with some
kind of international affiliation.
5Table 4. Swedish enterprises with affiliated enterprises internationally. The table is an
extract from several tables in (Statistics Sweden 1996).
Number of employees
0 1-49 50-249 250 -
Swedish enterprises with foreign affiliated
enterprises
1 164 3 294 1 027 356
Number of employees 0 48 011 108 036 461 154
Share of total employees in enterprises of same
size
- 5,5 12,3 52,4
Swedish enterprises which are affiliated to
international enterprises
421 1 790 645 215
Number of employees 0 27 912 71 799 163 584
Share of total employees in enterprises of same
size
0 3,2 8,2 18,6
Share of total employees in enterprises with
Swedish/international affiliation
- 8,7 20,5 71,0
Home market enterprises 88 742 165 214 1 437 59
Number of employees 0 710 034 122 830 19 449
Share of total employees in SMEs/large enterpr. - 69,7 12,1 1,9
98 per cent of exporting enterprises have less than 200 employees and these enter-
prises account for about 17 per cent of the exported value from Sweden. Even if
Sweden has many small enterprises exporting products and services, the export
value is greatest amongst the large enterprises.
1.5 In what sectors are small enterprises active?
In table 5, the number of enterprises of different sizes in different sectors is
accounted for (Statistics Sweden 1999). It is obvious that even though all sectors
contain small enterprises, there are some sectors that are heavily dominated by
small enterprises. Such sectors are, for example, agriculture, fishing, wholesale
and retail trade and repair and hotels and restaurants. In some sectors there are
many large or very large enterprises but also a lot of small ones, e.g. in construc-
tion, manufacturing and transport, storage and communication, real estate, renting
and business activities.
In 1997 about 80 per cent of the enterprises with less than 200 employees
belonged to the service sector and they employed about 853 000 people, which is
82 per cent of all employees in the service sector. 57 per cent of all workers in the
service sector worked in enterprises with up to 19 employees, which means that
the service sector is a sector heavily dominated by small enterprises.*
                                    
*
 Presentation on the homepage of Företagarnas Riksorganisation, http://www.fr.se.
Ta
bl
e 
5.
 
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te
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. W
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tra
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re
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6
71.6 How are small enterprises owned?
The proportion of enterprises owned by shareholders increases with the number of
employees. In 1996 71 per cent of enterprises with 1-4 employees were share-
holder’s enterprises (NUTEK 1996). The share of enterprises which are family-
owned decreases with an increasing number of employees. In 1994 80 per cent of
enterprises in the manufacturing industry with 0-9 employees were family-owned
(NUTEK 1994).
One interesting aspect of ownership is the reason for small enterprises being
established. In Sweden:
• Many enterprises are established with the aim not to grow and employ more
people, while other enterprises are established strategically on a market and
grow very rapidly.
• The main factors that stop small enterprises from growing are factors as com-
petition, market, lack of time, lack of risk capital and deficiencies in marketing
(SCB 1996).
The impression is that during the recession in the Swedish economy, many small
enterprises were established as people were out-sourced and asked to establish
their own enterprises in order to act as subcontractors to their former employers.
These enterprises were established to provide work and a livelihood to their
owners as a substitute for employment.
The share of private enterprises that are affiliated to a larger organisation/group
of enterprises has increased, from six per cent in 1979 to 14 in 1998 for small
enterprises (<50 employees) and from 58 per cent to 73 for large and medium
sized enterprises (>50 employees). There are big differences between trades. In
some sectors, enterprises with no affiliation form the largest category, e.g. in
agriculture and hunting, education, forestry and recreational, cultural and sporting
activities.*
1.7 Employees in small enterprises
74 per cent of white-collar workers and 85 of blue-collar workers are organised
within unions (Kjellberg 1997). Employees in small enterprises are organised in
labour unions to quite a high degree, even though the degree of membership is
probably generally a bit lower in small enterprises than in large ones. About 50
per cent of employees in enterprises with 1-9 employees and about 75 per cent in
enterprises with 11-50 employees are members of trade unions (Frick & Walters
1998). Additionally, there are some sectors where employees tend to be less
organised, e.g. within the IT-sector, though the number of employees organised in
trade unions now have increased in the IT-sector due to increased unemployment.
                                    
*
 Statistics especially compiled for this report by Lars Sundbom and Tor Larsson, SAMU,
Uppsala.
8Figure 1. Percentage of enterprises, of different sizes, affiliated to a larger organisation/
group of enterprises. Private sector only (Source: See previous footnote).
Figure 1 shows that the share of enterprises with affiliation has steadily increased
between 1979 and 1998 for companies with less than 100 employees. The most
marked increase has taken part in the group with 10-19 employees, where the
share of enterprises with affiliation has doubled.
Two studies from the 1970s indicate that employees are less involved in work
regarding the working environment in small enterprises than in large ones.
Employees, including safety representatives, are less aware of occupational health
and safety risks. Additionally they are reluctant to put demands regarding their
working environment on the managers that they are dependent on (SOU 1972:86,
Kronlund et al. 1978). Of course this situation may have changed since the 1970s.
In a recent study (Johansson 1998), however, there are signs that many employees
are quite passive regarding their working environment. This is explained by the
culture within many small enterprises, which is quite authoritarian.
During the 1980s and 1990s, a strong trend in research regarding the working
environment has been to focus on the organisation of work. This has resulted in
many projects where the organisation of work has been changed in enterprises,
employees have got more responsibilities, more education and a more varied
pattern of work. The change in the organisation of work has taken place in small,
medium-sized and large enterprises. The overall impression however is that this
change has gone further in large enterprises than in small ones. There are, how-
ever, many small enterprises that have changed their way of organising their
work. Some of them are described in a thesis (Johansson 1998), where a positive
correlation is found between a modern organisation of work including workers
participation and a good working environment.
Enterprises with affiliation
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
1-4 5-10 10-19 20-49 50-99 100-
199
200-
499
500-
Size of enterprises
S
ha
re
 w
ith
 a
ff
ila
tio
n
1979
1988
1998
9One interesting aspect of small enterprises is the relation between large and
small enterprises. Sweden has many large enterprises that tend to be very domina-
ting in their respective areas. These large enterprises are not considered to be a
problem as such. However, they have not been very active in supporting local
small enterprises and have instead tended to hamper the development of networks
for small enterprises rather than support them (Berggren et al. 1998).
1.8 Which organisations are small enterprises attached to?
Sweden is a country with many organisations and a large proportion of enterprises
and employees are organised in one of various ways.
The dominating organisation for private enterprises is the Swedish Employers
Federation (Svenska Arbetsgivareföreningen), SAF, which organises almost all
large private enterprises in Sweden and many small ones. SAF is an employer’s
organisation that deals with many different aspects of business and market rela-
tions. The 39 sectoral organisations within SAF negotiate on matters such as
salaries and employment conditions.
In table 6, the number of Swedish enterprises organised in SAF are accounted
for in relation to the number of employees in the enterprises and the total number
of employees in all the enterprises within each size category.
Table 6. Number of Swedish enterprises of different sizes which are members of SAF
(Source: Presentation on the homepage of Swedish Employers Federation
http://www.saf.se/detta/bildpresentation_12htm).
Number of employees Number of enterprises that are
members of SAF
Total number of employees in
the SAF-enterprises
– 10 28 000 100 000
11 – 200 12 000 450 000
201 - 890 675 000
SAF organises between 15 and 20 per cent of the smallest enterprises (enterprises
with less than ten employees). Their negotiations with the employee’s organisa-
tions have a much wider impact, as many enterprises, especially small ones, have
so called affiliated collective agreements which usually means that the enterprises
apply the same agreements as other enterprises that are members of SAF.
Another large organisation which organises many small enterprises is The
Federation of Private Enterprises (Företagarnas Riksorganisation), FR. FR has
60 000 owners of small and medium sized private enterprises as members. FR
also encompasses an additional 30 000 small businesses through 32 affiliated
trade associations, e.g. hairdressers. FR has 18 regional offices and is organised in
25 district organisations, 328 local organisations and 32 trade organisations. FR is
an organisation that works on the political arena and lobbies on various topics
concerning enterprises. It also acts as a forum for enterprises through its local
organisations.*
A third organisation is the Swedish Industry Association, (Svensk Industri-
förening), Sinf. It is a national organisation for small and medium-sized indus-
                                    
*
 Presentation on the homepage of Företagarnas Riksorganisation, http://www.fr.se.
10
tries. Sinf organises twenty different trade associations. Most of the 1 800
members are active in the sectors of engineering, plastics, electronics, food
producing and textiles. Sinf is growing in new sectors such as IT, environment
and recycling. Sinf has a special interest in subcontracting industries. Sinf’s main
services are in the field of business services and commercial policy, with an
emphasis on information, assistance and advice on legal and financial matters.
Another sector is non-profit organisations, e.g. sports clubs of which many in
fact have employees. About 1 420 are members of Employer’s Alliance (Arbets-
givaralliansen), and about 580 are members in the Swedish Employer’s Associ-
ation for Non-profit Organisations (Arbetsgivarförbundet för ideella organisatio-
ner), Idea, which is a part of the Swedish Federation of Trade and Service, a
sectoral organisation within SAF. This sector is not discussed further within this
report.
Regionally and locally, there are also organisations for enterprises. The Swe-
dish Employers Federation (SAF) has a regional organisation subdivided into 19
regions. The purpose of the regional organisation is to provide local information,
opinion forming, service and guidance. The regional organisations also arrange
meeting places to allow enterprises to exchange experience and initiate dialogues.
The Federation of Private Enterprises also has regional and local organisations,
providing information and arranging various kinds of activities and meetings for
their members. In some regions there are trade organisations, arranging activities
for particular trades.
Amongst these organisations, SAF is noticeable for its activity in the field of
working environment, supporting their members in various ways concerning
OHS. There are also several ombudsmen, both within SAF’s central organisation
and within most of SAF’s 39 sectoral organisations, that work part or full-time
with working environment related issues. The Federation of Private Enterprises,
the Swedish Employer’s Association for Non-profit Organisations and the Em-
ployer’s Alliance are also involved in issues to do with the working environment
on a regular basis.
In addition to this, there are many other local organisations and networks for
small enterprises or owners of small enterprises. See section 1.14.
1.9 Support networks for small enterprises
Some of the local networks for small enterprises are related to the national organi-
sations that organise enterprises and their local or regional organisations. This has
been accounted for above (see section 1.5).
Several different surveys have studied which contacts are important to small
enterprises. A survey in which 381 enterprises in northern Sweden gave their
opinions on several topics, showed, not surprisingly, that more than 90 per cent
had used their clients often or very often as information sources, 76 per cent used
newspapers, 67 colleagues, 50 intermediaries, 36 exhibitions and 24 seminars as
information sources (Alström & Höglund 1995).
Other networks relevant to small enterprises are the ALMI Group (ALMI
Företagspartner), which is an organisation owned jointly by government and
county councils. ALMI is divided into 22 regional enterprises with offices in 40
11
cities, in order to facilitate contact with local enterprises. ALMI’s mission is to
stimulate growth and employment in small and medium-sized enterprises. ALMI
offers loans to SMEs that can grow and want to grow. ALMI also provides busi-
ness information, business-development programmes and consultative services.
ALMI should not compete with existing local commercial services. ALMI meets
approximately 100 000 SMEs and potential SMEs each year. 24 000 of these
become involved in extensive development programs. ALMI is mainly concerned
with business development. During the last decade, effort has been put into
management systems for quality and environment. In some cases working
environment aspects have been included in these activities and programmes have
started to integrate management systems with the Swedish compulsory systematic
work environment management, which in fact is a very simple form of manage-
ment system. There have also been some attempts with projects where ALMI
should provide support regarding OHS to SMEs (Lindström 1984), but these
attempts seem to have been neither successful nor sustainable.
There are few studies on the extent of networking among small enterprises.
Active participants in the network decide network activities, not a central body.
As a consequence it is difficult to give a general description of networks and if
and how they support health and safety interventions.
Good relations and trust among the participants are requirements for a network
to “stay alive”. It is necessary to replace competition with co-operation.
There are many different kinds of networks among small Swedish enterprises.
Some of the networks are formed as regional or local organisations belonging to a
national organisation such as the Federation of Private Enterprises. Other net-
works are more of a meeting arena where, very often, owners and managers of
small enterprises take part, such as Rotary Club and Lions. There are also many
formal and informal local networks active in different ways. Locally there might,
for example, be organisations for small industries, arranging regular meetings and
discussing topics of common interest. There are also more informal networks,
which might be of great importance and which are mainly based on personal
relations and common interests. Such networks may be used where someone finds
there to be a need.
In one Swedish region networks are considered more elaborate than in other
regions. In parts of Småland, networking is seen as a way of working together
with other enterprises in the same region in order to keep as much work as is
possible within the region and improve the competence and development paths
within the region.
There are also some rather new networks being built up based on the internet as
the main method of communication. The largest internet-project in Sweden with a
focus on increasing the competitiveness of SMEs is Smelink. The idea of Smelink
is to provide tailored, strategic information and to build a platform for enterprises
to find new partners and business opportunities. Smelink was started in 1996
based on discussions within private enterprise in the city of Jönköping, with
connections to the University and a private foundation, Knut & Alice Wallenberg
Foundation. Smelink also contains information on working environment as part of
the information on environmental management systems.
12
One of the rare studies on SMEs and networks examined three electronic net-
works in Gotland. The focus was on how networks are formed, on their develop-
ment and how to sustain networking, and what demands there are on and from
those participating in networks. The study also looked into how the work situation
and role of small entrepreneurs was affected by co-operation within the network.
The study shows that co-operation in networks gives opportunities for mutual use
of resources and the sharing of common cost e.g. in marketing. Mutual exchange
of experience improves competence within the enterprises in the network. The
network offers advantages compared to acting on your own as a small enterprise,
for example because of better external confidence and because larger business
actions can be achieved (Brulin 1998).
1.10 How are changes in society affecting small enterprises?
During the last decade, Swedish society has changed a lot. The boom at the end of
the 1980s was replaced by a recession with far reaching effects on working life.
At the end of the 1990s the Swedish economy is growing quite strongly. This
growth is partly due to the restructuring of enterprises which took place in the
beginning of the 1990s. This restructuring contained several elements which also
effect small enterprises.
