Healthy Work Life Barometer 2026: A positive trend in health, but a growing gap in views on humanity between top management and other employees

The barometer reveals a clear difference in perspective between CEOs and supervisors. While 69% of CEOs consider the Finnish workplace to be healthy, only 44% of supervisors share this view. Human resources professionals fall between management’s optimism and supervisors’ skepticism at 50%, balancing between two realities. From a management perspective, this is a critical gap, as top management fails to recognize the phenomenon that manifests itself in the work of supervisors responsible for day-to-day management.

– This is a significant observation that management in particular should pause to consider. Supervisors see the workload firsthand, balance resources against demands, and often bear the brunt of change in their daily work. This is not a difference of opinion, but a signal of a structural risk: while senior management is expected to look far into the future, the risk is that they lose touch with employees’ day-to-day reality. The result can be a decline in trust, which is also reflected in employees’ motivation, commitment, and well-being at work, says Annamari Heikkilä, Terveystalo’s leading organizational psychologist.

Humanity should not be lost as a company grows

In organizations with more than 250 employees, 26% feel that humanity is not emphasized in Finnish working life. In medium-sized organizations, the experience of humanity is already clearly more positive, which supports the idea that humanity is, above all, a matter of power, responsibility, and distance from everyday life. An organization does not become inhumane as it grows, but rather when decision-making becomes detached from the day-to-day work.

– Humanity is currently emphasized in workplace discourse, which is a very healthy trend. In large organizations in particular, the challenge is how to distribute power, responsibility, and decision-making close enough to the actual work. Organizational research shows that in units of 300–500 people, people still feel they belong to the same organization, but in such a large group, decision-making can of course no longer be based on a shared understanding; instead, there is an inevitable need for a multi-level management and control structure, Heikkilä explains.

Technology is both an opportunity for the future of work and an accelerator of workload

The Barometer also examined the greatest opportunities and challenges of the future of work. The result is interesting, as the same themes appear at the top of the list, but with different connotations. In the barometer, technological development is both an opportunity (44%) and a significant challenge (35%). This duality is particularly pronounced in large, knowledge-intensive organizations, where the technological transformation affects broad groups of employees simultaneously.

In addition to solutions, technology also brings pressure for change—sometimes at such a rapid pace that the structures supporting work ability cannot keep up. In knowledge-based fields, as many as 47% of respondents cite supporting continuous learning as a key challenge, and only about two-thirds feel their organization is capable of effectively supporting the acquisition of new workplace skills, such as self-direction and creative problem-solving. Technology itself is not a source of stress, but it becomes one if the structures for learning and recovery are not strong enough.

– Technology enables efficiency gains, but if learning and recovery are not supported, it increases cognitive load and work intensification. Full utilization requires learning, new workplace skills, and structures that prevent an increase in workload, Heikkilä advises.