Workplace services and reactions to them

In the workplace and combined groups, people described the following services.

Mediation with employers

Being accompanied to meetings with employers or occupational health services, and direct contact between the provider and the employer. These interventions could be very effective and well received by clients. People felt that having a third party involved, even where the provider had corresponded with the employer rather than being involved in joint meetings, had led to a change of approach by the employer. Some people said it had been helpful that the provider had reminded the employer of their legal responsibilities. They described employers showing more concern and flexibility, being more proactive in initiating discussions about the return to work and making suggestions for how this might be facilitated. One person described this as making their employer ‘sit up and take notice’.

Being accompanied to meetings with a line manager, human resources staff and occupational health staff was also seen as very helpful, particularly where people had not found their employer’s approach supportive. They talked about the added confidence of knowing that someone was ‘on your side’ at the meeting, and described provider staff helping them to answer difficult questions, asking pertinent questions which the employee had not thought of, and highlighting the significant health improvements they had made. One woman, who was unable to return to her previous job but was concerned about being moved to another inappropriate site, said the provider helped her to understand what redeployment might mean and that it could be positive, reinforced her argument to the employer that the wrong site could be harmful to her health, and was central to the negotiation of a successful return to a different job.

There were also criticisms of provider staff’s work here though. People who felt they had not been fully informed about provider staff’s contact with their employer found this very unhelpful. Some people felt the staff member did not seem to be sufficiently experienced or skilful at negotiating with employers and felt they lacked credibility and effectiveness. One person said the provider put unhelpful pressure on the employer, pressing for a return to work which the client themselves thought was far too rapid.

Advice about strategies for returning to work

Such as graduated returns, lighter duties, working from home. This was helpful to people who had not considered these options themselves, but they were not always able to persuade employers to allow them. Although people were generally happy with the help, one woman felt the graduated return plan drawn up by the provider was too rushed and reflected their lack of understanding of her condition. She instead followed the more gradual plan proposed by their employer’s occupational health service and found even this quite demanding but felt the provider’s suggestion would have been harmful to her.

Workplace assessments and advice

Workstation assessments, functional capacity assessments and advice from occupational therapists. As with health interventions, this included help with understanding how to manage a condition and using diaries to understand what levels of activity could be sustained. These types of help could also be helpful in understanding job options and whether a return to previous work was feasible. No one in the study samples described equipment being provided by the services, but one person had been offered it (shortly before the last research interview), and another had been advised on the set-up of her workstation.

Vocational guidance

Psychometric tests, vocational assessments or careers advice. This did not seem to be experienced as particularly helpful by people because, in the cases in the study sample, it did not generally identify what they saw as a feasible vocational direction.

One person, for example, described being told of far too many possible job options which made it difficult for him to see how he could follow up on the advice.

Jobsearch support

Help with CVs, advice about applying for jobs, encouragement to contact Jobcentre Plus services or other organisation such as Remploy16_{. This was welcomed and in one}

case led to a job being identified for which the client successfully applied.

Information about training courses

There were mixed reactions to this, depending on how far it helped people to move forward. One man was pleased with the help he received and enrolled on a course which he thought would be helpful in developing his career. But a woman who was encouraged to apply for a course was disappointed because she had wanted to be given information about jobs, and could not see how the course would be relevant to finding appropriate work.

Advice about money management and benefits

Help with completing forms. This could be very helpful to people, especially if they had no experience of the benefits system and found applying bewildering or undermining. However, one man felt it had come too early, at a point when he still hoped to return to work, and he could not recall the details once he did have to apply. A woman was surprised to be told that she should come off Income Support (IS) and apply for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) instead to indicate her commitment to returning to work, at a time when she felt far from well enough to do so.

The most extensive combinations of support were described by people who were accompanied to meetings with employers, helped with investigating other jobs (either by discussion with the case manager, or being put into contact with Access to Work or a DEA, or given vocational advice, help with CVs and help with job applications), and given advice about benefits and/or debt management. Alongside this, there were cases where only one type of help – mediation between the client and the employer – had been effective. However, there were also cases where people in the workplace group had received no help, instead being encouraged to contact the service when they felt well enough to return to work, or if they had questions in the meantime.