Some figures can be used to illustrate the change (Persson 1997). From 1990-
93, the number of employees decreased by about 500 000. At the same time, there
was hardly any decrease at all in the number of establishments. The largest reduc-
tion in jobs took place in the manufacturing industry (-187 000), the public sector
(-145 000) and trade (-88 000). Despite the deep recession, employment increased
in some sectors, including education, health care, engineering enterprises and
other knowledge based enterprises. In the private sector, employment decreased
mainly in Swedish-owned large enterprises. Establishments within small enter-
prises increased their share of total employment from 48 to 52 per cent, which is a
remarkable structural shift. After 1994, as the economy has improved, small enter-
prises have continued to increase their share of employment in the public sector
(ibid.).
Partly due to outsourcing, the number of small enterprises has grown. Many
small enterprises give service or are suppliers to larger enterprises. In Sweden for
example the car industry is quite strong with many suppliers. The car industry also
acts as a strong and competent buyer, which puts demands on small enterprises
and to some extent also helps them to develop their suppliers. It has been argued
that large enterprises support their suppliers too little, which hampers small indus-
try development (Berggren et al. 1998). The car industry is probably a very impor-
tant driving force for small enterprises’ work with management systems for
quality and environment (ISO 9000 and 14 001). The use of these kinds of
management system has also spread among Many small enterprises have imple-
mented such management systems during the 1990s (Antonsson 2000).
A strong and visible trend is that the use of management systems has increased,
along with the number of different types of management system increasing. A
notable trend is that many sectors, including sectors with mainly small enterprises
as members, are developing systems of their own for quality and environmental
13
management (Mårtensson 2000). There is an increasing interest in integrating
working environment considerations into other management systems, even though
there is still a lack in experience as to which methods for integration are success-
ful and which are not (Antonsson 2000).
Downsizing has lead to lean organisations and sometimes what has been called
anorexic organisations. The restructuring has probably hit the largest enterprises
hardest, but has also affected the smaller ones, for example the car industry has
put demands on many of their suppliers to reduce costs by a certain percentage per
annum. Additionally, the car industry in particular has begun to reduce their
number of suppliers, which leads to the creation of supply chains, where one
supplier takes a broader responsibility and acts as a main supplier with many sub-
suppliers, which formerly were direct suppliers to the car industry.
During the 1980s and 1990s, franchising has increased and today there are
many small enterprises that are parts of larger chains with a more or less defined
concept. Franchising in Sweden shows slightly different characteristics than
franchising in, for example, the USA. In Sweden there are more horizontal
contacts (between enterprises on the same production level), which facilitate co-
operation between enterprises. In the USA the contacts are mainly vertical –
between the mother enterprise and franchisers with few, if any, horizontal con-
tacts.* As franchising is growing and the franchisers are enterprises of their own,
the number of small franchisers is growing. The franchisers are sometimes enti-
rely new enterprises, built up around a specific concept. Existing enterprises are
sometimes remodelled into franchises to create a stronger link to the enterprise
whose products they are selling.
A general trend in Sweden during the first half of the 1990s is that unemploy-
ment has increased. This has lead to a marked decrease in working environment
activity and interest shown in OHS both in society in general and within many
enterprises. This is also true for many small enterprises. In addition to this the
trend towards lean organisations has lead to an increase in overload at work and
people suffering from burn out syndromes. So far, no research relating burn out
syndrome to the size of the enterprise is available, but the problem probably exists
amongst small enterprises too.
Within the field of working environment, a very noticeable trend is that the
focus has continued to change, during the 1990s, from physical problems to
organisational and psycho-social problems. This holds true for small enterprises.
This change of focus does not mean that all physical working environment prob-
lems are solved, but rather that they are not given as much attention as they were
earlier on.
                                    
*
 Personal communication with Bengt-Åke Wennberg, Samarbetsdynamik AB, Onsala, dec 1999.
14
2. Facts about health and safety in small
enterprises
2.1 Hazards and risks in small enterprises
It is usually argued that the nature of risks depends more on the type of activity in
the enterprise than the size. Basically this is true, at least for the physical aspects
of the working environment. The use of machines, tools and chemical substances
leads to similar risks, regardless of the size of the enterprise. Analysing the situa-
tion more thoroughly will indicate that there probably are some differences related
to size (Antonsson 1997).
Analysis of the reported rate of work-related accidents and diseases in 1992
(SWEA & Statistics Sweden 1993), shows that cleaners in large enterprises
reported work-related accidents and diseases twice as often as cleaners in small
enterprises. A public investigation in 1993 stated that “this can hardly be right”
(SOU 1993:8113). There are reasons to believe that this depends more on under-
reporting from small enterprises than real differences in their working environ-
ment (SOU 1990:49, Bengtsson 1995).
The regular surveys of the Swedish labour force, made by Statistics Sweden,
indicate that there are only minor differences between enterprises depending on
size (1-49 employees, compared to 50-499 and more than 500 employees). It is
not possible to decide whether these differences depend on differences in repor-
ting work-related injuries between large and small enterprises or real differences
in injuries between large and small enterprises.
The differences between trades are many times larger than the differences due
to the size of the enterprises. There are significant differences in illness due to
differences in working environment load (Frick 1996). Trades dominated by small
enterprises, for example shops, have a very low frequency of work-related injuries
and diseases and enterprises working with wooden products, products based on
soil and stone, food products and beverages, agriculture and construction, have
very high frequencies.
One characteristic of small enterprises is that work often varies a lot. A few
people work and manage to do (almost) all the things that have to be done. This
means that very often each person has many different work tasks. The exposure
can thus be said to vary a lot, depending on which task is currently being carried
out. In larger enterprises, work might be more monotonous due to a more Taylor-
istic or specialised organisation of work. Additionally, exposures may be a lot
higher in small enterprises, since safeguards and other control measures tend not
to be very elaborate, since each task takes a short time. Thus extensive precautions
are often not considered necessary. The conclusion is that compared to large
enterprises, small enterprises probably have higher exposures but for shorter times
(Antonsson 1997). This hypothesis has, however, not yet been evaluated or veri-
fied.
Frick showed in 1979 that small independent enterprises worked in a less syste-
matic and preventive way with their working environment than small establish-
15
ments that were part of a larger private or public organisation. In the latter case,
the small establishments had various types of support, e.g. from policies, staff
managers and safety committees (Frick 1979). Nise showed a similar result in
1995, where the risk of harmful exposure to chemicals was significantly higher in
independent small enterprises than other small establishments (Nise et al. 1995).
2.2 Health and safety regulations relevant to small enterprises
2.2.1 Safety representatives
All enterprises with five or more employees should have a safety representative.
Safety representatives are appointed by the trade unions or by the workers. Safety
representatives shall take part in the work regarding health and safety at the work-
place and have authorities according to that, e.g. to get information, take part in
courses regarding health and safety on time paid by the employer and to stop haz-
ardous work. Not all enterprises that should have safety representatives have, in
fact, got them. There are, however, no figures relating the existence of safety
representatives to the size of the enterprise.
In a recent study on safety representatives, it is estimated that about 21 000
enterprises have safety representatives, compared to about 107 500 enterprises
with more than five employees that should have safety representatives (Arbets-
tagarkonsult AB 2000). Accordingly here are safety representatives in only 20 per
cent of the companies that are required to have safety representatives. It is obvious
that safety representatives are more often missing in small enterprises than in
large ones, even though no studies have been made to show this.
2.2.2 Systematic work environment management
Swedish legislation does not discriminate between enterprises based on their size.
In general the same legislation applies to all enterprises regardless of how large
they are. However there is one instance where it is obvious that the legislation is
interpreted differently for small enterprises – the Swedish legislation on syste-
matic work environment management, SWEM.
The regulation on SWEM, formerly named “internal control” is in force since
January 1 1993. The regulation requires that the employer works systematically
with the working environment in the enterprise. The regulation requires action
related to the work environment in the company. The action resembles a simple
management system, with e.g. work environment policy, identification of risks,
action plans, follow-up of accidents and near-accidents and follow up of the work
according to SWEM.
One of the final paragraphs in the regulation states that enterprises have to do
“what is needed, depending on size, occupational hazards…” In practice, this
means that the Work Environment Inspectorate normally accept much simpler
systematic work environment management in small enterprises than in larger
ones.
Even though all enterprises have to have systematic work environment manage-
ment, more than 50 per cent of enterprises with less than 50 employees have not
yet started to work with it (Statistics Sweden 1996).
16
2.2.3 Occupational Health Services
Legislation on the prevention of disease and accidents at work has existed in Swe-
den since the 19th century. The present Work Environment Act (WEA) dates from
1978. A new provision was added to the WEA from 1986, which stated that “if
the working conditions so require, employers are to organise Occupational Health
Services (OHS) to the extent which the activities demand”. The provision enabled
the regional Work Environment Inspectorate to issue an employer with an injunc-
tion to affiliate his employees to Occupational Health Services in certain specific
cases.
From the 1st of January 2000 there came into effect changes in the WEA that
stress even more the demand on employers to organise OHS, whilst still not
making it mandatory. A clear definition is added of what areas of expertise OHS
must have.
The ILO Occupational Health Services Convention (No. 161) defines “occupa-
tional health services” as services entrusted with essentially preventive functions
and responsible for advising the employer, the workers and their representatives in
the undertaking on the requirements for establishing and maintaining a safe and
healthy working environment which will facilitate optimal physical and mental
health in relation to work and the adaptation of work to the capabilities of workers
in the light of their state of physical and mental health.*
In the Swedish Work Environment Act (Chapter 3, Section 2b) a definition is
added as worded 1st January 2001:
”By occupational health services is meant an independent expert resource in the
domains of the working environment and rehabilitation. Occupational health
services shall in particular work for the prevention and elimination of health
risks at workplaces, and shall have the competence to identify and describe
connections between the working environment, organisation, productivity and
health”.**
2.2.4 Social insurance
Two factors in Swedish social insurance are related to health and safety: Rehabili-
tation and the employer’s obligation to pay salaries for the first period of sick
leave.
According to Swedish law, employers are obligated to provide work related
rehabilitation for employees, if relevant, after
• four weeks of sick leave,
• six incidences or more of sick leave during one year,
• if an employee asks for/demands rehabilitation.
The employer is responsible for measures undertaken at the enterprise, including
changes in work tools, equipment, workplace layout and the organisation of work.
                                    
*
 Rantanen, J and Fedotov, I. Standards, principles and approaches in occupational health services,
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/support/publ/encyc/contents.htm   
**
 The Work Environment Act - with commentary as worded on 1st January 2001
http://www.av.se/english/legislation/chapter3.shtm    
17
The rehabilitation may be supported by medical staff and often occupational
health services are involved.
The social insurance system in Sweden includes compensation during sick
leave. However since 1992, the employer has to pay a reduced salary (80 per cent
but not more than a maximum level) to employees on sick leave during the first
fourteen days. Since 1993 the first day of sick leave is not paid for with two
exceptions. If the next period of sick leave starts within five days after the pre-
vious one and after ten sick leaves during one year, the first day will be paid for.
It has been argued that this can become a heavy burden for small enterprises, if
they employ people with or who develop some kind of chronic disease, causing a
lot of sick leave. One argument for the increased responsibility of the employer is
that this situation will make enterprises more aware of and concerned about how
the working environment will affect the health and wellbeing of their employees.
Thus the period was extended to four weeks during 1997 to April 1998, when it
was changed once again and is, at the moment, 14 days. There is an option for
small companies with a wage sum equal to about 20 employees to take out an
insurance against high costs for the company-paid compensation during sick
leave.
There have been discussions in Sweden regarding differentiated dues for social
insurance to motivate enterprises to improve their working environment in order
to reduce their dues. Until now, it has not been possible to develop such a system
and get a broad acceptance for it. Rehabilitation is continuously being investigated
and discussed. One of the main problems is related to small enterprises. How
should the working environment status in small enterprises be judged, in order to
provide a firm basis for a fair due towards social insurance?
2.2.5 The duty to leave information
All enterprises have to leave information to the authorities on various topics. This
duty has often been discussed in terms of it being a heavy burden especially to
small enterprises.* Focus in this discussion is mainly on other topics than occupa-
tional health and safety. The duty to leave information includes statistics on sick-
leave per employee, which is reported to the Social Insurance Office. The em-
ployer is obliged to pay a salary during the first two weeks. After that the Social
Insurance Office pay compensation based on salary. The employee only reports
sick-leave to the employer. Additionally the employer has to report all work-
related accidents and diseases to the Social Insurance Office. It has been argued
that this has lead to under-reporting of work-related accidents and diseases
especially amongst small enterprises.
2.3 Fatalities, injuries, diseases and absence
There are several different information sources that reflect different aspects of the
outcome of a poor working environment.
                                    
*
 Different articles and other material on the homepage of Confederation of Swedish Enterprise,
www.svensktnaringsliv.se  
18
Primarily, there are the injuries, fatalities and diseases which are accepted as
clearly work-related which give the right to compensation for loss of income.
Today statistics that relate the outcome of these injuries, fatalities and diseases to
the size of the enterprise is not available. It is however possible to use the avail-
able statistics to relate the number of fatalities or work-related accidents and
diseases, to wage sum for the enterprise (or that part of enterprise with its own
insurance number). The wage sum is a reflection of the size of the enterprise. This
has never been done.
Secondly, there are the reported injuries, fatalities and diseases, which in some
cases are clearly related to the working environment and in some cases less clearly
related. These reported injuries, fatalities and diseases are compiled within the
ISA-statistics from the Swedish Work Environment Authority and Statistics
Sweden. The statistics are based on reports to the Social Insurance Office from
individuals (when sick leave exceeds 14 days) and enterprises (for shorter sick-
leave). As the basis for these statistics are reports, under- and possibly over
reporting will affect the statistics. Such deficiencies in reporting may vary
between trades.
Tables 8 to 11 show some statistics for small enterprises of different sizes from
the ISA-statistics.
Table 8. Number of fatal accidents during the years 1995 to 1998 broken down by size of
establishment (not always equal to size of enterprise) as reported by ISA (Statistics
Sweden 1999 and Statistics compiled by ISA, Swedish Work Environment Authority).
No inform
on size
0 empl. 1-9
empl.
10-19
empl.
20-49
empl.
50-199
empl.
> 200
empl.
