PurposeThe purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion on how to increase lower educated workers' participation in training programs inside and outside the workplace through stimulating intentions with respect to training.Design/methodology/approachThis article is based on data from the Study on Life Long Learning and Employment by TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), a three‐wave longitudinal study among lower educated workers in three different companies in The Netherlands. Data from the baseline questionnaire on 213 workers who are not currently participating in training activities are used along with a multiple regression model to test whether subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, attitude/expected value, management support, coworker support, career orientation, job insecurity and prior participation in informal learning correlate with lower educated workers' intentions with respect to training.FindingsThis study shows that when stimulating lower educated workers' intentions with respect to training, one should focus on their attitude towards training participation, their subjective norms on training participation and their perceived behavioral control over participating in training. These aspects can be influenced through management support, coworker support and promoting career orientation. These factors contribute to the personal factors and thus, although indirectly, stimulate intentions with respect to training.Originality/valueThis article is the first to present clear ideas on ways to stimulate lower educated workers' intentions to participate in workplace learning activities and to develop interventions to strengthen their current and future labor market position. It also shows that in stimulating lower educated workers' intentions with respect to training the focus should be on individual, as well as organizational, or group factors.

This paper presents how work participation for employees with common mental health problems can be promoted through mechanisms and contextual factors in the workplace. Practical implications for employers concern multilevel interventions for teams and individuals, including short-term adjustments and social and practical support at work. We suggest professionals to assess and intervene on the presented set of capabilities rather than employee's mental health condition.

In this article we study which characteristics of combining work and family put people at risk for mental illness. Two alternative perspectives on the impact of multiple social roles on mental health are tested: the role accumulation perspective and the role strain perspective. Both perspectives are studied with data from a cross-sectional national survey held among a large, representative sample of Dutch people (N=1008). Multivariate analyses provided support for both perspectives. Having more social roles was related to better mental health. We also found a positive mental health effect of having a full-time job in combination with having children. However, having a partner who contributes less to household duties or having a job with low decision latitude or lower skill discretion was related to mental illness. So, certain aspects of social roles may also threaten people's mental health. Overall, our findings do not support the idea that combining work and family is necessarily a burden and harmful for people's mental health. Whether multiple social roles are a blessing or burden for people's mental health seems to depend on the characteristics of the social roles.

This article explores the implications of creating a role for private-sector partners in public employment services (PES), rather than creating quasi-markets. It focuses on how the engagement of employers in public-private networks with local government can enhance employment opportunities for disadvantaged welfare recipients but may require a further shift in local public services. The theory relates to contractual arrangements versus network modes of publicprivate partnerships. Based on surveys among employers and welfare recipients, and interviews with politicians, managers, and frontline workers in five Dutch municipalities, the article provides detailed evidence on innovative and promising cases of public-private networks in employment services. It shows that, under certain conditions, vulnerable jobseekers are better served by a network involving employers than by the standard supply-driven approach that predominates in quasi-markets. It also reveals that public and private partners have yet to fully embrace the implications of the network approach for their respective roles. The article contributes to the theoretical debate on public-private partnerships in the context of PES, reflecting on public-private networks as a policy design that could help improve employment opportunities for disadvantaged jobseekers. ---This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

BACKGROUND: Work participation among employees with common mental disorders (CMDs) is an increasingly important, yet highly complex phenomenon. Given the call for preventing instead of reacting to negative work outcomes, there is a need to understand how employees with CMDs can continue working. OBJECTIVE: 1) to provide insights in applying a realist approach to the literature review process and 2) to present a way to develop an explanatory framework on work participation, the related causal mechanisms and the interaction with the work context. METHODS: A systematic realist literature review, using stay at work (SAW) and work performance (WP) as outcomes of work participation. This protocol paper explains the rationale, tools and procedures developed and used for identification, selection, appraisal and synthesis of included studies. RESULTS: The review process entailed six steps to develop so called ‘middle range program theories’. Each step followed a systematic, iterative procedure using context-mechanism-outcome (CMO) configurations. CONCLUSIONS: Conducting a realist review adds on the understanding to promote work participation, by examining the heterogeneity and complexity of intervention- and observational studies. This paper facilitates other researchers within the field of occupational health by demonstrating ways to develop a framework on work participation using realist synthesis.