Background information

The Royal Technical University Kungliga tekniska högskolan, KTH in Stockholm has began to bring employees back two days a week, in order to make a slow adaption back to normality. Prior to the measure, almost all the staff was working remotely.

This is also to counteract work environment problems that may arise during long-term remote working. Two days a week at the workplace is an appropriate basic principle and can be implemented without risking being many people at work or in public transport. Planning of this is done by the manager in consultation with the employee based on the needs and conditions of the business in question.

In addition their safety representatives Skyddsombud will continue to report large crowding at the workplace.

Content of measure

As the Royal Technical University, KTH has now opened for teaching of students on campus, there has been an immediate need for more employees to be on site. While the university continues to emphasis the importance of staff to continue to work remotely.

With regard to remote work, there is a psycho social work environment problem and potential health risks with employees working remotely for a longer period of time. In order to increase the well-being of the staff, they have thus been encouraged to get back to the work place twice a week. This is a way of adapting back to normality .

Use of measure

KTH:s activities are separated into different Schools. Each of these is heading a number of Departments, Centres of excellence and undergraduate study programmes.

The schools are:

• School of Architecture and the Built Environment
• School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• School of Engineering Sciences
• School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health
• School of Industrial Engineering and Management

Together these five schools employ 5,000 staff.

Contents

• Health and safety
• Telework

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Employees in standard employment	Companies providing essential services	Applies to all citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
Company / Companies	No special funding required

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Unknown	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: Company level

Involvement

There is currently no information on social partners' involvement in the designing and implementation of the measure. However, there is a large likelihood that they have been consulted by the employer when deciding regarding the measure.

Views and reactions

There is no information regarding their views on the measure. However, there are reasons to believe that the suggestion may have come from the local representatives at the work place, and the safety representatives.

Sectors and occupations

This case is not occupation-specific.

Sources

• 29 October 2020: Information for employees due to the coronavirus (Information till anställda pga Corona) (intra.kth.se)