Sustaining human capital in the modern workplace: an exploration of a sustainable workplace at Glimworks, a small-sized Swedish IT company
Abstract: Research and poll results suggest an ongoing crisis in modern Western European workplaces with high levels of indifference at work underlined by low engagement levels. Data aggregated from 2014 to 2016 by Gallup World Polls state that only 10% of Western European employees are engaged at work while 71% are not engaged and 19% are actively disengaged (Gallup, 2017). These numbers highlight an urgent problem that is the “epidemic levels of indifference toward work” (Duckworth, 2017, p.98). The scientific sphere can contribute to solving this problem by increasing its research on companies that are succeeding at creating engaging workplaces which sustain human capital and resources over time. In doing so, researchers along with practitioners can extract the best-practices and propose workplace models which theoretically result in sustainable workplaces that engage employees and sustain their resources. Through this study, such a model was co-created with the Swedish small-sized IT company Glimworks through semi-structured interviews with its employees, a semi-structured interview with its founder and CEO and a focus group discussion. This resulted in the unique contribution of a conceptual definition of a sustainable workplace and the design of a theoretical model including six variables and thirteen sustainability themes for how to build sustainable workplaces. Finally, this research is also distinctive in its interdisciplinary approach to sustainability science by bridging the field with organizational and engagement theories.
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