Innovations for work-life balance

Important results from the project

The study has prepared for a project on innovations for work-life balance. It has begun to give participating partners tools to use in their own processes for innovation by testing a method in a business-incubator. It has given a first view on what kind of innovations the project will lead to, using interviews and focus-groups. It has chosen and processed method. Companies that could realize the innovations have been identified and an analysis has been made with experts on gender and innovation.

Expected long term effects

The study has provided a first picture of the need for help in work-life balance within the target-group - parents of young children in Dalarna outside the norm. The project owner Teknikdalen Foundation now wants to go further by developing methods of innovations with a norm-critical perspective, so that the companies in Dalarna can increase their capacity of innovation, using norm-critical perspective.

Approach and implementation

The study´s result has a limitation: the small extent it reached those with the most time-pressure - singleparents with shift-hours and without flex-time. These declined involvement because of lack of time. The study therefore suggest two ways forward: a project in which the county council and an industrial company innovate around the work-life balance, linked to the workplace. And another project in which companies receive support in innovation development with the method tested in our study.