Vis mindreMalene Friis Andersen – employees and the consequences

When expectations and conditions do not align in welfare services, the problem does not stop at system level. It continues into the everyday working life of the professionals who are expected to make everything function.

This is where Malene Friis Andersen directs her attention. As a PhD and organisational psychologist, she has worked for many years with working life and strain in the welfare professions — most recently in the book “It Could Be So Good”, in which she examines why it so often does not turn out that way. She points out that many employees today experience increasing pressure, where they are unable to deliver the quality they professionally believe is necessary. Not because they lack competence — but because the conditions do not make it possible.

In this situation, something characteristic happens. Employees begin to compensate.

“No one asks employees to do shadow work — but it is difficult not to."

– Malene Friis Andersen

What she calls shadow work refers to the extra efforts employees make beyond what is formally possible — often without it being visible to leadership and the organisation. These may be small shifts: staying a little longer, having an extra conversation, skipping a break. But they may also be larger things — being available outside working hours or taking on tasks that are actually outside one’s area of responsibility.

According to Malene Friis Andersen, this is sometimes understood as a question of setting boundaries. But that explanation does not go far enough. It is very much about professionalism and responsibility — and about the experience that no one else will pick up the task if you let go of it yourself.

The consequence is that a structural problem is gradually turned into an individual matter. When employees try to make the impossible add up, it becomes less visible that the task cannot actually be solved within the given conditions. This significantly increases the strain.

“You know what is professionally right — but you do not have the opportunity to act on it."

– Malene Friis Andersen

This is where what can be described as moral stress arises. A strain that is not only about busyness, but about being placed in situations where you repeatedly have to compromise your professionalism. If this becomes an ongoing condition, she points out, the risk is not only increased stress, but also resignation and people leaving the profession. And with that, the very foundation of the welfare task is weakened.

The alternative is not that the individual employee simply has to become better at saying no. Rather, it is about moving responsibility back into the collective. According to Malene Friis Andersen, this requires a clearer language for what creates value — and what must be deprioritised. And not least, spaces for sharing doubts and dilemmas, so they do not end up as individual burdens. Last but not least, it is also about leading upwards and insisting on clear expectation alignment with the citizens or patients one is responsible for: What is possible — and what is not possible within the given conditions.

Read our newsletter about the expectations crisis here.