A critical analysis of disability management practices and actor-enactnment of the social organization and inclusion of sick-listed employees in the workplace.

Participants
Ulrik Gensby

Purpose
The PhD project aims at examining the significance of the workplace for the return to work (RTW) of employees on sick leave, and follows the part of the RTW process located at the workplace. It will illustrate how companies can establish an organizational policy and practice that supports the social organization of RTW throughout the RTW process, including the importance of the part of the personnel policy relating to sick leave, as well as the social processes that shape how the inclusion of  sick-listed employees is tackled in practice at the workplace.

Short project description
The PhD project is aimed at actors at the workplace and employees on sick leave that have wholly or partially returned to work. It is implemented as a systematic literature study and a subsequent exploratory case study. The case study is inspired by participatory action research, and based on history and future workshops (dialogue conferences) as well as focus group interviews with representatives of management and employees.
The goals throughout the project-period are:

• To study the social organization of the return and inclusion of employees on sick leave at the workplace, through the execution of the first Danish research project that will approach RTW from a workplace perspective and furthermore cut across diagnoses.

• To develop a systematic Campbell literature study that analyzes the impact of workplace based disability management programmes promoting RTW, and shed light on the active characteristics of a successful RTW programme.

• To develop new knowledge about how the part of personnel policy dealing with sick leave and RTW unfolds in practice, from an approach that emphasizes the whole RTW process from notification of illness, the period of absence from the workplace, the first return and subsequent inclusion in the workplace.

• To develop new knowledge about how social relationships affect the management of RTW at the workplace, by analyzing actor attitudes and experiences of the RTW process, from the perspective of the workplace actors involved, and employees that have returned to work.

• To give voice to workplace actors and employees that have returned to work, as well as allowing their conceptions about their work and lives to serve as scenarios for developing sustainable workplace disability management practices, promoting inclusion as well as inclusiveness at the workplace.

The project is conducted in collaboration with:

• Roskilde University; the Research Group for Sustainable Working Life.

• The International Research Center In Stavanger (IRIS), Norway; the Research Group for Social Inclusion and Rehabilitation.

• The Danish Technological Institute, Project "Presence at Work".

• SFI Campbell 

Project Period
1st February, 2010 to the end of July, 2012.

Contact
Ulrik Gensby - ugensby@ruc.dk