Aim: The aim of this study is to explore, discuss and analyse patterns that make up a successful multicultural labour marketing and management. Riihimäki Würth Ltd. employees´ experiences have been used as an example of multicultural labour management. In the report, the following research questions have been answered: What are the main cultural differences in multicultural working place? What are the benefits and challenges of multicultural working environment? How do Finnish managers prepare employees on multicultural working environment, prevent, solve problems that are caused by multicultural working environment and, promote multicultural working environments. What are the lessons learned from multicultural working environment? Culture can be best expressed in the interactions of values, attitudes and behavioural assumptions of society. We must be able to unpack the culture concept (Schwartz 1994). I have worked as a government labour consultant/officer in Finland for 7yrs. I used my knowledge of today’s Finnish labour market condition to get a full picture of the cultural labour marketing possibilities. Method: I picked four big companies in Finland that practice multicultural labour strategies from our clients’ registration data system and send them an email offer to interview their employees. Only Riihimäki Würth Ltd. took my offer and booked me in as a visitor. I interviewed five natives and five migrant employees in Riihimäki Würth Oy company in Finland that fix and assemble materials like screws, screw accessories, dowels and plugs, chemical products, furniture and construction fittings, tools, and stock keeping and picking systems. Common denominator for all ten respondents was an over one-year experience in multicultural working environment. I walked around the building, selected 10 employees by random, contacted face-to-face oral interviews and recorded their answers using my Video camera. Findings on how the respondents have handled their multicultural working environment are discussed in the analysis. Employees’ suggestions on how to create and manage multicultural working environment have been reviewed too.   Result and conclusions: My conclusion is that cultural differences may not affect unskilled working environment (like the researched warehouse operating Würth Ltd. company), as long as all the employees are treated equally. Carrying out of given duties in unskilled working place is the same in a warehouse company despite of the country of origin. The Würth Ltd. unskilled labour respondents provided evidence that equal salary, treatment, sharing of duties and other benefits could be the key to successful multicultural working environment, marketing and management. It creates harmony, kindness and friendliness in the air that I too, witnessed while walking around the building before the interview. Learning the native or working language is very important to enable communication and career progress even in Würth’s unskilled warehouse multicultural working environment, marketing and management. Researched company has 126 employees in 379 departments of which 28 are migrants from Vietnam, Morocco, Kosovo, Germany, Russia, Estonia, Egypt, Kuwait, Bangladesh, Japan and Philippines. It hired the first foreign employee in 1990 but none of foreign employees has ever been promoted. This could be a multicultural working environment dark side or failure. Multicultural marketing in Finland might not be the right strategy or solution for ambitious foreigners who are interested and looking for quick career advancements or career progress if this is the case in most of the Finnish multicultural working places. I suggests the following for future research: A deeper study on communication in a multicultural working environment: How can information be easily and successfully communicated in a working environment where employees do not share a common language. Promotions: How can foreign employees advance their career in a foreign labour market if their native language skill is below the native or required standard, but the job skills are excellent? Why Finland attracts and uses more foreigners for unskilled labour than skilled? Contribution of the study: The study offers a pattern and lays down a background for further studies on multicultural labour force. It may reduce the fear of multicultural working environment. It might help the managers and companies to overcome prejudices on cultural differences and barriers. Some organisations and networks (e.g. The Municipality of Riihimäki town, TJS ; STTK and AKAVA union education institute and Mosaiikki project sponsored by Ministry of Migration) have already copied my research interview DVD to use as a guideline for training new foreign employees and managing multicultural working environments strategies. I believe that it might help marketing managers to create better multicultural labour marketing strategies.