Total
1995 14 18 18 6 14 12 8 90
1996 15 12 16 7 10 12 15 87
1997 12 17 13 5 15 14 13 89
1998 10 10 19 7 8 12 2 68
Total number
1995-1998
51 57 66 25 47 50 38 334
% of total fatal
accidents
15 17 20 7 14 15 11
% of all
employees
15,6 6,7 5,2 5,5 11,7 55,3
It is notable that enterprises with less than 20 employees have about 44 per cent
(probably more, as the size of the enterprise is not known in 15 per cent of the
cases) of the fatal accidents but only 27 per cent of the employees. This fact is
mainly due to the small group of enterprises with 1-9 employees that have 6,7 per
cent of employees but 20 per cent of the accidents. As shown in table 9 most acci-
dents within these enterprises occur within agriculture, construction and transport.
19
Table 9. Number of fatal accidents during the years 1995–1998 in enterprises with 1-9
employees related to sector as reported by ISA (Statistics Sweden 1999 and Statistics
compiled by ISA, Swedish Work Environment Authority).
Trade Number of fatal accidents 95-98
Agriculture, hunting, forestry and related service activities 15
Construction 12
Land and air transport 10
Manufactured metal production except machinery and equipment 5
Other business activities 5
Sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles 4
Other trades with less than 3 fatal accidents during 1995-1998 17
Total number 1995-1998 66
Table 10. Frequency of accidents per 1000 employees during the years 1996 and 1998
related to size of establishment as reported to ISA (Statistics Sweden 1999 and Statistics
compiled by ISA, Swedish Work Environment Authority ).
1-4 empl. 5-49 empl. > 50 empl.
1996 4,9 8,1 9,8
1998 4,0 8,0 9,5
Table 11. Frequency of work related diseases per 1000 employees during the years 1996
and 1998, related to size of establishment as reported by ISA (Statistics Sweden 1999 and
Statistics compiled by ISA, Swedish Work Environment Authority).
1-4 empl. 5-49 empl. > 50 empl.
1996 1,9 2,9 3,6
1998 1,7 3,9 5,0
The information in tables 10 and 11 is not easy to understand when compared
with the figures for fatal accidents. There seems to be a major underestimate of
accidents and diseases within small enterprises, at least if it is presumed that there
is some kind of relationship between fatalities and accidents.
There is scarce information about sick leave in general related to size of enter-
prise. The information available concerns workers (not salaried employees) in the
private sector, see table 12.
Table 12. Sick leave in per cent of working time among workers in the private sector,
broken down by size. Size relates to establishment (not enterprise) (personal communi-
cation with Lennart Jonsson, Swedish Employers Federation, jan 2000).
Year Size of establishment
1-5 6-10 11-25 26-50 51-100 101-200 201-500 501-1000 >1000
1989 8.4 7.6 7.5 9.2 10.9 12.2 12.4 12.8 12.7
1998 5.18 5.62 4.86 5.25 5.73 5.56 6.08 6.56 5.92
In the smallest enterprises absence due to sickness increased markedly between
1997 and 1998. This is supposed to be connected to the reduction in the time for
which the employer has to pay a salary, which was changed from four weeks to
two weeks on April 1 1998 (personal communication with Lennart Jonsson,
Swedish Employers Federation, Jan 2000).
20
2.4 Cost of injuries, ill-health and absence
The costs of injuries, ill-health and absence are related to the incidence of work-
related accidents and diseases as well as to illnesses in general which are not due
to work. In the Swedish statistics it is hardly possible to evaluate which parts of
these costs are work-related. During the last year a project has started aimed at
developing methods for such economic evaluations, based on a preliminary study
(Vinberg & Malmquist 1998).
There is an insurance within the private sector, which covers loss of income
exceeding what is paid for by the Social Insurance Office, for work-related acci-
dents and diseases. The insurance is administered by AMF Insurance (AMF
Försäkring). Information on the total cost per year to cover loss of income is not
available (confidential data). No information is available on costs for enterprises
broken down by size (wage sum per insurance number, which often is equivalent
to wage sum per enterprise).
In one programme, projects were initiated in enterprises and partly supported by
the Working Life Fund. All enterprises receiving grants for specific projects had
to write a report about the results in their projects. In their reports economic calcu-
lations of the economic effects on the enterprises had to be included. These calcu-
lations were based on a method presented by the Fund and included calculating
the costs for sick leave. However, when sick leave before and after the projects
was compared, sick leave at the peak of good national economy (end of 1980s)
was compared to sick leave during a deep recession (beginning and middle of
1990s). Thus the effects of the projects were difficult to evaluate independently of
the effects from changes in the national economy and labour market.
2.5 Other measures of health and safety
Statistics Sweden regularly measures different factors relating to working life
through enquiries. Three different kinds of enquiries are made regularly.
AKU-surveys are made every month and are sent to approximately 17 000
persons covering different aspects of employment, work, absence from work and
unemployment.
Working environment surveys are made every other year and were last pub-
lished for 1997. They are directed towards some of the people within the AKU-
study. This survey covers the physical and psycho-social aspects of working life.
Work-related pain and difficulties are surveyed once a year. This survey is
included in the AKU-study.
None of the results of these studies have thus far been related to size of enter-
prise. However, this question has been discussed and it seems to be possible to
relate the results to size, by using other databases in connection with these sur-
veys. There are discussions going on regarding this, but no decisions have yet
been taken.
The Swedish Trade Union Confederation makes surveys regularly regarding the
working environment. In their surveys among safety representatives and employ-
ees in different sectors, the number of employees is surveyed as well. This means
there is information available that could be used to study different aspects of the
21
working environment in relation to size of enterprise. Thus far, however, the
surveys have not been used to investigate this aspect (LO 1996a, b, 1997).
2.6 Small enterprises opinions about their health and safety
In two Swedish studies, employers and employees in small enterprises have been
asked what they think about their own working environment. Not surprisingly, the
majority of small Swedish enterprises find their own working environment better
than average in their trade. In a study from 1989, ten of 22 employers found their
own working environment better than average in their trade, ten thought it was
about average and two did not know. The safety delegates opinions were a bit
different but the tendency was similar. Five thought the working environment was
better, two about average, two worse and six did not have an opinion (Antonsson
et al. 1989). Thus, both employers and safety delegates seem to overestimate their
own working environment, even though many safety delegates in small enter-
prises have not got an opinion, probably due to lack of experience from other
enterprises. In a study from 1998, 22 of 30 employers found their own working
environment better than average in their trade and six about average. One did not
know and one thought the physical working environment was worse than in large
enterprises in the same trade but that the psycho-social working environment was
better (Antonsson et al. 1998).
2.7 Health and safety information and training in small enterprises
In general, information and training is not solely directed towards only large or
small enterprises, but rather towards enterprises in sectors. It is difficult to get
hold of data that describe small enterprise participation in information and edu-
cation activities. However, it is not too much to say that small enterprises are
under-represented in such activities in relation to their share of the employees.
2.8 Information sources used by small enterprises
Employers have several different sources for their information regarding the
working environment, the most important ones are:
• Regional Safety Representatives, who might visit the enterprise once a year or
once every two years.
• Occupational health services, if the enterprise is attached to one.
• Newspapers published by an employers’ organisation and sectoral organisa-
tions.
• Employers’ organisations, where there usually is at least one person respon-
sible for working environment issues and serving as an adviser to member
enterprises.
• Business network with colleagues in the same sector, neighbours and other
business contacts.
22
• Suppliers as customers from which small enterprises purchase whatever is
needed for their production. Products are sometimes marketed as better to
work with and better for the working environment.
Depending on trade and enterprise, the importance of these information sources
will vary.
Employees in small enterprises get most of their information through a few
channels:
• The trade union’s regular newspaper, which is often published monthly.
• The regional safety representative, when they visit the enterprise.
• Daily newspapers.
• Occupational health services, if the enterprise is attached to one.
The different channels are all sustainable in the sense that they exist over a long
period of time and can be used for providing information to small enterprises. For
some of these channels, the working environment is in focus, for others a topic
they may touch on occasionally. Taken together these channels provide a good
basis for sustainable interventions. How successful these will be depends on how
much time there is available to work with small enterprises.
To obtain sustainable interventions, the mere existence of a channel is not
enough. The result will probably, to quite a large extent, depend on the means and
methods, which are used to intervene in enterprises. As this is a complex process
depending on many different factors, it will not be discussed further in this con-
text. Additionally, there is a scarcity of research on this topic within Sweden.
23
3. Strategies on health and safety in small
enterprises
3.1 Public strategies
Different actors have different ways of dealing with small enterprises and their
working environment. From a national perspective, the main actors are:
• The government and especially the Ministry of Labour (currently included in
the Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications).
• The parties on the labour market, employers and employees organisations.
• The agencies, mainly the Swedish Work Environment Authority and the
regional Work Environment Inspectorate.
• The occupational health services.
These main actors have started several programs and activities with a focus on
small enterprises or programs that are especially important to small enterprises,
even if they may cover large enterprises as well. Such programs are:
• Arbetslivsfonden, ALF, (the Work Life Fund) was built up from a so called
working environment fee, which was paid as an extra tax on the wage sum by
all employers between September 1989 and December 1990. ALF existed for
some years and initiated and financed improvements in the working environ-
ment in many enterprises, not only small ones. (Not to be confused with the
Swedish Council for Work Life Research, which mainly finances research and
development.) Many small enterprises got financial support from ALF to im-
prove their organisation of work as well as the physical working environment.
The Swedish Work Environment Authority will give priority to small enterprises
during the year 2000. During recent years there has been a focus on systematic
work environment management in small enterprises. Inspections have been
directed towards specific sectors containing many small enterprises with high
risks.
For the years to come, the Board has the following plans concerning small
enterprises:
“Small enterprises especially within mechanical workshops and the transport
and building sectors, shall improve their awareness of risks, their knowledge
of the regulations concerning the working environment and increase and
improve their precautionary work.
Tangible goals are
• The Work Environment Inspectorate shall focus their inspections on small
enterprises in the sectors mentioned above and control risk awareness, know-
ledge and precautionary work.
• The Swedish Work Environment Authority shall develop methods for infor-
mation that motivates enterprises within the sectors mentioned above to
24
increase their knowledge about the regulations that concern their working
environment.”
Below, the various strategies above are further described and evaluated. Two
successful initiatives, the regional safety representatives and the programme
Growth Potential Objective 4 are described in more detail in paragraph 3.
3.2 The social partners strategies
The basic strategies of employers’ and employees’ organisations are to co-operate
with each other regarding health and safety, even if one-party activities also occur.
The social partners have mainly co-operated on OHS issues since their general
agreement of 1938 (the Saltsjobaden agreement, in which the employers recog-
nised the unions and accepted to negotiate with them while the unions accepted
the employers’ right to fully manage the workplaces). This co-operation has been
especially noted on OHS issues. However, behind this, there has been a basic
tension between the partners in that the employers federation, SAF, emphasises
voluntary means while the unions, mainly in the blue collar federation of LO, are
more open to use regulation and other mandatory means to make all employers
live up to OHS minimum standards (Frick 2001).
When it comes to the physical working environment, in general there are no
large differences in opinion between employers’ and employees’ organisations.
The opinions are more divergent when it comes to psycho-social aspects e.g. the
organisation of work. The common values are reflected in collective agreements
concerning the working environment. In the agreement for the trade and service
sectors* the following common values are stated.
• A good working environment is of common interest to the parties.
• Sound and safe workplaces create better working conditions for the employees
and reduce sick leave and thus improve productivity and quality.
• The work regarding the working environment is a part of the ordinary work in
enterprises and should be integrated in the line organisation.
• Questions regarding the working environment are handled in co-operation
with employees and their local union representatives.
• The preventive work regarding the working environment concerns both the
physical and psycho-social aspects of the working environment.
Even though this is only an agreement for one sector, the values are probably
valid for most other sectors as well. The co-operation has however decreased from
1993 onwards when the Swedish Employers Federation terminated the collective
agreement regarding the working environment between the central parties. Today
there are agreements on working environment for some (but not the majority of)
sectors. Additionally there are agreements on Occupational Health Services for
                                    
*
 Arbetsmiljöavtal för det gemensamma kollektivavtalsområdet samt allmänna råd för det lokala
arbetsmiljöarbetet. Giltigt från 1995-06-13. Avtal mellan Handelns arbetsgivarorganisation,
Handelsanställdas förbund och Handelstjänstemannaförbundet.
25
several sectors. Even if there are no specific agreements regarding the working
environment, many parties still co-operate regarding working environment issues.
When it comes to the agreements mentioned above, they are general and cover
all enterprises irrespective of size. The employers’ and employees’ organisations
are well aware of the problems with small enterprises, but the problem is mainly
dealt with in specific projects directed towards small enterprises. The employees’
organisations work through the Regional Safety Representatives. The Swedish
Employers Federation, SAF, instead has central working environment experts and
a local organisation that can provide some assistance to enterprises on request.
From time to time, SAF criticises the system of Regional Safety Representatives.
26
4. The main actors and evaluation of their
activities
4.1 The Swedish Work Environment Authority and the Work Environment
Inspectorate
4.1.1 The Work Environment Inspectorate
Work environment inspectors have the function of inspecting small establish-
ments. Another function they have is to give support and advice. This support is
limited, due to a lack of resources and the fact that the inspections carry a higher
priority. All enterprises have the option to contact the Work Environment Inspec-
torate in order to ask specific questions. An evaluation from 1995 (Arbetarskydds-
styrelsen 1995) shows that small enterprises are not very active in using this
option. 47 per cent of small enterprises (1-19 employees) had never posed a
question to the Work Environment Inspectorate. Larger enterprises use this option
more frequently. Only 18 per cent had never contacted the Work Environment
Inspectorate to ask about something.
The Work Environment Inspectorate is divided into ten districts. They inspect
the working environment and the systematic work environment management in
both the private and the public sector, including small enterprises. In 1994 about
15 000 of 160 000 private and independent enterprises with 1-9 employees were
visited (Johansson 1995). Detailed figures for 1997 (the last available year) is
presented in table 7.* As can be seen from table 7, more than 75 per cent of all
visits are made at small establishments. Still, the largest establishments are visited
almost three times a year, while the smallest ones are visited about once every ten
years. It ought to be observed that table 7 is based on statistics from the Swedish
Work Environment Authority and the number of establishments broken down by
size differ from the official Swedish statistics.
The inspections are directed towards enterprises and activities where there are
signs that problems are at hand. Five different grounds for inspection are used.
Inspections are made:
• In sectors which show high risks according to the Swedish statistics on work-
related injuries and diseases, e.g. the construction and the wood industry.
• In enterprises which in some way show high risks in the statistical information
on establishments and their work-related accidents and diseases.
