Our research projects

Caring instead of cleaning

Cleaning is hard work, which is why the absenteeism rate is high among cleaners. Returning to their own profession isn’t always a possibility and re-integrating in a different sector proves difficult as their capacities don’t match work supply. This leads to permanent unemployment for people who have valuable potential to work. In times of labour shortages, this is a missed opportunity.

The healthcare sector is dealing with a shortage of qualified personnel. Ideally, these qualified professionals should be able to focus on tasks they are specifically qualified to do. However, in actual practice they perform a lot of tasks that don’t call for healthcare qualifications at all, thereby wasting their potential as well.

Sustainable employability

We perform research to find out which factors influence working people’s sustainable employability. Sustainable employability is defined as someone’s ability to function well at work and within the labour market long-term. People should not be harmed by their work. How, though, is sustainable employability determined, and how can it be improved?

More information may be found here:

Caught somewhere in time: Conceptualizing, measuring, and predicting sustainable employability 

Workplace inclusion of mentally vulnerable people

Mentally vulnerable people are less likely to have paid jobs when compared to the rest of the population. Individual Placement and Support (IPS) has proven to be an effective intervention when guiding these people towards regular jobs. Whereas IPS focuses on the individual and their trajectory (supply driven approach), IWR, Inclusive Work Redesign, focuses on the inclusive organisation by designing work in such a way that it fits people who are unable to participate in the current labour market (demand driven approach). By performing research, we want to gain more insight in clients’ experiences and examine whether combining IPS and IWR will contribute more to sustainable employment, work-related skills and recovery for this group of people than IPS alone.

Inclusive organisations

For most Dutch organisations, their primary reason to (re)design work for people who are unable to participate in the current labour market independently is to meet the criteria of the ‘Banenafspraak’. Later on, it often turns out that social innovation provides added value to the organisation in more ways than one. Several pilots have shown that results vary by organisation. By doing research in the field, we try to gain insight into the critical factors that determine the success of these kinds of social innovation.

You may read the most recent publications concerning inclusive organisations here:

• Disability and employment – overview and highlights 
• A systematic review of the benefits of hiring people with disabilities

Monitoring work capacity

The Maastricht Work Capacity Monitor (MW©M) is an instrument to assist in guiding and supporting employees who cannot participate in the current labour market independently in their development. The MW©M provides insight into important personal characteristics and mental ability, work-related behaviours and performance at work.

You may read more about the reliability of the MW©M here:

• The Development of an Instrument to Measure the Work Capability of People with Limited Work Capacity (LWC)
• Predicting and Assessing Work Performance of People with Limited Work Capacity (LWC): A Multi‑Wave, Multi‑Source Study

Acceptance
 

We perform research to find out which factors influence whether an employee who is unable to participate in the current labour market independently will be socially accepted within a group of colleagues. What is acceptance, how should we define it? Which factors influence acceptance (at work)?

More information may be found here:

Factors Affecting the Acceptance of People with Disabilities at Work: A Literature Review 

Organisational climate

We perform research to figure out which conditions need to be met to let people who are unable to participate in the current labour market independently participate optimally. Sustainable employability for both this group and people already working is high on our agenda as well. We ask questions like: which building blocks are most useful for increasing workplace inclusion? Which factors are most likely to lead to sustainable integration?

More information may be found here:

• The building blocks of workplace inclusion
• Lending a Helping Hand at Work: A Multilevel Investigation of Prosocial Motivation, Inclusive Climate and Inclusive Behavior
• How and when stereotypes relate to inclusive behavior toward people with disabilities

Stress Impact

Stress Impact is a research study of Long Term Absence (LTA) from work due to stress related health problems.

Mental and behavioural disorders are currently in some countries (e.g. United Kingdom, The Netherlands) the most frequently mentioned reasons for long-term absence from work, and responsible for about a third of all long-term absenteeism (UK: DWP statistics, Nov. 2002). Stress is probably the most important underlying problem in this diagnostic category. Workers on long-term absence as a result of stress have a very low probability of returning to work. Current rehabilitation and return to work models are often developed on the basis of mainly physical conditions and as a result are ineffective in responding to the needs of workers experiencing long term absence as a result of stress related psychological problems.

This project focused on people who are long term absent from their work because of stress related mental health complaints.

Read more: Stress Impact