Employers’ views on disability, employability, and labor market inclusion: a phenomenographic study

Figures & data

Table 1: Employer demographic characteristics.

Professional field	No.	Employer/Company	Size^a	Experience of people with disabilities^b
Health care and social care	1.	Personal assistance company	Small	Internship
	25.	Elderly care company	Small	Internship
	26.	Health center	Small	Internship & subsidized employment
Sales, hotel, restaurant and service	2.	Office technology company	Small	None
	3.	Hotel	Medium	Internship & subsidized employment
	10.	Security company	Medium	Internship
	17.	Grocery store	Small	Internship & subsidized employment
	18.	Grocery store	Small	Internship & subsidized employment
	19.	Sports store	Small	Internship & subsidized employment
	21.	Fast food restaurant	Small	Internship & subsidized employment
	22.	Cleaning company	Medium	Internship & subsidized employment
Data, engineering, and science	6.	High technology manufacturing company	Medium	None
	12.	Natural environmental consulting company	Small	Internship & subsidized employment
Economy, administration, culture, and media	5.	Municipal property management	Small	Internship & subsidized employment
	7.	Insurance company	Large	None
	13.	News and media company	Large	None
	14.	Bank	Medium	None
	16.	Authority operator	Large	Internship
Manufacturing, operations, and maintenance	4.	Recruitment company	Medium	Internship & subsidized employment
	8.	Public energy company	Large	Internship & subsidized employment
	15.	Property company	Medium	Internship & subsidized employment
	20.	Property company	Small	Internship & subsidized employment
Agriculture	9.	Packaging company	Medium	Internship
	24.	Dairy company	Micro	Internship
	11.	Agriculture	Micro	None
	27.	Agriculture organization	Micro	None
Building and construction	23.	Painting company	Small	None

a For size of company, the SME definitions (small and medium-sized enterprises) supplied by the Commission of the European Communities are used: micro <10 employees, small <50 employees, medium <250 employees, and large >250 employees.

b Categorized into having experience of people with disabilities through internship, or subsidized employment, or having no experience.

Table 2. The phenomenographic analysis procedure.

The phenomenographic analysis procedure

Familiarizing: In the first step, the first author read through the transcripts in their entirety several times to obtain an overall impression. Condensing: In the second step, the first author identified and marked out significant passages concerning employers’ views on the employability of people with disabilities. These passages were summarized in a text document. Comparing: In the third step, the significant passages were re-read by the three authors and compared. Similarities and variations were searched for. Different aspects of the phenomenon were identified. Grouping: In the fourth step, the authors searched for patterns, and data excerpts with similarities were grouped together. This included going back to the transcripts, consulting the material, and regrouping several times until saturation was reached. The grouping process resulted in three descriptive categories, which were mutually exclusive, but internally related. Taken together, the descriptive categories formed the outcome space of the analysis. Articulating: The next step in the analysis was to capture the essential meaning of the three categories, focusing on how the different aspects were perceived and related internally. Labeling: In the sixth step, the categories were named after their core meaning. Steps 3-6 were repeated in an iterative procedure to make sure the similarities in and differences between the three categories were distinguished and explicit. The categories were labeled employability as constrained by disability, employability as independent of disability, and employability as conditional. Contrasting: A contrasting analysis of the outcome space was carried out by investigating the internal relationships across the categories. Aspects expressed were contrasted with each another to describe the relationship between the categories. This contrasting process was characterized by the negotiation of consensus between the three authors. When searching for similarities and differences between the three categories, the aspects were contrasted in a search for possible relations between all the aspects that were described. Three themes emerged across the descriptive categories; trust, contribution, and authority support.

Table 3. Overview of the categories and selected quotes.

	Constrained	Independent	Conditional
Individual-related aspects	I have to be sure that if it is decided that you will begin at seven this week, that you won’t come in at nine and say that you couldn’t get up. That wouldn’t work. It would be too hard for the rest of us who are working. (Employer no. 24, micro dairy company, experience of internship)	When we recruit, we use a skills-based method, and then it is the person who has the best competence for the job who gets it. If this happens to be a person with a disability, we get the support that the person needs. (Employer no. 16, large authority operator, experience of internship & subsidized employments)	We have employees for taking care of mentally ill persons. We cannot hire someone who is mentally ill. (Employer no 1, small personal assistance company, experience of internship)
Workplace-related aspects	When we recruit, we want someone who works 100% from day one. A trainee is someone who comes in as an addition to that – but that I don’t want as ordinary labor. As long as I can choose the most capable worker, I will. (Employer no. 11, micro agriculture, no experience)	This is not an obstacle for us, because we know that it's worth it. (Employer no. 3, medium hotel, experience of internship & subsidized employments)	A limitation does not have to be an obstacle to their work. You can’t look at an individual’s diagnosis, you have to look at what they can do. (Employer no. 25, small elderly care company, experience of internship)
Authority-related aspects	The wage subsidy can suddenly disappear, you never know… You can be left standing there with an employee with a disability who doesn’t work well and they [the Public Employment Service] don’t want to pay anymore. (Employer no. 18, small grocery store, experience of internship & subsidized employment)	The size of the financial support doesn’t matter. I need my employees to be present. (Employer no. 17, small grocery store, experience of internship & subsidized employment)	It seems like they work in periods, because sometimes I get requests for 30
			interns in a week and then it's quiet for months. (Employer no. 3, medium hotel, experience of internship & subsidized employment)

Figure 1. The outcome space describing the interplay between different individual-, workplace-, and authority-related aspects, the themes from the contrasting analysis, and the employers’ views of employability.