• In enterprises with reported accidents. Severe accidents are a priority.
• In sectors with recently identified risks.
• In enterprises where someone, e.g. the safety representative, requires an
inspection.
                                    
*
 Statistics compiled by Lasse Holmlund, Swedish Work Environment Authority, Solna, Sweden.
Satistics is not published. Personal communication.
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28
ISA, the Swedish statistics on reported work-related accidents and diseases, and
the local ISA, LISA (which includes statistics for enterprises), are important tools
in the selection of trades and enterprises to be focussed on by the inspections.
Trades with high incidences of work-related accidents and diseases are prioritised.
Thus, for example, joineries and mechanical workshops are inspected quite often,
even if they have few employees. Other small enterprises are rarely or never
inspected, as they have few work-related accidents and diseases. As an example,
statistics from 1998* show that 51 per cent of enterprises constructing buildings,
29 of forestry enterprises and 34 of enterprises in the wood products industry were
visited compared to only two per cent of enterprises in real estate, renting and
business activities and five of enterprises in the retail trade.
Inspections are also directed towards such activities that have started to show
signs of work-related accidents and diseases. Thus the Work Environment Inspec-
torate has had a campaign directed towards dentists and the handling of new
acrylate-based materials for teeth filling, where many small dentistry enterprises
have been visited.
4.1.2 Evaluations of the Work Environment Inspectorate
Evaluations mainly focus on activities, not on effects of activities, see table 7 for
inspections and inspection notifications in relation to the size of the establishment.
Effects are difficult to measure and it is even more difficult to relate an effect, for
example a reduced number of accidents, to a specific activity performed by the
Work Environment Inspectorate.
The present strategies are perceived as good, even though development of them
is still needed. That applies especially to the small enterprise sector, which is
known to be difficult to work with and achieve good results.
An evaluation made in 1995 of the experiences of and attitudes towards the
work environment inspectors in enterprises of different sizes showed, for
example, that:
• 28 per cent of small (1-19 employees) had got suggestions for working envi-
ronment improvements from the Work Environment Inspectorate. 56 per cent
of larger enterprises had got such suggestions.
• 20 per cent had at any time got suggestions from the Work Environment
Inspectorate on how to work well with their working environment. The figure
for larger enterprises is in this case 46 per cent.
• 33 per cent of small enterprises have little or next to no knowledge about laws
and regulations compared to 17 per cent of the larger enterprises.
• 47 per cent of the smaller enterprises have never contacted the Work Environ-
ment Inspectorate compared to 18 % of the larger ones.
This indicates that small enterprises both ask for and get less support from the
Work Environment Inspectorate than larger enterprises.
                                    
*
 Statistics compiled by Lasse Holmlund, Swedish Work Environment Authority, Solna, Sweden.
Satistics is not published. Personal communication.
29
4.1.3 Enforcement actions from authorities
There is no study of enforcement actions in relation to size of enterprise apart
from the information on inspection notifications, which is accounted for in table 7
above. It seems inspection notifications are given less often in the smallest enter-
prises than in the largest ones. Calculating inspection notifications per employee
will give quite another picture where the smallest establishments are getting more
notifications per employee than the largest ones.
4.1.4 Systematic work environment management
Even though systematic work environment management, SWEM, (see section
2.2.2) is also compulsory for small enterprises including shareholder’s enterprises
without employees, about 70 per cent of all inspected small enterprises had no
SWEM. This is a question of great concern to the agency and various kinds of
activities have been initiated. For example a research programme is carried out by
the National Institute for Working Life in co-operation with the Swedish Environ-
mental Research Institute and the Swedish Work Environment Authority. Several
projects have been carried out by the Work Environment Inspectorate in a number
of regions.
4.2 Occupational Health Services
4.2.1 Affiliation to Occupational Health Services
Most employees in small firms do not have access to OHS. The lowest levels of
access to enterprise health care are found in the private sector, in commercial
activities, farming and forestry (Statskontoret 1997).
The current OHS coverage of the labour market is approximately 70 per cent,
but only about 10-20 per cent of the total number of enterprises.
Enterprise statistics gathered by Statistics Sweden (SCB) and the register set up
by the Work Environment Inspectorate of enterprises affiliated to occupational
health service units in the County of Örebro in 1990 were linked and matched. It
emerged that the level of affiliation among small enterprises (< 20 employees or
no employees) did not even reach 10 per cent. The corresponding figure for enter-
prises with 20 to 49 employees was 48 per cent (Bronberger-Dankvardt &
Karlsson 1994).
These results can be compared with those of a study conducted in the County of
Stockholm during the period 1993 to 1994, according to which 44 per cent of the
enterprises with fewer than 50 employees had concluded agreements with Occu-
pational Health Service units. Enterprises with no employees were not included
and this explains the difference to some degree (Nise et al. 1995).
If employees are asked if they have access to Occupational Health Services, the
percentage is higher (table 8). Employees in small companies probably believe
“every doctor they are advised to by their company” as OHS (Bostedt 1992).
30
Table 8. OHS-coverage related to company-size (1995) according to the employees
stating that they have access to OHS
Company size OHS coverage (%)
0-4 36
5-9 58
10-19 74
20-49 81
To sum up, it is clear that affiliation rates are very low, especially in micro-busi-
nesses (<10 employee). About a quarter of all employees within the private sector
work in enterprises of this kind. Millions of Swedish Kronor have been invested
in different projects to increase the number of small enterprises affiliated to the
Occupational Health Services. However, neither state subsidies nor any other kind
of incentive have had any effect. The number of small enterprises requesting
affiliation has still not changed.
4.2.2 The development of OHS
Occupational Health Services in Sweden have long traditions. Industrial physi-
cians worked in Swedish industry as long as a hundred years ago and in some
cases even longer back in history, to guarantee the general medical care of the
workers. In the 1940s, occupational health activities were gradually added to the
work of industrial physicians, whose duties comprised pre-employment examina-
tions, regular health examinations and the supervision of health conditions at
work. In the same way, safety engineers dealing with the prevention of accidents
and occupational diseases have a long history in Swedish working life. Physicians
and engineers started to co-operate increasingly. New staff categories, such as
nurses, ergonomists and behavioural scientists, joined the team. Voluntary OHS
based on an agreement between employers’ and workers’ organisations were set
up in almost every municipality and also in certain sectors, such as farming, the
building and construction industry, transportation and OHS for shop employees.
4.2.3 Financing of OHS
From 1986, grants were paid to the enterprises in relation to the number of people
covered by Occupational Health Services. A basic grant was paid for every em-
ployee – entrepreneurs and self-employed people included – covered by OHS and
working an average of at least 15 hours per week. A small business increment was
also paid for up to 50 people in each affiliated enterprise, regardless of the size of
the enterprise. In this way, small enterprises received more money per employee
than large ones.
In the early 1990s, when OHS experienced their “golden age”, the coverage
was assessed at 75-80 per cent of the work force. OHS were the most important
external resource at work when it came to the prevention of occupationally related
problems. They were mainly concerned with medical, technical and psycho-social
means of prevention and rehabilitation.
In 1992, state subsidies for Occupational Health Services were withdrawn. This
resulted in the reduction of the number of units and of professional staff (a 25-30
31
per cent staff reduction). The number of employees with access to OHS fell from
80 to around 70 per cent and the services are now totally dependent on the com-
mercial market. In most cases, OHS staffs have to charge for every service they
supply to an enterprise.
4.2.4 Extent of OHS
The Swedish Occupational Health Services currently consist of about 700 units,
which are run by around 350 chief executives and are organised in various legal
forms, in principle with at least one unit in every municipality. Still the most
common operational form is for a local group of customers to own a limited
enterprise via an association. This sector employs some 7 000 people, most of
whom have medical, technical or behavioural science skills and expertise.
By tradition, there have been three different types of OHS: (a) units integrated
within an enterprise, (b) joint Occupational Health Centres and (c) sectoral
services. The integrated units provide medical and technical services, mainly to
large enterprises. The Occupational Health Centres offer services to member
enterprises and firms of different sizes. The sectoral services usually cover agri-
culture, forestry and the construction industry, but they currently only exist on a
limited scale.
The orientation of these operations varies significantly. A number of OHS units
sell ”individual services”. They have differentiated fees for their various services
and employers can purchase them as the need arises (a fee per service arrange-
ment). The costs charged by the OHS can be deducted for tax purposes by the
employer.
Guidelines for the quality assurance of Occupational Health Services according
to ISO 9000 have been produced and implemented by some 20 OHS. Ethical
guidelines have also been drawn up for OHS, based on the Code of Ethics held by
the ICOH.
4.2.5 Service provided by OHS
The main skills and expertise of the OHS staff focus on the assessment of working
ability and descriptions of the relationship between working environment, organi-
sation, productivity and health.
The traditional role of the OHS is to provide assistance for both the manage-
ment and the employees so that the employees are not injured in the course of
their work. To perform this role, the service must both be and also be perceived to
be objective and impartial. However, Swedish market-adapted OHS do not always
function in this way. It is generally the employer who is the client and he assesses
the enterprise’s needs when it comes to OHS.
It is a well-known fact that small enterprises generally feel that they are most in
need of general health care services. “Immediate help when we become ill so that
we can return to production as quickly as possible” – a quote from a small enter-
prise owner. They say that emergency support from doctors, nurses and physio-
therapists is most important (Grindestam 1992). At the same time, surveys indi-
cate that enterprises do not have the necessary knowledge of what OHS can offer
in addition to health care (Bostedt 1992).
32
4.2.6 Evaluation of OHS
To obtain some idea of how well the pictures presented above match the current
situation, a questionnaire was sent to 64 OHS units in central Sweden in Novem-
ber 1997 (Bornberger-Dankvardt 1997). It was addressed to the managing direc-
tor. The questions related to the affiliation of small enterprises, and changes were
assessed by comparison with the situation five years earlier with regard to order-
ing of OHS-services. Half of the questionnaires were answered.
The results reveal that 62 per cent of the OHS customer enterprises are enter-
prises with fewer than 20 employees. Although they account for a large percen-
tage of the affiliated enterprises, they usually account for a small percentage of the
individuals who are registered. The exceptions are OHS which focus on typically
small-enterprise based sectors, such as trade and farming.
The number of OHS units which reported an increase in the number of affiliated
small enterprises was somewhat higher than the number reporting a decrease.
The services that small enterprises requested from OHS have been ranked as
follows, on the basis of the answers to the questionnaire (ibid.):
1. Health care.
2. Work-related health care.
3. Advice.
4. Rehabilitation/work adaptation.
5. Health promotion.
6. Systematic work environment management (Management system).
7. Miscellaneous.
This matches up very well with the results of previous studies, which reveal that
small enterprises are primarily interested in health care.
When asked ”Does the range of services offered by the OHS match up with
what small enterprises request?” 90 per cent of the OHS answered yes. Those that
answered no stated that enterprises wanted more health check-ups and faster
assistance (ibid.).
The following question was also asked, ”Do you think that small enterprises
purchase the correct services based on the needs you see that they have?” About
one in every four OHS (28 per cent) felt that enterprises purchased the right
services. Most of the OHS that answered YES had a strong medical profile.
So there is a ”gap” between what the OHS feel that small enterprises need and
the needs the small enterprises actually feel that they have. This can be a source of
frustration for staff at OHS. Previous studies have shown that the main reason
why small enterprises join OHS is that their employees want them to. The staff
feels that they need health check-ups and health care first and foremost.
When asked ”Which other services do you feel small enterprises have?” the
OHS answered: working environment development, Systematic work environ-
ment management, organisational and relationship issues, training, advice, health
promotion.
Some 82 per cent of the OHS also felt that there is enormous difficulty when it
comes to persuading small enterprises to buy more of the services the OHS feel
33
they need. They felt that poor economy, lack of time and lack of interest could be
contributory factors.
Previous studies have found that enterprises have very little knowledge of the
services that OHS can offer (Bostedt 1992).
The following question was also asked, ”Are small enterprises profitable as
customers?”. Only 17 per cent of the OHS units answered yes to this question.
The OHS feel that it is difficult to charge the full price and that a great deal of
work has to be done before contact is made and a response is forthcoming. The
break-even point for achieving profitability from these services to small enter-
prises appears to be an enterprise with around ten employees.
When asked ”How do you deal with the problem of profitability?” the OHS
answered: higher charges, training in larger groups, joint activities, networks,
simple basic service, but otherwise sub-orders. It is easier to ask for payment for
solving problems, according to one person.
It costs the OHS a great deal to persuade small enterprises to join, if it is not
possible to find ways of streamlining the services that are offered to small enter-
prises. At the same time, small enterprise owners are prepared to pay more if they
feel the charge is justified.
Finally, we asked, ”Do you think some form of support, financial or in terms of
expertise, is needed to enable OHS to approach working environment issues in
small enterprises on a more long-term basis?” – 84 per cent answered yes to this
question.
When asked, ”What do you think the problem is at present?” the OHS answe-
red: limited economic resources, anything that is not requested is put at the bottom
of the list, production is the be-all and end-all, there is no time for or interest in
dealing with working environment issues, lack of expertise, lack of information to
small enterprises about the advantages of OHS, some inertia within the OHS when
it comes to complying with the demands of small enterprise owners, enterprise/
trade-union organisations have still not understood the need for OHS, poor know-
ledge of the benefits of a good working environment, unfair competition.
The results of the questionnaire study reveal that OHS feel that the range of
services matches up very well with what small enterprises request. At the same
time, the OHS recognise other needs which enterprises have not identified, needs
that are difficult to communicate in such a way that small enterprises also recog-
nise them as needs. A balance must always be found so that enterprises do not
regard the OHS as problem-seekers and an extension of the authorities. At the
same time, it is difficult for the OHS to be regarded as development consultants.
There is a lack of clarity in their role, which is difficult to reconcile in its various
aspects, and difficult to communicate to people who are inexperienced when it
comes to ordering services.
4.2.7 Small enterprises’ opinions on OHS
Small enterprises usually have a very simple organisational structure with only
two levels, the owner/manager and the employees. This has both advantages and
disadvantages. However, the success of an enterprise depends very much on the
skills of a single person, the owner/manager. An enlightened small enterprise
34
owner prioritises the working environment, but he/she still needs to understand
the way this work should be carried out.
A questionnaire study aimed at all the enterprise owners in the Municipality of
Askersund (1994) revealed that more than half of these enterprise owners felt that
they were actively involved in various issues relating to the working environment.
