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The great resignation was proposed to follow the COVID-19 pandemic, what has emerged is more complex and nuanced than employees simply departing the labour market to improve their work/life balance and seek new opportunities. The combination of challenging financial markets, a range of gendered issues around superannuation and retirement incomes and labour market accessibility for older workers has created a set of conditions which require new evidence to address the interactions between these macro and micro level trends. The ageing of the workforce is not new, but the impacts of the pandemic have created a different set of conditions, some of which may offer opportunities that enable extension of working lives, e.g. higher levels of flexible locations for work, that may promote sustainable workability.

Among occupationally active people, work related musculoskeletal disorders are the main cause of disability, but workplaces are failing to implement evidence-based methods to reduce this risk. Working conditions involve a range of physical and psychosocial factors which impact MSD risk and require comprehensive approaches to identify and then manage these risks. This presentation will explore interactions between work and health, starting from the premise that good work has beneficial health outcomes and supports productivity. Drawing on contemporary and emerging research, the presentation will examine the requirements for healthy work environments and the role of musculoskeletal disorder prevention to support the creation of sustainable working conditions.