There are not good conditions for including vulnerable individuals in our labor market

18.4 percent of the working-age population were outside employment, education, and labor market measures in Norway in 2023, according to figures from Statistics Norway (SSB).

At the same time, research from the Work Research Institute (WRI) at OsloMet shows that exclusion from the labor market has become more prolonged among those who first experienced it.

For vulnerable individuals, it is crucial to have extra support in the workplace when returning to work. Øystein Spjelkavik has researched labor market inclusion throughout his career.

Not all of his conclusions were equally popular – more on that later. But now, attention is finally being paid to the need for more support using mentors.

A Guidance Practice That Promotes Mentorship

The “hybrid model,” where counselors working for the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) collaborate with mentors in the workplace, is a result of research by Spjelkavik and his colleagues.

They found that vulnerable individuals returning to work need extra support within the company.

This must be a physical and dedicated person—not just a financial subsidy from NAV. – Researcher Øystein Spjelkavik.

The mentor’s role is to guide and co-create a positive work environment in close collaboration with the vulnerable employee and the NAV counselor, Spjelkavik explains.

He emphasizes both the cooperation between the counselor and the company, and the mentor’s ability to be a trustworthy conversation partner for the person re-entering the workforce. Trust is far more important than financial subsidies, although subsidies are, of course, important for many companies, he states.

– We want to move away from the idea of passive measures and build an understanding that the mentor, employee, and counselor must create something together through systematic learning, he says.

Workplaces Must Also Learn

You only learn to be a mentor through practice, he continues.

– And it’s not just the person who has been ill who needs to learn—but also the company. Even when things go wrong, there can be a lot of learning.

In one case the researchers worked on, the company couldn’t benefit from the individual but helped him transition to another job.

– Inclusion competence is much more than just placing people somewhere or telling them to toughen up. And good inclusion is good motivation, says the researcher.

Unpopular Research Findings

Early in his career, Spjelkavik began researching so-called in-company rehabilitation, where people with physical and mental health challenges were reintroduced to working life through selected companies.

The researchers were to map how different rehabilitation models worked in practice. Was it more beneficial for companies to send their employees to external experts and counselors, or to handle it themselves?

– We found that there was a lot that companies could do themselves, says Spjelkavik.

But these findings were not well received by private companies offering rehabilitation services and selling them to NAV. That was a long time ago, but we see the same today, Spjelkavik continues.

Unpopular Research Findings

Early in his career, Spjelkavik began researching so-called in-company rehabilitation, where people with physical and mental health challenges were reintroduced to working life through selected companies.

The researchers were to map how different rehabilitation models worked in practice. Was it more beneficial for companies to send their employees to external experts and counselors, or to handle it themselves?

But these findings were not well received by private companies offering rehabilitation services and selling them to NAV.

“That was a long time ago, but we see the same today,” Spjelkavik continues.

– Most people agree on the importance of returning to work quickly after, for example, a head injury. There is far too much distance between rehabilitation services and the everyday reality of the workplace the sick-listed person is returning to, the researcher says.

A Completely New Method

Supported Employment was a completely new method introduced in the early 1990s, where people were placed in jobs in companies as quickly as possible.

– This approach was developed in the U.S., and we were tasked with evaluating its trial in Norway. Instead of spending a lot of resources preparing people with so-called reduced work capacity for employment, they were placed in jobs and ‘prepared on the job,’ with the help of specialized job coaches, Spjelkavik explains.

In 1996, this became known as “Arbeid med bistand” (Assisted Employment), and it was the first measure of its kind in the Nordic region. Such labor market measures were often organized by external providers.

In 2016, the researchers published an evaluation concluding that NAV could just as well handle this themselves – provided they developed their own job specialists – which would also strengthen NAV’s relationships with employers.

– That caused a hell of a stir, says Spjelkavik himself.

This was controversial because it would impact the revenues of the external companies that had previously been responsible for this type of training, he explains.

– At the same time, these actors made most of their money from work-preparation programs and were, at the time, not very interested in developing Supported Employment.

The problem is often a lack of time

Nevertheless, the authorities allocated funding for NAV to pursue professional development in the direction recommended by the researchers’ reports. The result was a new initiative, Extended Follow-Up, operated by NAV itself. Today, the program is known as Supported Employment.

People need to gain positive experiences in practice, he elaborates, and those working in NAV who have good knowledge of their users must also be given time to build relationships with employers. Their knowledge of the users is needed in the workplace, where those same users are expected to grow and become valuable employees.

– The problem is often a lack of time. But many succeed—through strong knowledge development in practice, professional reflection, and solid leadership support, concludes Spjelkavik.