From the introduction: This handbook is aimed primarily at front line managers (FLMs) in manufacturing industries. Frontline manager is defined here as the first management level with personnel responsibility. It is the most common managerial position and is found in all companies that have at least one management level. It is an extremely important role. Research also highlights the FLM as a key position in the creation of well-functioning and sustainable production.

You may be new to the role of being a manager, if so this book will help you to understand your tasks. If you are an experienced manager but new to the company, you will find some suggestions on how to succeed in your new job. Finally, we hope that we can offer some pearls of wisdom for those of you who are experienced managers in a company you have known for a long time.

The handbook is also for you who collaborate with FLMs. You may be working in the line or as a team leader, which is a leader without personnel responsibility. You may be a second line manager or have a production support role with responsibility for protection and safety, planning and scheduling, quality development, technical maintenance, technological development, product development, logistics, HR functions or something else. We hope that the handbook will provide you all with useful advice and information.

This handbook is intended to clarify the content of FLM’s work and how it can be developed. We do this by describing the role and work of the FLM but also the ever-present dynamics and problem-solving foundin the role. We also want to underscore opportunities for systematically developing the potential for and ability to work as a FLM. To enable you to work and thrive in the role in the long term or support someone else in this role. FLMs have a major impact on both work environment and efficiency within their area. As such, the manager’s work environment is also of great importance for success.

First-line managers (FLMs) have a vital role in developing stable output and organizational competitiveness through their ability to manage front-line operations in daily work. It is also well known that FLMs are strong determinants of good ergonomics and well-being for front-line staff. However, research focusing on how FLMs deal with their important role is lacking particularly regarding empirical studies. The focus here is how they deal with uncertainties and disruptive interruptions and develop more resilient performance in daily work – introduced in this article as resilient action strategies.

This research uses two conceptual frameworks on resilient engineering for analysis of FLM's actions in daily work in two manufacturing companies, to explore how resilient action strategies can be organizationally supported. The study combines analysis of front-line activities with multilevel organizational support based on 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews with FLMs and support functions, 21 workshops as well as policy documents of the two companies. The analysis exemplifies how resilience engineering was enabled in practice in the organizations.

The study contributes to the empirical understanding of how resilience can be organizationally supported in daily front-line work. Our results show that a developed and consistent infrastructure in companies promotes the emergence of resilient action strategies in front-line work. We propose an extended model for resilient front-line performance enhancement by including coordination as a linking aspect between the earlier suggested resilient potentials – anticipate, monitor, respond and learn. This highlights the importance of both organizational support and coordination between system levels to enable the development of resilient action strategies by FLMs.

Inledning: Föreliggande rapport utgör en redovisning av en mindre intervjuundersökning som genomfördes under 2020. Undersökningen var avsedd att vara inledningen på ett delprojekt i projektet ”Branschintervention som metodik för en bättre arbetsmiljö” med fokus på arbetsledares roll och deras villkor gällande att skapa en bra och säker arbetsmiljö. Efter den första pandemivågen under våren 2020 genomfördes de här rapporterade intervjuerna under sen vår och försommar då smittspridningen hade gått ner. När sedan smittspridningen steg med andra vågen av pandemin och restriktionerna gällande fysiska möten på arbetsplatser skärptes avbröts delprojektet då detta krävde fysiska möten för att kunna utvecklas och genomföras som planerat. Under ett efterföljande möte med styrgruppen för projektet 2021-04-20 beslutades att avsluta detta delprojekt pga. pandemin och de restriktioner som denna medfört.

Syftet med den här avrapporterade undersökningen var alltså att lägga en grund till fortsatt utvecklingsarbete för att hitta metoder att förbättra säkerheten i byggindustrin genom att utveckla arbetsledarnas arbete.

Från inledningen: Den här handboken vänder sig framför allt till dig som är första linjens chef i tillverkande industri. Första linjens chef definieras här som den första chefsnivån som har personalansvar. Det är den vanligaste chefspositionen och finns i alla företag med minst en chefsnivå. Det är en oerhört viktig funktion! Även forskningen lyfter fram första linjens chef som en nyckelposition för att skapa en väl fungerande och hållbar produktion.

Du kanske är helt ny i rollen som chef och då är det här en hjälp till att förstå uppgiften. Eller så är du erfaren chef men ny i företaget, och kan behöva lite tips för att förstå och lyckas i ditt nya jobb. Slutligen hoppas vi erbjuda några guldkorn även för dig som är erfaren chef i ett företag som du känner sedan länge.

Handboken vänder sig också till dig som har en roll i samarbete med första linjens chefer. Du kanske jobbar i linjen eller är teamledare, dvs ledare utan personalansvar. Du kanske är andra linjens chef eller har en stödfunktion till produktionen med ansvar för skydd och säkerhet, planering, kvalitetsutveckling, tekniskt underhåll, teknikutveckling, produktutveckling, logistik eller HR-funktioner. Vi hoppas att ni alla kan hitta användbara råd och lärdomar i handboken.

I handboken vill vi tydliggöra arbetsinnehållet för första linjens chefer och hur det kan utvecklas. Vi gör det genom att beskriva rollen och arbetet som första linjens chef. Vi lägger också stor vikt vid att beskriva dynamiken och problemlösningen som hela tiden är närvarande. Dessutom vill vi peka på möjligheterna att systematiskt utveckla förutsättningarna för och förmågan att arbeta som chef i första linjen – så att du kan fungera och må bra i uppgiften på ett hållbart sätt eller stötta den personsom har denna roll. En första linjens chef har stor inverkan på både arbetsmiljön och effektiviteten inom sitt område. Även chefens arbetsmiljö är därför av stor vikt för att nå bra resultat inom dessa områden.