About 18 per cent utilised the OHS and 11 per cent were members of the OHS in
the area (Högberg & Arvidsson 1994).
In a questionnaire study aimed at small manufacturing enterprises, 46 per cent
said that working environment issues are an active part of their daily work; 41 per
cent had utilised the OHS during the past three years (Bornberger-Dankvardt &
Fredriksson 1997). Health check-ups (94 per cent), rehabilitation issues (65 per
cent), technical/ergonomic analyses (65 per cent), health care/accidents (59 per
cent) were identified as the services that were most frequently used. Only five per
cent requested an extension of the range of OHS or some other changes to these
services.
In an in-depth interview with twelve small enterprise owners in Västmanland,
four of the enterprises stated that they were affiliated to the OHS. Another enter-
prise had terminated its membership ”because it cost more than it was worth”.
Only one of the member enterprises thought that it really benefited from OHS
with health check-ups, access to physiotherapists and doctors, support for training
activities and help when assessing the working environment. All the other enter-
prise owners were sceptical about OHS to varying degrees. The author points out
that there appears to be a confidence gap which is very largely historical and dates
back to the period in which small enterprises ”were forced to do things that were
not important for us”. The OHS is still very frequently stamped as ”the authori-
ties” and this arouses a strong sense of antipathy among certain enterprise owners
(Modig 1998).
To conclude, small businesses are very sensitive to sick leave and therefore put
rapid access to health care high on their list of priorities. The OHS staff thinks that
SSE should focus more heavily on preventive services. At the same time, these
enterprises are not aware of what the Occupational Health Service units can offer
in addition to medical care.
A holistic approach is preferable. The small enterprise owner does not feel that
he has working environment problems, he has problems to solve and the working
environment could be one aspect to take into account when solving these prob-
lems. The role of the OHS as a consultant on matters apart from health care is not
clear. Small enterprise owners often believe that the OHS do not have these over-
all skills and expertise.
In order to see things from the small enterprise owner’s perspective, the consul-
tant has to see the big picture, the total working and living situation. It is the indi-
vidual small enterprise owner’s unique situation, attitudes and way of regarding
the business of running a enterprise that should govern the services the OHS offer
(Hildeland 1992). It is a question of getting the customer to feel very strongly that
his/her actual situation is being taken into account.
The small enterprise owner must be met at his/her individual development
stage, figure 2. This figure shows a modified Maslows model, where enterprise
35
needs regarding health and safety may be very basic and result in the use only of
emergency measures. More developed enterprises use more developed OH Ser-
vices and the most developed enterprises can use OH Services as part of business
development. The model is general, though small enterprises are more likely to
use basic services and larger enterprises more developed services.
N E
E D
S
Emergency
measures
Hazard
identifica-
tion, risk
assessment
Risk
control
Staff and
work orga-
nisation
develop-
ment
Business
develop-
ment
Opportunities
Figure 2. A modified Maslow model showing the possible need for Occupational Health
Services among small enterprises.
4.2.8 The Örebro model – support to OHS from an SSE Unit
At the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in Örebro, there
is an SSE- unit specialising in occupational health and safety research and deve-
lopment in Small Scale Enterprises. Its main tasks are:
• Occupational health and safety research and development in SSEs.
• Information about the prevention of occupational illnesses and injuries in
SSEs.
• Education and training in SSEs.
The approach is multidisciplinary and pragmatic, with a “down-to-earth” orienta-
tion; Working environment surveys (including different measures), health check-
ups, information and training are some of the activities undertaken by the unit to
promote a good working environment and health for people at work. The relation-
ship between illnesses and different factors in the working environment is a matter
of great concern. Working environment problems are focused on in various inter-
vention projects, encouraging active participation from both employees and em-
ployers.
Health check-ups and working environment surveys are usually carried out
sector by sector. Knowledge relating to health hazards and working environment
conditions in different sectors is presented to the enterprises and to the Occupa-
tional Health Services units, the Work Environment Inspectorate, Regional Safety
Representatives and other people responsible for working environment issues.
More than 60 projects have been conducted since the unit was established in 1980.
36
Most of them have focused on occupational health and safety in enterprises with
fewer than ten employees.
One experience at the SSE-unit is that when meeting employers in small enter-
prises in their capacity as professional consultants on working environmental
issues, they must not limit themselves to discussing only matters relating to the
working environment. They must also be open to discussions on the whole range
of problems they experience. The staff at the Occupational Health Service Units
must be experienced in more areas than those covered by traditional education and
have access to effective networks offering the services of other consultants when-
ever necessary. The new global view of working environmental issues must also
take account of areas like the organisation of work, the development of professio-
nal skills, productivity and quality.
In various projects, the SSE unit in Örebro has tested different methods such as
publicity and articles published in several trade journals on the advantage of
Occupational Health Services. The effect of free affiliation to Occupational Health
Services units has been evaluated, alongside advisory services for small enter-
prises and massive information campaigns. However, the conclusion was drawn
that most efforts have been a waste of time and resources. The only viable method
is to visit the managers of small enterprises, thereby gradually creating a feeling
of confidence, and to sell only one service at a time. In general all those involved
in Occupational Health Services issues are guilty of one cardinal error and that is
to proudly present the entire range of services offered. Most of it is incomprehens-
ible to managers and simply viewing the menu puts them off.
To be successful in the capacity as a consultant for small enterprises, one has to
be able to create, as has already been mentioned above, a feeling of confidence.
This can only be achieved if one is aware of and understands what clients from
small enterprises expect. To establish a good relationship, one must speak the
same language.
In a project, two representatives from each Occupational Health Service Centre
in the County of Örebro attended a training course paid for by the project.
The aim was to train them to become experts on small enterprises. The training
included the following subjects:
• Networks established by small enterprises.
• Current working conditions within small enterprises.
• Occupational Health Service Units becoming service-minded.
• Working environment and economy.
• Marketing.
• Development of information material.
• Visits to workplaces and interviews with managers.
The outcome of the course was evaluated two years later, see figure 3. All the
participants confirmed that it had had a positive effect on their daily work; 79 per
cent stated that they felt more secure when contacting small enterprises. One-third
are more involved in this type of work than before they attended the course (Born-
berger-Dankvart & Karlsson 1994). The staff at the Occupational Health Service
37
Units experienced a special need to improve their arguments when holding discus-
sions with micro-businesses.
100806040200
5
4
3
2
1
67
79
33
100
57
YES-answer %
Constan t effects?
Benefit s o f t he  course?
More involvement in work
with small ent erprises?
Feeling more secure in con-
tact s wit h small ent erprises?
Int erest ed in learning
more?
Figure 3. Questionnaire conducted among 21 OHS-employees who have been trained as
experts on small enterprises. The figure compiles the results of 16 answers of the
questionnaire.
In a study conducted at the national level (Ds 1998:17), the OHS as a resource in
society has been analysed. It has been established that the OHS must focus on
working as a partner and a creator of ideas, a partner to whom small enterprises
can turn with confidence when they wish to develop their operations, with the
working environment and rehabilitation as a starting point. Moreover, the OHS
must make it easier for small enterprise owners to establish networks and be
prepared to modify their information and their way of working in order to adapt
more successfully to small enterprises.
4.3 The Swedish Worklife Fund, ALF
4.3.1 The Work Life Fund, 1990-1995
Arbetslivsfonden, ALF, (the Work Life Fund) existed between 1990 and 1995 and
initiated and financed programmes for improvements in the working environment
in many enterprises, not only small ones. (Not to be confused with the Swedish
Council for Work Life Research, which mainly finances research and develop-
ment.) Many small enterprises got financial support from ALF to improve their
organisation of work as well as the physical working environment (Alpenberg &
Karlsson 1995, Gustavsen et al. 1996).
More than 23 100 programmes in about as many enterprises were supported by
the Fund. The total cost for these programmes was 9 650 MSEK (more than one
billion ECU). The Fund also financed participation in short courses regarding
working environment through “education checks” for a total of 300 MSEK. 51 per
cent of the grants concerned the organisation of work. The physical working envi-
ronment got 23 per cent and rehabilitation 17 per cent of the grants (Alpenberg &
Karlsson 1995).
38
Private enterprises with 1-49 employees got 18 per cent of the grants but produ-
ced 58 per cent of the programmes that were funded (ibid.).
4.3.2 Evaluation of the Fund
A general evaluation of the Fund has been published, which focuses on the Fund
as an initiator of change in working life. This evaluation, however, does not con-
sider differences in enterprises, but rather discuss change processes in more
general terms. Even though many of the conclusions and discourses may be valid
also for small enterprises, they will not be discussed here (Gustavsen et al. 1996).
An evaluation with a focus on the effects on small enterprises arising from the
support given by the ALF to enterprises with less than 50 employees has been
made. Some of the conclusions from the evaluation are (Alpenberg & Karlsson
1995):
• The support has had a considerable push-effect especially on enterprise incli-
nation to act and change with a focus on projects related to the working
environment.
• Such projects have been more extensive and carried out earlier than planned.
• The support might have been a bit distorted and in favour of some enterprises
at the expense of others.
• In the projects, the “soft parts” regarding the organisation of work have grown
in importance compared to the original ideas in the enterprises, partly due to
the influence from the ALF.
• The most frequently occurring activities have been directed towards invest-
ments in order to solve concrete and experienced problems relating to strain
injuries and monotonous work.
• Changes relating to the organisation of work have been more frequent in the
ALF-projects than in other non-ALF-financed projects. The results have often
been a more open work climate at the workplace, increased motivation and
improved productivity / efficiency.
• The awareness of working environment and its importance has increased as a
result of the ALF-projects, not least regarding the relation between working
environment and economy.
• The purpose of the ALF-projects often had nuances. This reflects the holistic
view of business held by small enterprise managers and owners.
• Improving profit and efficiency were very important motives in the small
enterprises for conducting the projects, apart from the motives concerning the
working environment. This was interpreted as an aim to make enterprises’
activities more functional from a holistic perspective.
• It was difficult to quantify the economic effects of the ALF-projects and the
estimates made were often pure guesswork, based on models from ALF.
• The ALF-projects have reduced the illness-rate, but the greatest reduction of
this rate relates to other external and internal factors such as reduction in staff,
recession and changed legislation.
Even though the effects from this programme have been evaluated, the evaluation
has focussed on the target group, the enterprises. There is scarce information on
39
intermediaries, who they were, their work and role in the programme. To summa-
rise, intermediaries in this programme were many different kinds of actors. In
general, small enterprises got help from some kind of consultant who wrote the
application for funding for enterprise specific projects. In the process of develop-
ing the application, there seem to have been a lot of discussions with intermedia-
ries as well as with people from the Fund. These discussions often resulted in
adapting the original ideas to meet the intentions of the Fund. Thus changes in the
organisation of work as well as evaluation of economic effects were included in
many programmes.
The intermediaries were, to quite a large extent, occupational health service
personnel. Additionally many consultants served as intermediaries. The business
idea for many consultants was to help out with the application, often without costs
for the enterprises. When the decision to fund the project was taken, the consul-
tants continued to work as paid consultants within the project.
When calculating how much money was required for each project, the internal
costs in enterprises as well as the costs of consultants were included, often along
with costs for various kinds of investment. The Fund covered parts of but not the
entire budget for the projects. In this way, enterprises got the external costs
covered by the projects and paid for the internal costs themselves.
The way of calculating costs put emphasis on the enterprises’ own activities
within the project, as did the prioritisation of activities relating to the organisation
of work
4.4 Prevent
There is another main actor apart from those mentioned above, that is important to
small enterprises: Prevent, formerly the Joint Industrial Safety Council. Prevent is
owned by employer’s and employee’s organisations in the private sector. Prevent
publishes books, brochures and study materials. They also have several projects,
which often aim at improving the working environment in a target group of enter-
prises. One of the projects, Meeting Point Sormland, is further described below.
Prevent also arranges courses, seminars and other activities.
One of the major impacts that Prevent has on small enterprises is through the
working materials they publish, which in many cases are aimed especially at small
enterprises. These materials may be purchased directly by small enterprises or by
intermediaries who use the materials as a support in their contacts with small
enterprises. Examples of such materials are:
• About 25 checklists for different trades. The checklists are developed to help
small enterprises survey their own working environment and find control
measures that improve the working environment.
• Working materials on systematic work environment management, especially
developed to suit small enterprises.
• Information and working materials developed for specific trades with many
small enterprises, e.g. carpentry, hairdressers and the transport business.
40
Intermediaries such as occupational health services and work environment inspec-
tors use these materials. For some specific topics, the Swedish Work Environment
Authority recommend enterprises, even small ones, to use specific materials.
Prevent arranges lectures, breakfast meetings, seminars and courses. Of course
some small enterprises take part in these arrangements but as a whole, small enter-
prises seem to be under-represented if viewed in relation to the number of emplo-
yees in these enterprises.
41
5. Experiences from two successful health
and safety initiatives in small enterprises
5.1 An overview of different approaches
There are three major approaches that use intermediaries as an essential part of
their strategy to improve the working environment in small enterprises. These
three approaches are:
A. The development and use of professionals that focus on small enterprises in
their work, e.g. Regional Safety Representatives (even if they are representa-
tives of the trade unions, they also may have quite a good practical knowledge
on problems and solutions), occupational health services, work environment
inspectors. There have been several attempts to use other groups as a support
to small enterprises regarding the working environment, but none of these
other attempts seem to have been more than short term projects which have
not been particularly successful and which have not lead to any permanent
change. This indicates that there is a need either for more interest in and
expertise of working environment issues to be developed, if other people or
groups are to be more active within this field, or for some kind of incentive to
be offered for these other groups to include working environment within their
regular work.
B. Broad programmes that, over the course of a few years, support small enter-
prises in order to initiate working environment improvements. The Work Life
Fund, which does not exist any more, and the EU programme Growth Poten-
tial Objective 4 which will not continue after Dec. 31, 1999, are the main
examples of these kinds of broad programmes. These programmes are based
on activities in many small enterprises, which are supported by many different
actors, for example a number of consultants whose work in the enterprises, to
quite a large extent, is paid for by grants from the programmes. These grants
are given to the enterprise that hires the consultant. These programmes have
started changes in many small enterprises. One development project, Meeting
Point Sormland, shows similarities with this approach.
C. Limited projects that are directed towards small enterprises. Very often these
projects are not particularly concerned over the sustainability of the methods
used, and there are no plans on how to use the knowledge gained in the project
at a broader scale for example to reach small enterprises in the whole of
Sweden or within an entire trade.
