244 Chapter 8 Part III: The role of supervisors in supporting workers with a work disability For the third aim of this thesis, we qualitatively explored the needs of workers with a work disability with respect to the guidance by their supervisors in relation to their sustainable employability and quantitatively evaluated an intervention for supervisors to improve the sustainable employability of workers with a work disability. The intervention is a supervisor training to improve the guidance they provide to workers with a disability, which is called ‘Mentorwijs’. In chapter 6, interviews were performed among workers with a disability to obtain experiences about the guidance of supervisors who followed the ‘Mentorwijs’ training. Even though workers were very satisfied with the guidance at the workplace, the qualitative results also showed that workers wanted more autonomy and challenges or learning opportunities in their work. Moreover, they mentioned that feeling and treated equal to colleagues and their supervisors is important for having positive relations at the workplace. Supervisor skills that are important for workers with a work disability are communication skills, a supervisor that takes their opinion seriously and listens to them, a supervisor who can adequately deal with problems at the workplace, and who is available for help and asking questions and gives appreciation. These skills are also taught to supervisors in the ‘Mentorwijs’ training. In chapter 7, we evaluated ‘Mentorwijs’ by means of questionnaires and register data. This training was developed to train supervisors in knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to guide workers with a work disability. The results indicated that the training improved knowledge and self-efficacy of supervisors regarding the guidance of workers with a work disability. However, no effects were found on the supervisors’ (intention to) behaviors regarding the guidance of workers with a work disability. Moreover, the sustainable employability of workers with a disability did not significantly improve on the long-term. These results indicated that this training is a promising tool to improve the supervisor guidance of workers with a work disability, but that a more intensive training may be needed to really change supervisors’ behavior and have an impact on workers’ sustainable employability. The extent to which such trainings can be implemented by supervisors at the workplace also depends to a large extent on contextual factors in the organization, such as time, resources and organizational policies to enable supervisors to adequately guide workers with a work disability. Characterize and define workers in a vulnerable position Two different groups of workers were studied in this thesis, namely workers with a lower SEP and workers with a work disability. We defined workers with a lower SEP either by a lower educational level and/or a blue-collar occupation and workers with a work disability by a (mild) intellectual disability, psychological disability, physical disability, (very) low level of education and/or learning delay. As was described in the introduction, both lower SEP workers and workers with a work disability have a more vulnerable position in the labor market, may face more
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