Employee mental health claims have become a costly burden for Canadian workplaces, therefore many organizations are seeking to adopt progressive disability management strategies to support employees with mental health conditions who are either returning to work or trying to remain at work. Developing and implementing effective workplace accommodation practices is one such strategy to support employees. Negotiating workplace accommodations has been recommended in the literature to be an interactive process between the employee and workplace stakeholders. However, there is very limited knowledge regarding the ways in which discussing and negotiating accommodations unfolds, or how employees and stakeholders experience the process of negotiating accommodations. This thesis includes the results of a qualitative study exploring how negotiating accommodations unfolds between employees with mental health conditions and workplace stakeholders, and a sub-analysis of the larger study data exploring how social capital can impact the negotiation process.
In order to capture varied perspectives, in depth interviews were conducted with employees in diverse roles who self-identified as having a mental health condition that required accommodation, and stakeholders who were experienced in negotiating accommodations. A qualitative descriptive design was used to iteratively collect and analyze data. Constructive and interpretive strategies including initial and focused coding, memo writing and clustering were used to identify themes about negotiating accommodations.
The negotiation process, as reported by participants in this study, was found to be a non-linear, social and political process that unfolded as a combination of micro formal and informal sub-processes, in contrast to the concrete, formal accommodation process mandated by some organizational policies. In addition, there were a number of factors that were experienced as either helpful or challenging in the process of negotiating accommodations.
Social capital arose as an important element influencing how employees with mental health conditions accessed accommodations. The findings of a qualitative sub-analysis of the original data set focused on the ways in which workplace social capital impacted the experience of requesting and negotiating accommodations. Some elements of social capital were found to be dynamic, with workers able to accumulate, rebuild and spend social capital in the course of their employment. Employee reputation, employee self-confidence and likeability with coworkers and managerial staff arose as key elements of social capital. Other elements of social capital were external perceptions constructed by coworkers and workplace stakeholders, such as return-on-investment of accommodating and judgements of value to the organization. Overall, workplace social capital appeared to impact how employees experienced the process of requesting and negotiating accommodations, but it was not the determining factor of whether accommodation requests were granted. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This Master’s thesis focused on the process of discussing and negotiating workplace accommodations between workers with mental health conditions and workplace stakeholders. Six workers with mental health conditions and 6 other workplace stakeholders who had experience negotiating accommodations shared their experiences in interviews. Study findings highlighted that the negotiation process can be complex and non-linear, and is impacted by social and political factors. Workplace social capital had an impact when workers with mental health conditions requested and negotiated accommodations. For example, employee self-confidence, “likeability” (as perceived by coworkers and management), reputation as a good performer and perceived value to the organization appeared to shape how workers experienced the process of negotiating accommodations. Worker status and position also reportedly had an impact on access to supports. It should be noted, however, that social capital was only one of the factors that workers needed to be successfully accommodated, and their social capital could be at risk of being exhausted due to behavior or performance issues. This thesis expands our understanding of the accommodation negotiation process, and the impact of social and political forces on disability management strategies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/24762 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Hossain, Sabrina |
| Contributors | Gewurtz, Rebecca, Rehabilitation Science |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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