A hybrid of approaches A and C above is the work carried out at the Department
of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Medical Centre Hospital in
Örebro. This is an organisation that, in part, acts as an occupational health service
with a focus on small enterprises in the region. At the same time, they are working
with projects directed towards different trades. As the Department has a long-
lasting commitment to work with small enterprises in the region, the relation to
the trades they are concerned with is more sustainable than is usual for approaches
42
according to C above. Additionally they give advice to small enterprises based on
their demands.
One of the projects, included in section C above, that more explicitly used inter-
mediaries in their approach is the Sormland project, which aimed at reaching
small enterprises through their normal contacts with Regional Safety Representa-
tives and safety engineers at the occupational health services. These groups were
given new tools and instructions, which aimed at supporting the enterprises in
improving their own working environment by using checklists that were develo-
ped to suit the enterprises (not the intermediaries). The most important part of this
project was that the intermediaries were expected to support the enterprises in
their improvement of the working environment, not to assist in the improvement
as such. That kind of assistance was in a way the next step. For those enterprises
that could not solve specific problems themselves, the intermediaries could assist
regarding the specific problem, when they were asked to do so.
5.2 Successful and sustainable
Among the different approaches described above, there are projects that are more
or less successful and more or less sustainable.
Here the following definitions of success and sustainability are used.
Successful: A method which leads to marked improvements of the working
environment in at least one third of the target groups and to some
improvements in another third. As small enterprises are a very diffi-
cult group to work with, it is not realistic to require much higher rates
of success. These figures were obtained in the Sormland project, in a
group of 24 small enterprises and may serve as a reference (Antonsson
et al. 1989).
Sustainable: A method which is based on available resources and infrastructure
and which can be widely used to improve working environment in
small enterprises, without any changes that require a lot of resources.
In table 13 an overview of the different projects and approaches in relation to the
criteria successful and sustainable is given.
43
Table 13. Classification of different methods according to the three approaches above
and in relation to the criteria successful and sustainable.
Approach
Agent/method/
programme/project Successful Sustainable Comments
A Regional Safety
Representatives
Yes1 Yes
Occupational health
service
Yes 1 Yes Many small enterprises are not attached
The Work Environ-
ment Inspectorate
Yes 1 Yes Many small enterprises are not visited
B Work Life Fund Yes No Not in existence anymore
Growth Potential
Objective 4
Yes Maybe Not in existence anymore, may con-
tinue with a somewhat different focus
C The Sormland project Yes Maybe Parts of experience used within other
contexts
1) As there is a lack of evaluation of the results of several of the approaches, the judgement of how
successful the projects are is purely subjective and made by the author.
I have chosen two of the approaches above for further discussion. The approaches
are:
• The Regional Safety Representatives.
• Growth potential objective 4.
These approaches and activities are based on approach A and B above. Safety
representatives have been chosen as they reach more small enterprises than both
the Work Environment Inspectorate and the occupational health service.
I have chosen Growth Potential Objective 4, as this kind of programme will
probably recur as part of the support to the development of small enterprises from
the European Union. Additionally, this programme has its main focus on compe-
tence and thus may have a major impact on the psychosocial aspects of the
working environment.
5.3 Regional Safety Representatives, RSR
5.3.1 Background to RSRs
In Sweden, Regional Safety Representatives, RSRs, have visited small enterprises
to check their working environment since 1949. In 1949 RSRs were appointed for
the building and forestry industries where it was difficult to appoint local safety
representatives. From 1974 the RSR system was extended to the whole of working
life and for those enterprises whose workforces included at least one member of a
trade union. The target group for RSRs is small private enterprises with less than
50 employees that are not part of a larger group. The existence of in-house safety
representatives does not in any way limit the work of the RSRs.
The RSRs usually work at a large enterprise and work as an RSR usually on a
part time basis, although there are some full-time RSRs. Usually they act as safety
representatives at their regular job. All RSRs are attached to the unions, for blue
collar, white collar and academically qualified workers, and are paid for by the
unions. Even though the RSRs work for the unions, they have, to a large extent,
44
been financed by the enterprises. Until midway through 1995 the trade unions
were reimbursed their RSR costs through the Working Environment Fund. The
Fund originally got its money from a tax on the total wage sum. Parts of this tax
covered RSR activities. The Fund was then reorganised and the contribution from
enterprises was redirected through the Treasury. Today the trade unions are reim-
bursed from the state budget, presently under the administration of the National
Institute of Working Life.
Although the amount of the refund/subsidy increased until 1993 (with a decline
thereafter), the trade unions have, since 1983, reported RSR costs exceeding the
subsidy they received because the system expanded during the 1980s when RSRs
were appointed to cover most of even the very smallest workplaces. The unions
have increasingly met these extra costs themselves. In 1997 the total subsidy was
72.5 million SEK, but the LO unions contributed an additional 33 million SEK
(33 per cent of their total RSR costs) and the TCO unions, an additional 8.2
million SEK (70 per cent of their costs). Previous studies have already highlighted
the limited resources available for RSR activities, suggesting that this affects the
ability of the RSRs to perform their functions fully (Frick & Walters 1998).
According to an investigation from 1995 (Frick 1996) the characteristics of
RSRs are as follows:
• 74 per cent of RSRs in LO and 87 per cent of RSRs in TCO are between 41
and 60 years.
• 89 per cent of RSRs in LO and 89 per cent in TCO are male.
• RSRs have usually got several years of experience. 40 per cent of RSRs in LO
and 19 per cent in TCO had been RSRs for at least nine years. 16 and 34 per
cent respectively had been RSRs for 1-2 years.
• Almost all RSRs have taken the basic course Safety, Health and Working
Conditions together with several other courses. On average RSRs in LO had
taken 4.6 courses and in TCO on average 3.9, about various aspects of the
working environment.
Trade unions organise RSRs depending on conditions within the sectors in which
they are active. This has resulted in three main types of RSRs (Frick & Walters
1998):
• senior health and safety representatives in large enterprises who extend their
representative activities to cover employees in small enterprises in their
locality;
• union officers who are also RSRs as part of their trade union function (mainly
in construction unions); and
• full-time RSRs (this is the norm in the transport and farm workers unions).
5.3.2 The aim of RSR activities
As defined by legislation, their tasks are threefold (ibid.):
• to act as itinerant safety representatives who inspect and investigate occupa-
tional health and safety conditions in small enterprises and request such
changes as they consider necessary to achieve improvements in the working
environment;
45
• to promote employee participation in occupational health and safety work,
including the recruitment, training and support of in-house health and safety
representatives; and
• to activate local health and safety work, within the overall framework of
‘systematic work environment management’, in small enterprises.
5.3.3 The extent of RSR activities
In 1995 the number of safety representatives was about:
• 1 400 from the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, LO,
• 100 from the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees, TCO,
• 20 from one organisation within the Swedish Confederation of Professional
Associations, organising academics within the church,
making a total of about 1 500 RSRs. They made about 65 000 visits at small
establishments, which corresponds to about one visit every 2 or 3 years.
About 90 per cent of the RSRs work part time as RSRs. Their work corresponds
to about 300 fulltime-RSRs. There is an RSR for almost every small enterprise
that has at least one employee that is a member of a union. About 25 000 small
enterprises have not got RSRs, mainly because their employees are not organised
in trade unions.
The target group of RSRs consist of approximately 166 000 enterprises spread
over about 175 000 establishments. In 1995 they had almost 700 000 employees,
an average of four employees per establishment. About 90 per cent of the enter-
prises visited by Regional Safety Representatives have nine employees or less
(Frick 1996).
From table 1, we can see that there are about 184 000 enterprises (1998) with
one to 49 employees. This means that Regional Safety Representatives cover
about 90 per cent of small enterprises with employees.
In order to put these costs into perspective, it is interesting to compare them
with those of the senior safety representatives. There are indeed parallels between
the work of such representatives in the various units or departments of large enter-
prises and that of the RSRs. For example, in both cases, their function is to
support small units with expertise and to promote local-level initiatives. Covering
from between 500-700 workers in manufacturing to 1 000-1 500 workers in the
health and service sectors, senior representatives may operate on a full-time basis
at the expense of the employer. Regional Safety Representatives cover far greater
numbers of employees, with an average ratio of around 1:2 500. In absolute terms,
the cost of OHS supervision and support per employee is thus considerably less
when these tasks are performed by a RSR covering small enterprises than it is
when performed by a senior safety representative in a large workplace (Frick &
Walters 1998).
Several studies indicate that RSRs tend to concentrate on the first task, to
inspect and investigate occupational health and safety conditions and request
changes (ibid., Frick 1979). In 1980 the RSRs spent 50 per cent of their time
inspecting and investigating workplaces, and a further ten per cent on revisits to
verify that promised remedial action had been taken (Leymann et al. 1982). It is
46
concluded that the acute health and safety problems the RSRs encountered during
their visits left them little time to carry out their other tasks, to activate local
health and safety work. It is also clear from these earlier studies that the RSRs
found the task of inspecting/-investigating workplaces the most straightforward of
their functions. These findings were confirmed by a recent survey, which further
shows RSR campaigns on specific issues to be essentially inspection related
(Frick & Walters 1998).
The recent survey indicates that the RSRs are aware of their three functions, see
section 5.3.2 and perform them to varying degrees. In practice, the definition of
their tasks as specified in the relevant legislation means that these are often per-
formed simultaneously, through a combination of activities. When asked how they
perceived their role, over 70 per cent of LO representatives saw themselves as
problem solvers and educators. 55 per cent saw themselves as monitors and
inspectors of the working environment, and only 36 per cent as being there to
make sure that workers followed health and safety rules (ibid.). RSRs reported
that they perceived activating health and safety work as their most important task.
When RSRs from LO were asked what ‘activating’ involved, 80 per cent of them
said it consisted in registering and solving problems and 78 per cent suggested it
involved educating in-house safety representatives and managers. These and other
similar answers indicate a strong emphasis on advice and expertise as a co-opera-
tion-oriented means of influencing employers. Though this influence is mainly
intended to solve concrete problems, its contribution to local knowledge and
awareness can also help to raise interest in improving the working environment of
small enterprises more generally and to bolster the in-house competence needed
for doing so (ibid.).
5.3.4 Evaluation of RSR activities
Frick and Walters (1989) state that the RSR scheme constitutes a major form of
occupational health and safety support for small enterprises. In fact, there is no
comparable scheme operating on this scale. RSRs may visit small enterprises at
least once every two years. This compares very favourably with an average of one
visit every 8-10 years by a work environment inspector and a 20-40 per cent
affiliation rate of these enterprises to Occupational Health Services (which in
small enterprises often only offer health checks and no preventive activities). As
for in-house safety representatives, they are appointed at only one-fifth of the
workplaces covered by RSRs (ibid.).
On average, current resources allow RSRs to visit each of the small enterprises
in their constituencies once every 2.5 years. But the trade unions estimate that in
order to perform their functions effectively the RSRs need one to one-and-a-half
days per workplace per year (Frick 1979). To achieve this ratio in all eligible
workplaces would entail a threefold increase in the cost of the scheme, bringing it
level with the costs incurred for senior safety representatives in large workplaces
(Frick & Walters 1998).
A recent survey shows that the RSRs generally considered they enjoyed a
reasonable level of co-operation with employers in small enterprises despite
occasional confusion over the nature of their functions. The latter is probably due
47
to the different tasks they have been assigned in separate pieces of legislation
since the 1970s, see section 5.3.2.
Variations in the organisation of RSR work as is the case between the LO-
affiliated unions highlighted an awareness of the importance of the ‘activating’
role. For example, in private sector service unions, whose membership is concen-
trated in very small workplaces, the RSRs made special efforts to get in-house
representatives nominated in all enterprises employing more than five workers.
Once elected, such representatives handle most health and safety issues them-
selves, with limited support from the RSRs, leaving the latter with more time for
the smallest enterprises that have no in-house representatives. It is important how-
ever to note that RSRs are not substitutes for in-house representatives. Rather they
complement and support them and their workplaces.
Although a complete evaluation of the results of the RSR scheme in terms of
reduced injuries and diseases was not possible in the recent survey (ibid.), the
investigation identified some kinds of injuries which may have been prevented
through the actions of RSRs. For example (the following, along with some other
sections of paragraphs 5.3 are directly cited from (ibid.)),
• “RSRs in the transport industry checked 2 250 containers. More than half of
them were defective and violated safety regulations; 320 were stopped as
acutely dangerous.
• In the baking industry, after many serious hand injuries from machinery acci-
dents, the RSRs, in co-operation with the Work Environment Inspectorate,
launched a campaign against improperly guarded baking machinery. From
1989-92 to 1993-96 reported sick leave due to machine-related injuries among
bakery workers dropped from 2 500-3 000 to 1 500-2 000 days per year. The
RSRs are estimated to have played a major role in achieving this reduction,
but it is not possible to ascertain each actor’s exact contribution.
• In the construction industry, RSRs regularly advise on proper scaffolding and
on the handling of dangerous chemicals. When nothing else helps, they inter-
vene to stop jobs that they regard as an immediate danger.
• In the retail sector where workers are exposed inter alia to severe cases of
repetitive strain injury many shop-owners responded positively to RSR
interventions, saying it was good that somebody who knew the rules could
advise them on what to do (e.g. on cashier ergonomics or robbery protection).
The RSRs often work on conflict resolution. This is especially true of those from
the white-collar unions of TCO, whose members and other salaried personnel
typically have a sensitive in between position in small enterprises. As work-
related suicides are estimated to be more common than fatal injuries, this is
considered to be important preventive work.
The survey also showed that the RSRs enjoyed good relations with the Work
Environment Inspectorate. Other reasons for regarding the scheme as successful
include the following:
• RSRs engage in a dialogue with nearly all the owner-managers of the small
enterprises they visit. Few of their visits to 65 000 workplaces per year result
in major disagreements with the owner-managers;
48
• RSRs are able to show some 'muscle' in their actions in relation to the minority
of recalcitrant employers encountered. Occasionally they stop jobs (15 per
cent of the LO RSRs had done this during the previous year) or call in the
Work Environment Inspectorate, which usually supports the RSR;
• A number of examples (including those given above) and estimates by em-
ployers’ representatives and other informed sources indicate that the RSRs’
activities make a major contribution to improving the work environment and,
consequently, to reducing the incidence of occupational injuries and diseases;
• The cost of the RSRs’ preventive work is comparatively low and around a
third of it is borne by the unions;
• RSRs also are cost-effective in the sense that they regularly advise employers
on how to reduce hazards at low cost. With their experience and broad view of
their industry, they can often suggest ways of resolving problems through the
use of internal resources only” (ibid.).
