Dear reader,
Things are changing in the welfare sector. We feel it in many areas of our work – in dialogues with employees and leaders across workplaces. We hear about increasing pressure, harder prioritizations, and a sense that it is no longer possible to deliver the quality one professionally wants to stand behind.
A phrase we encounter often is: You know what the right thing to do is – but you don’t have the possibility to do it. This is where moral stress arises. And it does not only affect employees – we increasingly see it among leaders as well.
In our work, it is clear that we are in a crisis of expectations. A misalignment between what is expected – and what is actually possible. When this is not addressed collectively, it seeps into everyday practice, where each individual has to make it work. This is a development we are concerned about.
At the same time, a deeper layer emerges. It is not just about organization and resources, but also about having to operate under limitations and losses – and in situations where not everything can be achieved. What does this do to us? And what does it demand of us?
In this newsletter, we look at the crisis of expectations from multiple angles. Susanne Ekman – anthropologist, associate professor, and author of Giftig gæld og udpint velfærd – points to the system dynamics that create pressures of expectations that cannot be met. She will soon release a new book on the crisis of expectations in the welfare state.
Malene Friis Andersen – PhD and organizational psychologist – describes what it means in practice when employees and leaders face the task of making the impossible work.
You can also read an interview with Rikke Brokøb Ølholm Petersen, Unit Manager at the Danish Prison Service, who shares her experiences as a leader in a workday shaped by the crisis of expectations – partly based on a presentation on the topic by Rikke Høgsted at the Danish Nurses’ Association leadership conference.
And in the article “When the Impossible Becomes Part of the Task – and a Shared Responsibility”, we explore a deeper question: What does it do to our work – and to us – when things that cannot be done still have to be handled every day?
In this month’s prevention tool, we focus on prioritization as an unavoidable reality, and on how losses and gains are inextricably linked. We introduce an exercise that creates a shared language for the positions one can find oneself in when something is lost in the work.
Best regards,
From all of us at the Institute for Strain Psychology
What happens when things that cannot be done still have to be handled every day by employees and leaders? Read this article where Rikke Høgsted, founder of the Institute for Strain Psychology, explains the crisis of expectations we are in. What does it do to our work – and to us – and how can we manage it?
How did we end up in a situation where expectations for welfare grow faster than the system can keep up? Read here, where anthropologist and associate professor Susanne Ekman explains the “toxic debt” that arises when we keep promising more than can realistically be delivered.
What happens to employees and leaders when they repeatedly have to make the impossible work in practice? Read here, where organizational psychologist Malene Friis Andersen explains shadow work, moral stress, and the consequences that arise when structural problems end up with the individual.
What does the crisis of expectations look like when you are in the middle of it as an employee or leader? Read here, where Rikke Brokøb Ølholm Petersen, Unit Manager at the Danish Prison Service, describes the feelings of powerlessness that can arise and the need to speak openly about pressures that should not fall solely on the individual.
How do you create a shared language for what is lost when frameworks and possibilities change? Here is an exercise that focuses on the different positions we occupy when something is no longer possible – and how differences in perspective can affect collaboration, workload, and the experience of meaning.
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The expectations crisis refers to the growing gap between what is expected of welfare services and what is actually possible to deliver in practice. Employees and managers often know what the right thing to do is, but lack the time, resources or room for action to do it. When this gap becomes too wide, it can take root in working life.
The expectations crisis becomes particularly serious when the gap between demands and possibilities is made the responsibility of the individual. This can easily lead to powerlessness, guilt and a constant pressure to compensate for something beyond one’s own control. It wears people down — professionally, personally and organisationally.
Moral stress occurs when you know what ought to be done, but do not have the opportunity to do it. The expectations crisis creates precisely these kinds of situations, because demands continue even when the conditions do not make it possible to deliver the desired quality. This is why the two are closely connected.
No, leaders are affected too. Many leaders find themselves caught between political, organisational and human expectations, and are expected to make things work that, in practice, do not add up. This is why the expectations crisis is not just an employee issue, but a shared challenge that must be addressed together.
It cannot be solved by the individual alone. The first step is to put it into words and create a shared language for the priorities, losses and dilemmas that the work entails. This makes it easier to take shared responsibility for what can actually be solved — and for what cannot.
Danish