Human work activities are at the core of value adding processes creating system performance. The concept of human, technology and organization (HTO) is used in different cases as it offers a framework for understanding and developing work. The aim of this paper is to elucidate the character of work activities and their significance in using the HTO concept. The aspects elaborated on are: the relation between the objectives of the organization and the activity, the organizational context of the activity, the variability of the individual and the work process, the influence of history, the relation between the individual and the activity and finally how activity can be studied. Looking at three short examples from different industries, it can be concluded that the HTO concept is beneficial to use in order to better understand the studied activities in the examples. However, there must be clearly identifiable tasks to really benefit from the HTO concept.

Background: One important key to an organization’s long-term competitiveness is the ability of first line managers (FLMs) to handle their role as a leader in daily work. FLMs main task is to contribute to a high and stable production output according to customer demands from an input that is characterized by instability and variability. To do so, FLMs must develop resilient action strategies – ways of working and daily problem solving that systematically facilitate to cope with instability. In this study protocol we present a methodological approach developed to evaluate and improve these.

Methods/Design: The research approach is collaborative and developmental and performed together with two companies. The approach integrates and extends the theory and application of a model on interactive research and a framework on activity analysis. It will be applied using data collection techniques like interviews, diaries, observations, document analysis, and questionnaires. The analysis and development stages will be performed both separate and in collaboration in workshops and the result is planned to end up in the joint writing of a generic handbook on advantageous action strategies for FLMs’.

Discussion: This study contributes with a new integration of two methodological approaches which provides a novel way to understand and develop dynamic on-the-job behaviour in work settings.

Working life of today faces challenges. There is a fast pace in technical and organisational development and continual demands for increased performance. In order to manage the increasing complexity in work systems, there is a need to take a holistic view on operations. One such view is the systems concept of Humans, Technology and Organisation (HTO). The aim of this report is to describe the HTO concept, how it was developed, and how it can be used to develop work and work systems, understand humans at work, and understand contributing factors to organisational performance and individual well-being. The core of the HTO model is human work activity and how it is carried out within a work system consisting of humans, technology and the organisation. Focussing on human work activity generates knowledge about work conditions, needed competences and collective interaction, but also understanding about outcomes of the activities – the systems performance. H, the Humans in the work system, can be understood from different perspectives, for example as biological systems, information processing systems, individuals with unique personal traits and experiences, or as members of social groups. The H can thus in itself be regarded as a sub-system within HTO. In a similar way, T, Technology, includes several facets, such as tangible tools and machinery, intangible IT systems and software, and environmental characteristics that are technologically designed. The same applies for O, Organisation, consisting of both formal aspects (e.g. written work instructions and follow-up systems) and informal aspects (e.g. organisational culture and informal work practice). Applying HTO in practice generates several types of outcomes: 1) HTO to design products shows that it can be beneficial for productivity, quality and individual safety; 2) HTO to analyse and understand complex work may shed light on complex work in practice, the influences between the individual and the work system, and gaps between prescribed, standard work and how it is carried out in practice; 3) HTO to understand safety shows that it is achieved through systems thinking, thus technology needs to be designed to match human capabilities, and HTO barriers should be in place to prevent accidents; and 4) HTO to improve health and productivity may result in workplace redesign, increased individual well-being and business productivity. HTO has several uses, such as a theoretical framework, an analytical tool, and a method for a holistic view on human work, but also as a tool for visualisation and design. 

Organisational resilience can be a source of competitiveness, enabling companies to respond and adapt to unexpected changes, ensuring that a company can thrive whilst dealing with the unexpected. The ability of first line managers (FLMs) to handle their daily work at the operational level in order to maintain a stable production output, while managing the many challenges in the complex industrial context, is key. The importance of how FLMs can handle their role has been confirmed by several researchers – and more research is needed. In this research, two manufacturing companies are participating as they wish to develop their FLMs’ abilities to handle their role as an intermediate position between workers, technical support staff and upper management. The study aims to produce knowledge of how the daily work in the role of FLMs is enacted in the manufacturing context and how resilient action strategies can be developed for both performance and wellbeing. The study follows a collaborative approach in which two manufacturing companies are participating. After an initial workshop and ten in-depth interviews with FLMs the preliminary results indicate that the disturbances of daily work per se were expected by many of the interviewees. Difficulties involved were diminished by developed routines, although the information about those sometimes were difficult to find. Improvement opportunities regarded for example clarification of the role, better collaboration with support functions, more time to spend with operators interacting at shop floor level and expanding proactive action strategies.

Ordet innovation har nästan blivit det nya svarta. Fokus ligger på hur företag, offentliga organisationer och ideella föreningar kan bli mer innovativa. Boken presenterar teorier, modeller, metoder och verktyg som i projektet Ledarskap i Småland använts för att hjälpa ledare att öka organisationens innovationsförmåga. Citat och exempel från ledares vardag i framför allt små och medelstora organisationer används som illustrationer. Med begrepp som 0,5-steg och att tända många eldar riktar sig boken i första hand till praktiskt verksamma ledare – i och utanför Småland. Detta är projektets andra bok. Den första heter Småländskt ledarskap – inledande betraktelser.