Accounting for context: Social enterprises and meaningful employment for people with mental illness

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Many people living with mental illness want paid work, but finding and maintaining mainstream employment remains challenging. In recent decades, social enterprises have emerged as one alternative site for paid employment. Existing research has examined the experiences of people with mental illness working in social enterprises, but less is known about the organizational character of these workplaces. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to develop a better understanding of social enterprises as organizational contexts for workers with mental illness. METHODS:The research employed a qualitative methodology, conducting semi-structured interviews with executive directors and managers at 42 organizations operating 67 social enterprises across Canada RESULTS: While there are strong similarities in organizational mandate to create meaningful employment there are also important variations between social enterprises. These include variations in size, economic activity and organizational structure, as well as differences in hours of work, rates of pay and the nature and extent of workplace accommodation. These variations reflect both immediate organizational contexts as well as broader economic constraints that enterprises confront. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding the varied nature of social enterprises is important for thinking about future enterprise development, and the capacity of such organizations to create meaningful employment for people living with mental illness.

Working Conditions in Social Firms and Health Promotion Interventions in Relation to Employees’ Health and Work-Related Outcomes—A Scoping Review

“…While the majority of studies predominantly analyzed the work and health situation of target staff with mental disorders working in social firms or social enterprises [1,, three studies reported additional employment opportunities for people with learning, sensory, intellectual, or developmental disabilities; or those suffering from long-term unemployment [48][49][50]. Fourteen studies reported evidence gained from the target group itself [28,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]46], nine studies considered a mixed sample (e.g., of employees, managers, or support staff/carers [1,29,[42][43][44][45]47,48,50]), and two studies consisted of a sample of non-disabled participants as key informants (executive directors or managers) [27,49]. Socio-demographic characteristics of the included studies indicated that most participants were male (51-93.75%), except in three studies [30,31,33] (not specified in nine studies [27,29,[41][42][43][44][45]49,50]).…”

“…Fourteen studies reported evidence gained from the target group itself [28,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]46], nine studies considered a mixed sample (e.g., of employees, managers, or support staff/carers [1,29,[42][43][44][45]47,48,50]), and two studies consisted of a sample of non-disabled participants as key informants (executive directors or managers) [27,49]. Socio-demographic characteristics of the included studies indicated that most participants were male (51-93.75%), except in three studies [30,31,33] (not specified in nine studies [27,29,[41][42][43][44][45]49,50]). The age of participants ranged between 35.5 (median [34]) and 48 years (mean [30]) [1,28,[30][31][32][33][34]…”

“…The age of participants ranged between 35.5 (median [34]) and 48 years (mean [30]) [1,28,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]46,47]. Most of the studies (n = 15) reported that employees were working primarily on a part-time basis (less than 35 h) [27,29,[31][32][33][35][36][37]40,41,43,45,[47][48][49]. The job tenure ranged between 15 months (median, [34]) and 7.3 years (mean, [30,37]), whereby seven studies reported an average length of employment of over 5 years [1,28,30,31,35,37,39].…”

“…A range of supportive social interactions at work were described most often in the current state of research, including interactions with supervisors, the natural support of co-workers, customer or community interactions, and those related to organizational or agency partnerships [1,[27][28][29][30][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][47][48][49][50]. Furthermore, the relevance of feedback and appreciation was stated [1,37] and exemplified in two ways, either formally (e.g., when conducting worksite inspections) or informally (e.g., during conversations or customer interactions) [40], which supported employees' performance and satisfaction [40,41].…”

“…Additionally, the social support from supervisors was pointed out as a key resource promoting acceptance and inclusion, applying fair management techniques [30,34,40,41]. Supervisors could shape an environment of learning from previous mistakes, paying attention to how employees are doing at work, and providing practical assistance [27,30,34,49]. Being able to do so, Corbière et al (2019a) highlighted that the participating supervisors received training about mental health conditions in Québec (in adapted enterprises, which have to employ at least 60% of staff with a disability) and in Ontario (in consumer/survivor-run businesses, which were developed and run by people with a mental health condition) [1].…”