The exposed position of a social worker entails serious demands to their working environment. The experience of the working environment is coherent with various circumstances such as physical, technical and psychosocial factors. The aim of this study is to investigate how social workers in Gotland experience their psychosocial working environment. As a theoretical ground we describe the working environment regulations and it´s framework. Previous national and international research enlighten issues such as definitions of threat and violence, the significance of education and policys within social work, social support and riskfactors. The research shows that there is no unanimity in how clientrelated threats or violence is manifested and the social worker´s experience is indivudual. With a qualitative method this study is based on interviews with socialworkers. The result of this study shows that the socialworkers in Gotland experience the psychosocial working environment as satisfying concerning their security and safety. The colleagues are significant factors for the outcome. A threatening or violent situation is characterized by the socialworkers feeling of being personally threatened or exposed. The result also discloses the socialworkers request for education in how to handle a threatening or violent situation. They ask for a more continuous discussion of the routins and policys regarding the working environment. / Det sociala arbetets natur och utsatthet ställer stora krav på socialsekreterarens arbetsmiljö. Upplevelsen av arbetsmiljön sammanhänger med olika omständigheter såsom fysiska, tekniska och psykosociala faktorer. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka socialsekreterarens upplevelse av den psykosociala arbetsmiljön på Gotland. Tidigare forskning visar att den psykosociala arbetsmiljön är av stor betydelse för hur socialsekreteraren upplever sin arbetsplats. Centrala begrepp är arbetsmiljö, trygghet och säkerhet samt hot och våld. Arbetarskyddsstyrelsens författningssamling med lagar, paragrafer och föreskrifter är väsentliga i tolkningsramen. Gällande klientrelaterat hot eller våld visar tidigare forskning att det inte finns någon konsensus om hur en hot– eller våldsituation yttrar sig och forskningen värdesätter kontinuerlig utbildning och konkreta rutiner. Med en kvalitativ metod som redskap baseras denna uppsats på intervjuer med socialsekreterare verksamma inom socialtjänsten. Resultat som synliggörs i uppsatsen är att socialsekreterarna upplever sin psykosociala arbetsmiljö som trygg och säker i de mest väsentliga delarna, samt att kollegor och gemenskap är betydelsefulla faktorer. En hot- eller våldssituation präglas av att socialsekreteraren känner sig hotad för sin egen person eller arbetsgrupp. Resultatet åskådliggör en brist i utbildningen gällande hot- eller våldssituationer och socialsekreterarna efterfrågar en mer kontinuerlig genomgång av rutinerna på arbetsplatsen. Nyckelord: Socialsekreterare, arbetsmiljö, trygghet och säkerhet, hot och våld.

The aim of this study was to understand how social workers perceive and understand violence and threats of violence from clients, and how it effect their working environment. It seems that the respondents understand the violence and threats of violence from clients as a result of the clients background problems, vulnerability, dependency and from “the reason" that the client is currently in the contact with the organization. How respondents interpret the client´s behaviour based on the above-mentioned factors, seem to determine how the respondents perceive and define the violence and threats of violence by clients directed against them. Interestingly enough, although all respondents in the study experienced violence and threats of violence from clients, none of them perceived themselves as exposed at work. The answer to this is consensual. The respondents argue that they “knew what they got into" and thus violence and threats of violence from clients can be considered as part of the work, that the social workers must be aware of in order to work within the organization.   A further aim of this study was to examine how the social workers views the matter of who’s responsible for the threats and violent incidents and how to "best" encounter the violence and threats of violence within the organization. The respondents argue that it is when the social workers communicate in a wrong way, use their power or give "bad decisions" to the clients that most threats and violent incidents occur. The role that the respondents construct for themselves can be understood as they need to ,in their professional role "withstand a little bit" of violence and threats of violence from clients. The respondents then becomes mainly responsible for the threats and violent incidents, because they communicated in a wrong way, used the "unnecessary" exercise of power, or gave "bad decisions" to clients. The clients responsibility is then reduced due to the fact that the client merely reacts to how the respondent acted towards the client. The key element in the prevention of violence and threats of violence seems to be the way the respondents builds relations to the client. However, it also appears that the respondents expect a certain amount of violence and threats of violence from clients. Violence and threats of violence therefore run the risk of becoming something that the respondents get used to and sometimes expect, and something that they to some extent can protect themselves from, but never fully avoid or prevent.