The limitation of the RSR scheme is obviously that it does not solve all problems.
Many risks remain. Additionally RSRs are sometimes criticised by the Swedish
Employers Federation (SAF) for misinterpreting regulations, posing unreasonable
demands on enterprises, acting as inspectors rather than labour union representa-
tive, not respecting enterprises and bursting in without any previous notification.
All in all, this critique is not very frequent when put in relation to the extent of
RSR activities. SAF has also criticised RSRs for not doing their job when mainly
focussing on problem solving instead of supporting the local health and safety
work, a criticism which seems to be supported by findings in several studies
(ibid., Leymann et al. 1982).
5.3.5 Discussion
Frick and Walters (1998) have discussed the role of RSRs and to what extent it is
possible to support and improve local work regarding the working environment.
”Besides, while it may be desirable to shift the responsibility for inspection and
related matters to internal health and safety systems, there are several reasons
why this is difficult to do in practice. First, management systems in small work-
places are underdeveloped, especially as regards quality assurance of the
working environment. Second, both employers and employees in small enter-
prises have limited experience of the technical, legal and managerial aspects of
health and safety, negligible health and safety training and scant knowledge of
the relevant statutory health and safety requirements. And third, it is hard to im-
prove such poor resources for prevention within small enterprises when around
90 per cent of SMEs have fewer than ten employees, and only some 20 per cent
of them have in-house safety representatives.
Although the RSRs are there to help to alleviate these problems and to build
up a more participatory and informed approach, workplace realities cause them
to focus on individual hazards which in-house health and safety management
has failed to detect and remove. Even where they succeed in developing some
employee participation, their mandate requires that they remain in contact with
the workplaces and provide advice and training to the workers involved in the
49
participatory process. When this approach is actively followed, however, the
RSRs face a further criticism from employers, that of abusing their health and
safety position by using it to extend general trade union organisation within the
small enterprise.
Though the RSRs may work at the task of activating health and safety
work, they are trade union representatives. As such they cannot be responsible
for how employers fulfil their statutory obligations for health and safety
management.”
Additionally results from an ongoing project* indicate that RSRs are mainly
trained to focus on physical problems in the working environment whereas the
implementation of some kind of management system for health and safety require
competence regarding how to support change processes in enterprises. Workers
participation is important in such change processes, but it is also important to
motivate the manager to put in the work and resources required for the change
process. This is a much more complicated task for RSRs than discussing limited
problems in the working environment and solutions to those problems.
Frick and Walters (1998) also conclude that the results from the recent study on
RSRs indicate that
”improvements are needed in the extent and quality of the training and support
that RSRs receive. The study also revealed that the role of RSRs has been
largely overlooked in previous discussions. RSRs concentration on supervising/
inspecting the working environment and the difficulties they experience in
extending their role to include the activation of the joint organisation of health
and safety within small workplaces, and the criticism that they are too formal
and prescriptive in their approach to inspection and excessive in their demands
for remedial action, all of these may be explained by the particular position of
the RSRs as outsiders in relation to the social dialogue that exists within small
workplaces. RSRs spend a limited amount of time in individual small enter-
prises and are not part of their industrial relations structures or processes.
RSRs need both time and skill to gain sufficient trust from employees and
employers before they can be expected to make significant progress in activa-
ting health and safety organisation. The kind of skill this requires is unlikely to
be the same as that needed by insiders within the industrial relations systems of
larger enterprises, which is where the current emphasis of training provision
lies. While training clearly has a role to play in improving the effectiveness of
the RSRs, it is important that those who provide it should recognise their unique
position as outsiders and take particular account of this in the design of
training.”
This conclusion is supported by the experiences from the ongoing project (see
previous footnote). The competence to support change processes in small enter-
prises is especially difficult for RSRs as they only visit the enterprises occasio-
nally, e.g. once a year. Thus they can often only wish that their impact will
motivate the small enterprise owner to act and improve the working environment
                                    
*
 Ongoing project Träffpunkt Sörmland (Meeting Point Sormland). Prevent. Ann-Beth Antonsson
is member of the working group which steers the project.
50
on his or her own, and not only wait until the next visit. RSRs do not have appro-
priate or enough training to deal with this difficult task. According to the experi-
ences from the ongoing project, there is today no other group of professionals,
which obviously can manage that difficult task.
Frick and Walters (ibid.) continue to conclude that
”The Swedish scheme is indeed unique in Europe on account of its magnitude,
its statutory basis and its success. The latter, in turn, can partly be attributed to a
unique institutional environment that includes a favourable industrial relations
setting, exceptionally high trade union density (including amongst small enter-
prises), a tradition of social dialogue and acceptance of union representation in
general, and a high level of awareness and wide acceptance of occupational
health and safety as an important and legitimate goal. These factors have contri-
buted to making public funding available for Sweden’s RSR scheme. But they
are largely absent from the majority of other European countries. Similarly, in
Australia and in Canada, where safety representatives operate in several states/
provinces, they seldom cover small enterprises as these have such a low rate of
unionisation.”
Obviously, Swedish RSRs have the possibility to reach almost all small enter-
prises and do in fact visit the majority of them. RSRs have a far better coverage
than both the supervising authority, the Work Environment Inspectorate, and the
Occupational Health Services. RSRs have substantially contributed to the im-
provement of Swedish working environments during the last decades of the
twentieth century.
5.4 Growth Potential Objective 4, GPO4
5.4.1 Background to GPO4
The EU initiative Growth potential Objective 4 is a programme within the Euro-
pean Social Fund to support the development of employees’ competence, con-
jointly with changes to the organisation of work and industrial development. Thus
it supports change processes within enterprises. One main aim in this programme
is to strengthen the employee’s position on the labour market and thus their em-
ployability. The target group for this programme is small enterprises with up to 50
employees, but also medium-sized enterprises (up to 250 employees) may apply
for funding. In Sweden parts of the public sector such as departments within
health care and social care may also apply for funding from GPO4. This pro-
gramme focuses strongly on both changes in the organisation of work and the
development of employees’ competence, which means that it in fact deals with the
psycho-social aspects of the working environment.
GPO4 is a four-year project which started on July 12 1996. GPO4 is financed
with 25 per cent from the European Social Fund, 25 per cent from Swedish public
finances and 50 per cent from participating enterprises. The total budget for GPO4
in Sweden is 5.1 billion SEK (more than 600 million ECU) during the years 1996-
1999. The grants are paid to the enterprises when the projects have been com-
pleted.
51
5.4.2 What are they doing in GPO4 projects?
The projects in participating enterprises are divided into two steps (Kvarnström &
Lindén 1999, Klasson et al. 1999, IM-gruppens rapport 1999).
Step 1 aims at analysing the activities of the enterprises and the need to improve
employee’s competence. This analysis is made in co-operation between manage-
ment and employees. Some requirements that have to be fulfilled are;
• All employees have to take part.
• Women’s situation at the workplace has to be considered.
• The aim of the analysis is a dynamic change of the organisation of work.
• The resulting plan should describe employee’s competence and knowledge
and on the basis of that description a plan for future development should be
made. Management and employees describe how they together can work to
reach this development.
As a support for the analysis in step 1, many intermediaries/enterprises have used
specific tools for the analysis of enterprise prerequisites and needs. These tools
seem to focus on the change process, putting a lot of emphasis on participation,
thus guiding enterprises through the process of analysing their present situation
and needs for the future.
Step 2 is about making the plans come through. As the plans are made individu-
ally for each enterprise and its employees, the activities in step 2 may vary a lot.
Sometimes focus is on radical changes in the entire enterprise, sometimes restric-
ted to one part of the enterprise or the development of competence in a few em-
ployees. How rapidly the changes are implemented is decided between the enter-
prise and the funding Swedish body.
To facilitate the handling of applications for funding, each county has a regional
body dealing with the applications for that county. Additionally in each county
there is a steering group with employers’ and employees’ representatives (SAF,
LO, TCO, SACO) and The Federation of Private Enterprises together with repre-
sentatives for public actors. These regional groups seem to have been of great
importance to the success of GPO4, as they collectively represent a broad body of
knowledge about many of the enterprises active in the county.
5.4.3 The extent of GPO4 activities
By March 1998 GPO4 had funded projects within 14 632 establishments. Almost
2/3 are active in the service sector. About 18 per cent of the establishments are in
the retail sector. Only the manufacturing industry has got more establishments
involved in GPO4 projects than the retail sector.
An evaluation of enterprises with accepted programmes within GPO4, shows
some interesting characteristics compared to enterprises without such programmes
(Kvarnström & Lindén 1999):
• The share of enterprises within the service sector with programmes is about
the same as this sector’s share of all enterprises in Sweden.
• The share of enterprises within the retail sector (which is part of the service
sector) with programmes is lower than this sector’s share of all enterprises.
52
• The share of enterprises within the manufacturing industry with programmes
is higher than this sector’s share of all enterprises.
• Even though more than 30 per cent of enterprises with programmes are situa-
ted in regions around the large cities, these regions are under-represented in
relation to their share of all enterprises.
• The proportion of women within enterprises amongst the two groups was
about the same. In micro-enterprises with GPO4 projects women seemed to be
over-represented.
• The enterprises with GPO4 projects seem to have about the same distribution
of size (number of employees) as enterprises without such projects.
• In enterprises with GPO4 projects employees seem to be of about the same
age or somewhat younger than in average enterprises.
• Enterprises with GPO4 projects have significantly fewer employees with
academic education, which indicates that the programme has to some extent
succeeded in reaching those people with the highest needs for competence
development.
• Small enterprises that are parts of a group are over-represented which seems to
indicate that such enterprises influence each other to start GPO4 projects.
• 96 per cent of enterprises within GPO4 had not received any other kind of
financial support during the last five years. 37 per cent of the enterprises had
hired a consultant during the last five years (Klasson et el. 1999). 14 per cent
said they had got financial support from the Work Life Fund. Thus GPO4
seems to have reached enterprises without previous experience of external
support.
• Another evaluation (IM-gruppens rapport 1999) concludes that even if small
enterprises in the GPO4 programme had limited experience of external
support, the majority of them had experiences from competence development.
For small enterprises without such experiences, GPO4 support was essential to
get started.
To summarize, GPO4 has been extraordinarily successful in reaching their target
group and especially the enterprises that are usually considered as hard to reach as
the micro-companies, the retail sector, enterprises with few employees with aca-
demic education and enterprises outside the large cities.
As the programme has recently been terminated, there are few overall evalua-
tions of the programme. Some evaluations have been made during the programme
and the results of these evaluations have been used in this description of GPO4
(Hultman & Klasson 1999, Kvarnström & Lindén 1999, Axring & Nilsson 1999,
Klasson et al. 1999, IM-gruppens rapport 1999).
One evaluation based on telephone interviews in 584 enterprises focussed on
the development of expert competence. 87.3 per cent of the enterprises claimed
they needed to develop their expert competence in one or several areas (Klasson et
al. 19998). In general, the perceived needs concerned:
• Leadership/management (which has implications for the working environ-
ment);
53
• Marketing;
• CAD / CAM, especially in enterprises working with technical construction in
some way.
In the report from this study (Axring & Nilsson 1999) some personal remarks are
given:
• Even though the enterprises claim they have not got much time during follow-
up interviews, they have often ended up holding long discussions on topics
relating to GPO4 and their project. This was interpreted as a reflection of the
managers’ needs to discuss these topics and the lack of people and circum-
stances available for actually doing so.
• Spontaneous comments were frequent stating that the work relating to GPO4
has been very positive and rewarding. The enterprises have got tools and a
structure for dealing with these topics, which they did not have earlier.
• Many enterprises have commented on the time limit (six months for step 1)
and the requirement for an action plan as something positive. This provided
the pressure they needed to start working.
• Some enterprises have said that without GPO4 they would have probably done
nothing and that they needed GPO4 to improve their enterprise.
• In some enterprises the methods used in GPO4 projects seem to be appreciated
to such an extent that enterprises will probably keep using the methods. Some
enterprises have, for example, stated that they will keep on doing the analysis
according to step 1 regularly in the future.
• All enterprises are not entirely positive towards GPO4. Criticism from enter-
prises concern, for example, what is apprehended as excessive requirements
on economic accounting.
To summarise, the enterprises opinion on GPO4 seems to be very positive regar-
ding the outcome in the enterprises. The limited criticism is mainly about topics
small enterprises usually complain about – too much bureaucracy.
5.4.4 Evaluation of GPO4 activities
An evaluation of GPO4 presented in September 1999 (three months before the
programme ceased), came to the following conclusions about the programme (IM-
gruppens rapport 1999):
• GPO4 will not reach the planned volume. This is mainly due to prioritising
quality before quantity and is thus perceived as an acceptable outcome.
• The funding to enterprises has, to a great extent, been well used: 97 per cent of
granted projects are fulfilled, which is a very high number. 87 per cent of initi-
ated programmes (step 1) continue with step 2. More micro-enterprises than
larger enterprises drop out and do not continue with step 2. It is impossible, at
the moment, to evaluate how many of the step 2 projects are fulfilled.
• Small enterprises have been included fairly well within the programme.
Micro-enterprises are under-represented.
• The degree of participation relates positively to the outcome of the projects.
54
• The tools mentioned in section 5.4.2 have been supportive, especially for
small enterprises not used to working with change processes. The tools have
been a valued support and have structured the process of change.
In table 14 enterprises with GPO4 projects are compiled according to size and
sector.
Table 14. Enterprises with GPO4 projects until March 1998 (Axring & Nilsson 1999).
Numbers compared with all enterprises in Sweden broken down by size, see table 6.
Sector Number of employees
0-4 5-19 20-49 >50
Share of all
enterprises
Manufacturing sector 2.6 10.6 7.6 4.7 25.5
Service sector 18.7 34.7 13.1 6.2 72.7
Other 0.7 1.0 0.3 0.1 2.1
All in GPO4 22.0 46.3 21.0 11.0 100
Fraction of all enterprises 92.4 5.9 1.1 0.7
-”-, excluding self-employed 69.2 23.3 4.5 2.9
The most important goals in the local projects are described below (Hultman &
Klasson 1999):
• Improve employees’ technical competence and skills (50 per cent).
