Employers and employees making it work together

Although the currently available reintegration instruments and strategies for people with occupational disabilities are not ineffective, they are not nearly living up to expectations. Not only the government wants more results, also the clients with disabilities find their trajects ending in disappointment too often. The number of people living on disability benefits is very high and not many of them manage to find their way back to work. There is a gap between employers and the occupationally disabled that needs to be bridged.

Operatie Pelios, an EQUAL project, intends to do just that. The mission of Operatie Pelios is finding options for improving the (re)integration process, thus creating equal opportunities for people with occupational disabilities, ending this vulnerable group's exclusion from the labour market.

• Read about the national and transnational development partners participating in Operatie Pelios -- organisations with plenty of expertise in the area of (re)integration of people with occupational disabilities and/or experience with developing policy.

Methods and strategies

Operatie Pelios applies a new methodology developed and partially already tested by Toeleiding naar Arbeid, introducing two new financial reintegration strategies: Zelfzoekmodel and Prohefsystematiek. These innovative reintegration strategies are compared with each other and against existing models. The experiment's expected positive results may lead to recommendations for the methodology's introduction in current reintegration policy for people with occupational disabilities, to the advantage of both employers and people with occupational disabilities.

• Read about what occupationally disabled participants can do in this project (in Dutch).
• Read about the training and coaching for employers and mentors from educational institutes (in Dutch).
• Read more about the assistance and training methodology developed by Toeleiding naar Arbeid, based on the belief that both people with occupational disabilities and their employers need assistance and training.
• Two new innovative financial incentives are applied in Operatie Pelios in addition to the regular tax reduction for employers, in order to stimulate employers to hire people with occupational disabilities and keep them employed. Read about the three applied financial strategies.

Summary

Operatie Pelios intends to bring employers and people with occupational disabilities closer together. The methodologies developed and the financial strategies applied by Operatie Pelios will reduce the exclusion of people with occupational disabilities from employment. Temporarily incapacitated personnel is accompanied better, with more understanding and more focus on returning to work as opposed to ending up on disability benefits. The experiment is expected to help formulate recommendations that, if converted to official policy, will eventually result in more (new) occupationally disabled people keeping their jobs, as well as stimulating the participation of people with occupational disabilities in the employment process.

The following results are expected:

• Existing barriers between employers and people with occupational disabilities are eliminated.
• Employers will become less reluctant in hiring and keeping people with occupational disabilities.
• Individual strengths of employees with and without occupational disabilities are exploited better (diversity management).
• Drop-out in the workplace is limited.
• Fewer employees end up on disability benefits.
• Fewer people with occupational disabilities are excluded from employment.