The approach

The programme facilitates companies to strengthen
workplace relations and sustainable business

To support companies in strengthening decent work and sustainable business, Swedish Workplace Programme (SWP) provides three ways of collaboration:

Workplace Programmes

The programme facilitates an applicable and versatile approach to develop an inclusive workplace dialogue and address workplace challenges.

Sustainable Business Platforms

Regional forums for companies to discuss and share sustainability challenges, find joint solutions, and create new partnerships that contribute to sustainable business.

Global learning and sharing

Sharing of best practices on how to apply workplace cooperation to address challenges in communities and in the world of work.

Workplace Programmes

Swedish Workplace Programme (SWP) is a multi-step approach to facilitate dialogues between managers and employees with the aim to find solutions to company specific challenges.The approach is versatile and replicable, and can be used to develop sustainability of the workplace, supply chain, improve customer relations and create engagement within communities. 

Adaptable to the specific workplace

SWP establishes, trains and develops workplace committees based on mutual respect, commitment and international labour standards. By having a structure where joint goals are formulated, management and elected employees/trade union representatives can change attitudes in the workplace, thereby improving both the working environment and business operations. 

We believe that when a company places employees’ engagement at the centre of its business, it encourages and creates an inclusive work environment. This in turn enhances the company’s profile and position to attract and retain employees and increase its competitiveness.

The 6 steps for our approach at the workplace

Step 1 - Getting everyone aboard

Agree on roles and responsibilities. Create a baseline assessment to get an understanding of the challenges at the workplace (e.g. interviews and questionnaire).

Step 2 - Workplace committee

Establish or strengthen a workplace committee with representatives from both management and employees. Agree on meeting frequency and roles in the committee. Create an understanding of the importance of workplace cooperation, inclusion and how to create sustainable change.

Step 3 - Identify challenges and create an action plan

Feedback results from the baseline assessment are presented to the committee and management team to consider. The committee identifies and prioritises challenges and decides which thematic area to tackle. SWP provides capacity building by external thematic experts. A change management process is used during the programme to create sustainable change. The committee creates an action plan – from policy to practice.

Step 4 - Implementation

Activities in the plan could include: Complementary employee survey within the thematic area (if needed), training of workplace champions/peer educators, policy development, awareness activities at the workplace.

Step 5 - Learnings

Sharing of peer to peer experiences internally and insights from networks discussions. Monitor and evaluate the results of the Workplace Programme. SWP leaves the company after a period of 12-18 months.

Step 6 - Share best practice

Companies are included within network meetings where like-minded actors meet to share lessons learned and experience of SWP interventions (e.g. CEO groups, HR groups, OHS groups, etc). Companies can also share the approach within their value chain and eco-systems. SWP will share learnings with our partners and engaged companies in studies, conferences and best practice.

Sustainable Business Platforms

Forums for dialogues

Swedish Workplace Programme (SWP) utilizes platforms and networks as a catalyst for companies to engage in joint strategic discussions concerning improvements, solutions and actions taken to address local sustainability and related workplace challenges.

Companies use the dialogues as a collective tool to promote their decent work and sustainability agenda within their business environment.

Your company does not have to be involved in a Workplace Programme to participate in the sharing and dialogue session called Sustainable Business Platform. The Sustainable Business Platforms are established according to region for companies that want to address sustainability challenges and generate results in the field of Agenda 2030 and specifically the global goal 8 (decent work and economic growth).

Read about the SBPs that have been performed so far here.

Global learning and sharing

Global learning – the bigger picture

This component includes the development and diffusion of best practices and learnings from the Swedish Workplace Programme’s (SWP) iterations. To support our iterative approach, the Global learning- component provides the programme with learnings from the regional Sustainable Business Platforms (SBP) as well as from the Workplace Programmes.

The key for SWP is to create an enabling environment for learning within the programme through the peer to peer exchanges between and within companies, including the supply chain.

Contact us

+46 8 783 82 68

Visit the page Contact

Global office

World Trade Center

Klarabergsviadukten 70
111 64 Stockholm

UP!

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UPSKILLING OF UNION SHOP STEWARDS

A lack of enabling environment for social dialogue at the workplace level, despite the provision of legislative acts that protect and promote workplace cooperation is a reoccuring issue  in Kenya. To implement good policy there must be a fertil ground.

Therefore SWP developed the UP!  project. Together with Swedish companies as an entry point, and with unions i South africa and Kenya. 

In Kenya SWP created the SWP UP! Programme targeting skills development of the union Shop Stewards from 18 companies in the Automotive sector in Kenya during 2021. As a result, the Stewards were able to use their skills to build trust and cooperation with management in new ways to avoid conflicts. 

A second cohort of training, in close cooperation with union AUKMW, takes place in 2022.

The training allows shop stewards to step out of their daily routines and understand their role and the purpose of their union, understand the labour market context, the laws that regulate relationships and the business itself. But on a human level, many shop stewards also highlighted that they feel respected as human beings, and that they have developed the skills to engage with supervisors and management and experience respect in professional relations. The experiences had deeply impressed them and helped to project the vision of dialogue and mutual respect and their own potential as a means to change workplaces.

The intervention of the SWP programme had a direct effect at the workplaces, where shop stewards listed several cases where they had managed to intervene and secure results in dialogue with management, avert crises or find solutions based on opportunities and the communication skills obtained during the SWP training. For the Amalgamated Metal Workers Unions in Kenya, the shop stewards pointed to how the training had enabled them to design their own strategies at the workplace in relation to supervisors and staff, and to achieve many concrete results.

Based on this shop steward upskilling, I feel confident that as a union we now have change ambassadors that will grow the industry, protect, and promote decent work principles for both the employer and the employees represented. And that disputes will be dealt with at the workplace level by though consultative dialogue.

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Rose Omamo

General Secretary
Amalgamated Union of Kenya Metal Workers

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT AND TRAININGS IN THE UP! PROJECT IN KENYA AND SOUTH AFRICA
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