• Strengthen the enterprises position on the market (45 per cent).
• Improve efficiency in enterprise activities (42 per cent).
• Improve quality in production (36 per cent).
• Improve the capability within the organisation for dealing with change (26 per
cent).
• Improve the competence amongst employees with the shortest education (21
per cent).
• Improve participation in the process of change (20 per cent).
• Improve the social climate at work and within the work place (18 per cent).
• Decentralise and delegate responsibilities (16 per cent).
• Develop relations with customers (13 per cent).
• Better planning of work force and production (11 per cent).
• Improve employees’ social skills (7 per cent).
• Improve employees’ employability (5 per cent).
• Develop the decision making process within the enterprise (2 per cent).
One evaluation shows that on average it took up to five days to write the applica-
tion in step 1. This went quite smoothly (Klasson et al. 1999). The analysis took,
on average, 15 days (50 per cent say more than eleven days). About five days
were spent on accounting for step 1. There are, however, considerable differences
between counties, which may reflect differences in the demands made and the
methods used.
In step 1 participation from employees seems very good. 85 per cent of enter-
prises (from a question to managers) say that employees took part either often or
very often in the activities of step 1. 72 per cent took an active part in the develop-
55
ment of the action plan, even though the writing was mainly carried out by the
managers (ibid.) (or perhaps by consultants).
The enterprises say they had enough resources both for the analysis and for
producing the action plan, even if 66 per cent say it was difficult to find the time
alongside ordinary work. 67 per cent say they did not co-operate with a consultant
or only had some minor co-operation for step 1. 38 per cent say they had co-
operated to a large extent with the local EU-office and 35 per cent say they had
not co-operated with anybody (ibid.).
An evaluation of enterprises with support from the EU-programme Growth
potential Objective 4, shows that only 12 per cent of 945 enterprises from three
counties had co-operated to a large or very large extent with other enterprises
during the first phase of their work with this programme. 19 per cent had co-
operated with other enterprises in their trade. In this specific case the idea to get
into this programme originated in 31 per cent of cases from personal business
contacts (Hultman & Klasson 1999). The initiative to start working with the pro-
gramme came in 39 per cent from consultants, 9 per cent from accountant, and 37
per cent from representatives from the Swedish EU programme office. These
figures show that personal contacts are of great importance when starting activi-
ties in small enterprises but also that the contacts may be other than those based
purely on business relations.
Even if all the goals have not been fulfilled, GPO4 this far seems to be a
successful programme. The target group for the programme is recognised as a
difficult target group to work with. Nevertheless the support from GPO4 has
initiated active work in many small enterprises. Additionally, most of the small
enterprises have managed to work with the change process themselves, with
limited support from experts and others.
5.4.5 Discussion
The GPO4 programme is of great interest from several different perspectives:
• The GPO4 programme seems to have started projects especially in enterprises
with 5-19 employees and also in many micro-enterprises. This is remarkable!
Such figures have to the best of my knowledge never been presented before in
any project of this size relating to working environment in small enterprises.
Even though the GPO4 programme has started activities in micro and small
enterprises, large enterprises are over-represented in relation to their share of
enterprises. As the GPO4 programme especially aimed at small enterprises
this is noticeable. It also reflects the normal situation where larger enterprises
seem to more effectively make use of different kinds of resources.
• The GPO4 programme deals with factors affecting the working environment
but deals with them from a business point of view. This means that if the inter-
mediaries supporting enterprises include working environment aspects as
being important in their work, enterprises could be able to deal with working
environment aspects from a holistic perspective. The holistic approach is often
argued to be the best approach when working with small enterprises.
• The intermediaries working with small enterprises are very heterogeneous and
are thus not easily described. The representatives of the regional EU program-
56
me office seem to have been of great importance. Other types of intermedia-
ries are mainly chosen by the enterprises, even if the intermediaries probably
often approach enterprises with some suggestions of their own. As intermedia-
ries can act as a key to financing a project within enterprises, they have some-
thing to offer enterprises. At the same time it is obvious to the enterprises that
they will not only get money, they have to put money/time into the project
from their own budget. Thus they should be less prone to just see the GPO4
programme as just a source of some extra funding.
• Even if intermediaries have supported the majority of enterprises, varying
from some support to a lot of support, many small enterprises seem to have
managed on their own. An interpretation of this could be that as the projects
are perceived as important to the enterprises, this motivation in combination
with the tools developed to support small enterprises is enough for some of
them to get started (step 1). Consultants have then been used in step 2 for
education and other expert oriented tasks. This reflects the multiple demands
placed on intermediaries working with small enterprises. Sometimes they are
required to give a lot of support during the initial process including motiva-
tion, sometimes to give limited support and sometimes providing expert
support during a second phase.
• The GPO4 programme seems to have reached a very large proportion of enter-
prises within the service sector. This is especially interesting as this sector is
normally considered to be extremely difficult to reach when discussing the
working environment. It is sometimes argued that they are not interested, as
they do not recognise working environment problems in their own enterprises.
Still there are obvious working environment problems in this sector, though
often related to the psycho-social aspects. It seems that GPO4 has succeeded
in catching the eye of managers in this sector through relating to business and
thus has made the enterprises deal with issues that, to quite a large extent,
relate to their working environment.
57
6. Discussion
Small enterprises in Sweden have access to some, although limited, supportive
structures for their work regarding occupational health and safety. Compulsory
support through regional safety representatives seems to be the most important, as
it reaches more than 90 per cent of small enterprises. The Work Environment
Inspectorate reaches many small enterprises, although far less than the regional
safety representatives. The structures which are used voluntarily, for example, the
Occupational Health Services (although advocated in agreements between the
social partners), are used by quite a large fraction of small enterprises. Still, there
are more companies unattached to such services than attached. Most micro-
companies are unattached.
This reflects a situation where most small enterprises will, at least occasionally,
get some kind of advice or notification on occupational health and safety. As the
advice and notification concern physical health hazards, the existence of these
intermediaries most likely contributes to the elimination of some major hazards
and a fairly good standard of occupational health and safety, which, for example,
is reflected in relatively few fatal accidents. There is however limited or non-
existant research on what factors that have lead to the decrease in fatal accidents
in small enterprises. Additionally, research is needed to investigate if statistics are
reliable.
Even though fatal work-related accidents have decreased and there are few in
Sweden, the rate still seems to be higher in small enterprises. This is in contrast
with the statistics on accidents and diseases, which usually show lower rates in
small companies. A deeper study assessing the reliability of the statistics is well
motivated.
Compared to large enterprises, statistics show that small enterprises;
• to a lesser degree have contracts with occupational health services;
• have less contact with regional safety representatives than large enterprises
with senior safety representatives;
• have fewer inspections per employee from the Work Environment Inspec-
torate.
It is obvious that small enterprises have the greatest need for some kind of support
regarding occupational safety and health, as their own knowledge and resources
are scarce. In reality, most small enterprises do not seem to perceive this need, but
rather describe their own working environment as good or average. Therefore,
they are reluctant to seek support regarding occupational health and safety. In this
perspective, it is very important to have compulsory supportive structures that
reach a large fraction of small enterprises.
When comparing the intermediaries available, it seems obvious that there are
two different types:
• Intermediaries focusing on traditional safety and physical and chemical health
hazards. These are the traditional organisations such as the Work Environment
58
Inspectorate, regional safety representatives and the Occupational Health
Services.
• Intermediaries mainly focusing on business development but also including
different aspects of the working environment such as competence, work
organisation and other psychosocial aspects. These intermediaries are less
easy to define, as they are usually consultants in different sectors. Additio-
nally, the psychosocial factors are included in their work, as it is demanded
from the programs giving grants for specific projects. Examples are the
Growth Potential Objective 4 and, to some extent, the Swedish Work Life
Fund (Arbetslivsfonden) even though this fund is mainly aimed at improving
the working environment but strongly emphasises the development of work
organisation.
Even if the traditional intermediaries occasionally touch on topics regarding the
psychosocial working environment, these aspects are a more integrated part of
projects related to business development. These projects often include aspects
directly linked to new production processes, which, in many cases (although not
always), are favourable for the psychosocial working environment. Such aspects
include; development of workers competence linked to more varied work tasks
and increased responsibilities and a new work organisation with managers as team
leaders instead of traditional supervisor.
From this perspective, Sweden has a basic supportive structure, which seems to
provide fairly good health and safety in small enterprises, although it is also easy
to see limitations and possibilities for improvement in the present structure.
Sweden also has good experiences with programs aimed at business develop-
ment, which at the same time, include aspects of occupational health and safety.
These time-limited programs are to a larger extent governed by the small enter-
prises themselves, even if the content is partly decided by the terms for obtaining
grants. Even if these programs cover fewer enterprises, they are still interesting as
they probably result in more profound changes regarding the work organisation
than the traditional health and safety intermediaries.
For the future, one question relating to intermediaries has to be discussed. What
should be the main focus of the traditional intermediaries? These intermediaries
are the society’s main tools to deal with health and safety issues in small enter-
prises. Should they focus on the traditional health and safety issues or the change
processes in small enterprises, relating to systematic work environment manage-
ment and development of the work organisation, development of the competence
and improvement of the psychosocial working environment?
Since the regulation on systematic work environment management, SWEM,
came into force, the traditional intermediaries have worked a lot with the imple-
mentation of SWEM. From the description above of regional safety representa-
tives, it seems obvious that implementation of SWEM is a change process but
regional safety representatives have too little time to spend in each company to be
able to effectively support the change process required to implement SWEM. Is it
realistic that the traditional intermediaries can support such change processes? If
yes, can they do it today or do they require development of their own skills in this
59
area? Is it realistic to assume that traditional intermediaries can initiate change
processes in small enterprises during just one short visit every year?
The experiences from GPO4 indicate that many small enterprises can govern a
change process themselves with limited support. This is under the condition that
the enterprise itself is very motivated to put in all the time and efforts required. In
the GPO4 projects one motivation was related to the grants given to the enter-
prises, another to the step 1 analysis of the enterprise, which was made from a
business point of view. The analysis pointed out needs relating to competence
development and change of the work organisation. This is not the condition when
the traditional intermediaries try to support the implementation of SWEM, why
the change process required to implement SWEM is harder to get started.
60
7. Conclusions
To conclude, there are a lot of problems in improving health and safety, which are
easy to relate to small enterprises. Lack of time and knowledge as well as negli-
gence of occupational health and safety in the small enterprises together with
unstructured management of them, are factors impairing work regarding occupa-
tional health and safety. The overview given in this report shows that there are
means of overcoming the deficiencies. Most of these methods are built on the
presence of some kind of intermediary, a person informing, assisting and suppor-
ting small enterprises. As can be seen from the description there are many people
who may act as intermediaries. Some of them have good knowledge about occu-
pational health and safety, some just scarce knowledge. For the future, it is of
great interest to study the intermediaries, their work and factors affecting the out-
come of their work in more detail. The question of intermediaries as change
agents or as problem solvers is also crucial.
An overview of health and safety in small companies as presented in this report
also raises many new questions. Some of them are;
• What factors have lead to the decrease in fatal accidents and work-related
accidents and diseases in small enterprises during the last decades of the 20th
century?
• Are the statistics on work-related accidents and diseases in small enterprises
reliable? There seems to be a contradiction between statistics on fatal acci-
dents and other accidents and diseases.
• What can be done to increase small enterprises use of intermediaries despite
the small enterprises’ lack of understanding of the benefits with improving
their working environment?
61
Sammanfattning
Denna rapport är den svenska delen av ett projekt inom SALTSA, Samarbetspro-
grammet för arbetslivsforskning i Europa, med LO, TCO, SACO och Arbetslivs-
institutet som initiativtagare. Programmet syftar till samverkan för problemorien-
terad arbetslivsforskning i Europa. Rapporten ingår i SALTSA projektet ”Health
and safety in small enterprises in Europe: The significance and sustainability of
the translator function of intermediaries in preventive health and safety”.
Syftet med studien är:
• Att ge en översikt över arbetsmiljön i små företag, dvs företag med mindre än
50 anställda, i några länder inom EU, baserat på befintlig litteratur. Som en
bakgrund beskrivs existerande infrastruktur som har betydelse för arbetsmiljön
i små företag. Denna rapport beskriver situationen i Sverige. Andra rapporter
finns för Danmark, Frankrike, Grekland, Italien, Spanien och Storbritannien.
• Att beskriva arbetsmiljön i svenska småföretag, mot bakgrund av bl a befintlig
statistik. Detta ger underlag för internationella jämförelser.
• Att beskriva och i viss mån utvärdera några exempel på externa aktörer (inter-
mediaries) som uthålligt och lyckosamt har bidragit till bättre arbetsmiljö i
små företag. De två exempel som diskuteras mer i detalj i denna rapport är de
fackliga regionala skyddsombuden och EU-programmet Tillväxt Mål 4.
Några slutsatser i rapporten är:
• Arbetsskadestatistiken som gäller små företag borde utvärderas. Det finns
indikationer på en underrapportering av arbetsskador i små företag.
• Den grupp externa aktörer som bäst når ut till små företag är regionala skydds-
ombud, men även Arbetsmiljöinspektionen och företagshälsovården är viktiga
aktörer. Dessa är de ”traditionella aktörerna”.
• Sammantaget har svenska småföretag ett stöd för sitt arbetsmiljöarbete i form
av regelbunden, om än ej omfattande personlig kontakt med de traditionella
arbetsmiljöaktörer. Större företag får mer stöd än små företag.
• Förbättringen av arbetsmiljöerna på svenska småföretag, som den återspeglas i
statistiken, beror sannolikt till stor del på dessa traditionella aktörers insatser.
• Under senare år har olika program som Arbetslivsfonden, Mål 4 och Mål 3
initierats och påverkat arbetsmiljön i små företag.
• Det går att se en skillnad mellan de traditionella aktörerna och de nya pro-
grammen, där de traditionella aktörerna mer inriktar sig på den fysiska arbets-
miljön och att bistå med problemlösning medan programmen syftar till att
initiera förändringsarbete i företagen och ofta fokuserar på arbetsorganisa-
tionen.
• Dessa skillnader reser ett antal frågor om framtida utveckling av de traditio-
nella aktörernas roll.
Hela projektet redovisas i boken Health and Safety in Small Enterprises. Euro-
pean Strategies for Managing Improvement, författare David Walters, som publi-
cerades år 2001 av SALTSA i serien “Work and Society”, No 31.
62
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