Background and goal of the investigation

It is an important goal of labour market policy to create inclusive workplaces and thereby ensure that fewer people permanently fall outside the employment market. In the letter of intent on a more inclusive working life (the IW Agreement) between the social parties and the authorities, this goal is specified as reducing sickness absence, getting more people with impaired work ability into employment and increasing the actual age of retirement.

The main task of the Inclusive Workplace Support Centres is to guide and assist IW enterprises in their efforts to realise the goals of the IW Agreement in their workplaces. There is an IW support centre in each county. Enterprises can qualify for grants for adaptation of the workplace aimed at preventing sickness absence or for adaptations aimed at enabling persons with impaired work ability to remain in employment. NOK 300 million was allocated to adaptation grants for 2008

The goal of the investigation was to examine the extent to which the IW support centres and the adaptation grants contribute to more inclusive workplaces, and whether a system for operation, cooperation and management has been established for the centres that ensures high goal attainment in the support centres and that the adaptation grants produce effects.

Method

The investigation is based on data from electronic registers, interviews and questionnaires sent to employees of the IW support centres and IW enterprises throughout the country. A document review was also carried out and a hypothetical case was used to test case processing in connection with adaptation grants.

Results

The investigation shows that the extent to which the IW support centres contribute to more inclusive workplaces varies. Many IW enterprises are satisfied with the assistance they receive in connection with work on sickness absence. However, the centres have been less successful in getting employers to improve their recruitment of persons with impaired ability to work. Almost 80 per cent of the IW enterprises asked believe that the assistance from the IW support centres has not resulted in an improvement in their efforts to recruit more people with impaired work ability or in an increase in the actual age of retirement (sub-goals 2 and 3 in the IW Agreement).

The IW support centres have made active efforts to arrange for work training places for persons with impaired work ability, but NAV has not utilised these IW places. Since NAV’s local offices do not have systems for finding suitable candidates for these IW places, the opportunities these places provide are not sufficiently utilised. The investigation also shows that the IW support centres only to a limited extent target the enterprises with the highest sickness absence and that cooperation with the local NAV offices is not good enough in this context.

A total of NOK 50 million was allocated to strengthening the IW support centres in 2007 and 2008. The support centres’ accounts and figures for the number of full-time equivalents worked show that the centres have not been strengthened proportionately with the increased allocation. The investigation shows that the Directorate of Labour and Welfare and the county management in many counties have failed to ensure further development and good integration of the IW support centres in the new NAV organisation.

Allocations for adaptation grants have increased in recent years, but they have been considerably under-utilised every year from 2005 to 2008. The investigation shows that many enterprises with high sickness absence do not apply for adaptation grants and that the allocation is under-utilised.

The investigation shows that adaptation grants stimulate the initiation of measures for people in the workplace who are on sick leave, but that many of the measures for which grants are paid would very likely have been implemented without grant funding. IW enterprises that receive adaptation grants experience a certain reduction in sickness absence, but the effect is modest.

The investigation also shows that case officers have different interpretations of when grants should be utilised. This means that there is a considerable risk that the counties will develop disparate practices in connection with the processing of applications.