Buller är ett stort arbetsmiljöproblem, som kan leda till ohälsa. Det är viktigt att personal som i sitt arbete löper risk för hörselskador använder hörselskydd. Studiens syfte var att beskriva och jämföra användning av hörselskydd bland personal som arbetar i bullrig arbetsmiljö inom verkstadsindustrin. Studien var en tvärsnittsstudie med en deskriptiv och komparativ design. Data samlades in med hjälp av en enkät. Det var 127 personer som besvarade enkäten. Stu-diedeltagarnas medelålder var 45 år. Majoriteten, 101 personer hade arbetat i bullrig arbets-miljö i mer än 10 år. Det framkom att 48 personer i studien upplevde att de hade hörselned-sättning. Majoriteten hade fått information om risk för hörselskador vid arbete i bullrig miljö. Det fanns en statistiskt signifikant skillnad när det gäller val av hörselskydd mellan avdel-ningar med olika bullernivåer. Studien visade ingen signifikant skillnad vid val av hörsel-skydd beroende på upplevt buller. Det vanligast förekommande hörselskyddet var kåpor. De som använde formgjutna proppar gav dessa det bästa betyget. Den mest vanligt förekomman-de anledningen till att inte hörselskydd användes av personalen var att de arbetade endast del av arbetstid i buller. Denna kunskap kan ligga till grund för företagssköterskans information avseende val/användande av hörselskydd. / Noise is a major problem in the working environment and may result in impaired health. It is important that personnel which are at risk of developing hearing damage use ear protective devices. This study aimed to and describe compare the usage of ear protec-tive devices among personnel working in a noisy environment within the industrial manufacturing. The study was a cross-sectional study with descriptive and comparative design. Data was collected in the form of a questionnaire, which 127 persons participat-ed in. The mean age of the participants was 45 years. The majority, 101 persons, had been working within a noisy working environment for more than 10 years. It appeared that 48 of the respondents experienced a hearing impairment. The majority of the partic-ipants had received information concerning the risk of developing hearing damage when working in a noisy environment. There was a statistically significant difference in the choice of ear protective device between departments with different noise levels . This study showed no significant difference in the choice of ear protective device due to ex-perienced noise. The ear protective device most common used was earmuffs. The re-spondents that used molded plugs rated these highest. The most frequent motive against using ear protective devices among the participants was the fact that they only spent part of the working day in a noisy environment. This knowledge may form a basis for the occupational health nurse’s information regarding choice/usage of ear protective devices.

The last decades the increased computerisation at the places of work has led to new physical loads in the working life and new demands on the working environment. The widespread usage of computers in the working life has led to more sedentary work and less daily movement. The purpose of the thesis is to develop a new product to a concept that in a low intensive and healthy promotional way will activate the body. The product will make a combination of healthy promotion activity and work during office hours possible and primary aims to those with a sedentary office work, which leads to that the body don´t get to be activated in the extent needed. Information has been gathered from studies already made in this area, interviews plus a study and an experiment. From the gathered information concepts and functional solutions has been generated and evaluated to result in a product concept. The thesis has resulted in a concept that consists of a work place unit where the user walks on a treadmill and works at the same time. A general conclusion which can be drawn is that the majority of persons that tested to walk and simultaneously work with a computor on the treadmill found this way of working attractive. Many were positively surprised and said that they would use such an physically activating work place implement if it was available at their place of work.

