“Line managers can either make or break an organisational intervention”

Nielsen, who is a professor of work psychology at the Sheffield University Management School, will give her lecture ‘Leading healthy organizational interventions: the role of line managers in making interventions work’ on 25 August.

She has broad experience of supporting and designing interventions in public and private sector organisations internationally. Her presentation will focus on the role of line managers who are often tasked with planning, implementing and supporting such interventions.

“A great emphasis has been placed on senior management, which is important, but it is often line managers who work with the integration of these changes into the daily practices of the organisation. Line managers can either make or break an organisational intervention,” she says.

My key learning is that everything that can go wrong will go wrong; however, there’s no such thing as failed intervention.

Karina Nielsen

Changing working practices and organisational policies can improve workplace wellbeing which, in turn, can reduce the costs of sickness absences for the organisation and society. Yet, implementing interventions is not easy and might require a hint of constructive pessimism.

“It's very difficult to make big changes in a workplace, and that’s why we should focus on the design and process of implementation and really seek to understand the issues experienced by employees,” Nielsen says.

“My key learning is that everything that can go wrong will go wrong; however, there’s no such thing as failed intervention. If you collect the data and try to understand what happened, you can always extract important learnings to be used in future interventions.”

Nielsen has developed and tested models for the design, implementation and evaluation of organisational interventions in order to promote employee wellbeing. Now, her aim is to develop a comprehensive set of principles for a successful intervention. These principles can provide a helpful framework to start with, but the translation of planned changes into real-life action varies between different organisational and cultural environments.

“Interventions require a lot of work, flexibility and ability to adapt, but when you do learn something and you get to help people create a better working life, that’s the best reward,” she says.

Text: Anna Jaakonaho