New work environment strategy for 2026-2031: A good working environment in a changing working life

The overall goal is good working conditions and development opportunities for all, as well as a working environment that counteracts exclusion and promotes the development of both the individual and the business.  

The strategy’s four sub-objectives:

• A sustainable working life: Focus on ensuring that everyone must be able and able to work for a full working life, including by better utilising the elderly’s competence. 
• A healthy working life: Increased knowledge about well-being, reduced mental illness and lower sickness absence through better rehabilitation. 
• A safe working life: A vision of zero fatalities. The work must also combat occupational crime, violence, threats and discrimination. 
• An innovative working life: Health and safety work must keep pace with the green transition and the introduction of new technology, such as AI. 

Special focus on fatal accidents

The Swedish Work Environment Authority is tasked with intensifying work to prevent fatalities and serious accidents, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable industries: construction, transport and industry. The Authority will also have a coordinating role in completing the strategy nationally.

What can you expect in practice? 

• Stronger focus on risk-based supervision: Expect more and more targeted inspections from the Swedish Work Environment Authority, especially in industries with a high risk of serious accidents.
• Focus on the cognitive work environment: It will not only be about the physical working environment. There will be a greater focus on mental health, digital stress and how we handle information flows in highly automated work.
• Requirements for dialogue during technical shifts: When algorithms or AI are used to conduct or organise work, there are higher requirements for transparency and collaboration with employees.
• Strategic rehabilitation: Sick leave must be handled more strategically. This means that the employer is expected to work more preventively with rehabilitation and adjustments to reduce long-term sick leave.
• Combating occupational crime: The government is investing in combating non-serious actors. For serious industrial companies, this can in the long term mean healthier competition, where companies that undermine the working environment are not pushing them to lower their prices.

Read the full strategy here and think about how you can use it to improve your own work environment work: A good working environment in a changing working life - the government’s working environment strategy for 2026-2031