Increasing competitions in the markets, companies are tending to acquire different potential competitive advantages. Cost-effective ways of doing business have been deeply underpinned in every leader’s minds. However, the problem is how to obtain the most cost-effective way to operate business apart from cutting costs or other strategies which only focus on short-term measures. Nowadays, employees’ creativity are claimed to be highly valuable for the organisation to become successful and sustainable. Since, we are interested in what kind of organisational structure, culture and working environment would have positive influence on employees’ creativity at work, how those working qualities are able for employees to increase their capability on creativity; and also the constraints of those working environment on employees’ creativity will also be discussed. To have a better understanding of our research area, a single case study is introduced as a tool helping us to get to know more about the real life and in a practical perspective. Since, a Swedish company has been chosen as our case study here. In order to reach the purpose of our study, our research questions focused on what factors in the organisation and what characteristics of leadership styles can beneficial to employees’ creativity, and the constraints of the organisation for the employees’ creativity. Based on our frame of reference and our research questions, we investigated the relevant literatures for our better understanding of the research area. It is also used as a guide for us to collecting data. We used qualitative single case study as our approach to acquire data and interviews were conducted with the IKEA managers. A qualitative inquiry method is used, entailing in-depth interviews with four employees of IKEA with different types of positions and departments. The results show that their impression and experience of the company vary in some aspects, as different positions might perceive differently.

<p> </p><p>Bakgrund:</p><p>Policybeslutet att införa Rökfri arbetstid i Motala kommun är ett led i kommunernas och de fackliga organisationernas strävan att skapa en hälsofrämjande miljö. Rökfri arbetstid innebär att ingen ska utsättas för tobaksrök på sitt arbete. I Motala kommun trädde detta beslut i kraft 2007-07-01 och mottogs med olika åsikter bland de kommunanställda. Tidigare forskning har visat samband med engagemang och delaktighet i beslut med empowerment hos de anställda. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att undersöka anställdas reaktioner till Rökfri arbetstid i Motala kommun. Metod: En kvantitativ undersökning i form av fler alternativa och öppna frågor i en enkät som delades ut bland rökande personal på olika enheter i Motala kommun. Även Motala kommuns intranät Kanalen användes, där information om enkäten lades ut och de som ville kunde ta del av den. Resultat: Rökfri arbetstid ger resultat i positiv bemärkelse, de anställda som rökte röker i dag 30 % mindre på arbetstid samt 16 % har slutat. För de som var positivt inställda av deltagarna när beslutet togs visar även en minskning i sitt rökande på fritiden. Då beslutet togs 2007-07-01 var 54 % negativa till detta, i dag är siffran på 32,5 %. Resultatet visar också en stor irritation över att; deltagarna inte fått varit med och tyckt till om Rökfri arbetstid, informationen till de anställda har inte varit bra, cheferna ger inga direktiv och verkar inte veta vilka regler som gäller. I dag följs reglerna olika på olika arbetsplatser. Fortfarande finns det många av studiens deltagare som röker på arbetstid även om de har minskat sin konsumtion. Deltagarna själva vill ha klara regler för vad som gäller när någon trotsar rökförbudet. Diskussion: Mer information, mer empowerment till de anställda i Motala kommun hade gett mer positiva resultat än vi ser idag Låt de rökande få vara med och diskutera fram hur regler ska följas på arbetsplatserna samt vilket stöd de förväntar sig få från kommunen. De anställda måste också ta på sig ansvaret att leta efter information.</p><p> </p> / <p> </p><p>Background</p><p>: The policy decision to introduce non smoking environment in the city of Motala is a part of the city and the unions’ efforts to create a healthy environment. Smoke-free working hours means that no one shall be subjected to tobacco smoke at work. The city of Motala took this decision in full force 2007-07-01 and it was received with different opinions from the city’s employees. Previous research has shown the commitment and involvement is greater if the employee feels empowerment at their work place. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the employee´s reaction to the decision to introduce non smoking environment in Motala. Method: A quantitative method was used. Questionnaire which included even open-ended questions was distributed among smoking employees in different work areas in the city of Motala. The questionnaire was also laid out on "kanalen" which is a communication platform within the city of Motala. Here could any employee take part of the survey. Results: Smoke free working environment delivers results in a positive way, people smoke 30% less at work and 16% have stopped smoking completely during working hours. For those who were in favor of the decision when it was taken can also show a reduction in their smoking in their free time. When the decision was made 2007-07-01 was 54% negative to this, today the figure is 32.5%. The results also show that irritation over this decision was; the employees had not been involved when it comes to decision around this subject, information has been lousy, directors did not provide any directive for the smokers and does not seem to know clearly what the rules are. Today the rules are followed differently in different workplaces. Still, there are many participants who smoke during working hours although they may have reduced their consumption. Participants themselves would like to have clear rules on what it is that applies. Discussion: More information, more empowerment to the employees in the city of Motala had gotten more positive results than we see today. Where does the information stops? Is it between local government leaders to the directors at different workplaces or is it the director that does not provide the information to the employees. Let the smokers be involved and discuss how the rules should be followed at the workplace and what support they may expect from the city. Employees must also take responsibility to look for information.</p><p> </p>

<p>The last decades the increased computerisation at the places of work has led to new physical loads in the working life and new demands on the working environment. The widespread usage of computers in the working life has led to more sedentary work and less daily movement.</p><p>The purpose of the thesis is to develop a new product to a concept that in a low intensive and healthy promotional way will activate the body. The product will make a combination of healthy promotion activity and work during office hours possible and primary aims to those with a sedentary office work, which leads to that the body don´t get to be activated in the extent needed.</p><p>Information has been gathered from studies already made in this area, interviews plus a study and an experiment. From the gathered information concepts and functional solutions has been generated and evaluated to result in a product concept.</p><p>The thesis has resulted in a concept that consists of a work place unit where the user walks on a treadmill and works at the same time.</p><p>A general conclusion which can be drawn is that the majority of persons that tested to walk and simultaneously work with a computor on the treadmill found this way of working attractive. Many were positively surprised and said that they would use such an physically activating work place implement if it was available at their place of work.</p>

<p>As a part of a more extensive project of developing a new finishing line at the Bolivian door manufacturer Tecno Carpinteria San Pedro this thesis presents the development process for a special designed spray booth. The thesis covers every phase from a product idea to a final concept design.</p><p>Working with finishing of furniture and other wooden products can effect the workers health in a negative way and damage the environment. The final result of the manufactured door is also depending on the how well the ventilation system in the working area is. Because of these reasons it is important to use safety equipment and a good ventilation system in the working area. As a part of this new finishing line San Pedro is in need of a special designed spray booth to control the spread of paint particles and other hazard substances that is a result of the finishing process.</p><p>Together with the consultant firm CADEFOR a spray booth is designed and a proposal design is presented in this thesis. The result is a design built up with a dry filter solution together with an extractor that creates a cross draft airflow towards the rear part of the spray booth. The result of the project together with some recommendations of increasing the capacity in the finishing line are also presented.</p>

Η παρούσα μελέτη επιχειρεί να συνδέσει πτυχές του εργασιακού περιβάλλοντος που θεωρούνται ιδιαίτερα διαδεδομένες στον δημόσιο τομέα με συγκεκριμένα χαρακτηριστικά εργασίας τα οποία επηρεάζουν σε σημαντικό βαθμό την εργασιακή ικανοποίηση. Συγκεκριμένα λαμβάνει υπ’ όψην τρε ις μεταβλητές του εργασιακού περιβάλλοντος : τη σαφήνεια οργανωσιακών στόχων, τους διαδικαστικούς περιορισμούς και τη σύγκρουση οργανωσιακών στόχων ενώ από την πλευρά των χαρακτηριστικών εργασίας εξετάζονται τέσσερις μεταβλητές : η σαφήνεια εργασιακού ρόλο υ, η επαναπληροφόρηση,η ποικιλία δραστηριοτήτων και η ανάπτυξη ανθρωπίνου δυναμικού. Τα παραπάνω θα εφαρμοστούν προκειμένου να προσδιοριστεί η εργασιακή ικανοποίηση στην Πολεμική Αεροπορία και συγκεκριμένα στην 116 Πτέρυγα Μάχης / Work Satisfaction at the 116 Combat Wing of Hellenic Air Force.