From Problems to Barriers: A Bottom-Up Perspective on the Institutional Framing of a Labour Activation Programme

Abstract

Human resource development (HRD) approaches aim to increase service users’ labour market prospects through training and upskilling. However, research on activation policy implementation suggests that individualised, tailored measures may be difficult to implement because of organisational structures, standardised procedures, contradictory professional interests, and broad framework laws. This qualitative study explored the institutional framing of the Norwegian Qualification Programme and how that framing created barriers in service users’ trajectories towards labour market inclusion. The study applied a bottom-up perspective to analyse how these barriers are entangled in a multidimensional web of interrelated and sometimes contradictory relations. Highlighting the service users’ perspective, the study aimed to examine how institutional framing may interfere with the activation policy goal of qualifying service users for the labour market. The results point to how institutional framing governs local practice and creates barriers that ultimately may impede activation policy goals.

Frontline provision of integrated welfare and employment services: Organising for activation competency

“…This resulted in flexibility not being utilised. This finding is in line with previous research highlighting the impact of the organisational context on how users receive services and, more specifically, how frontline workers utilise their room for discretion more narrowly than they could have done (Brodkin, 2013;Hansen, 2020).…”

Activating the person in the changing situation

“…Thus, there was an enhanced institutional focus on work inclusion. However, on an everyday level, the closeness of the follow up in the QP has also depended on which local NAV office one encounters, with the tailoring of measures dependent on the municipal economy and the local availabilities (Schafft & Spjelkavik, 2011;Hansen, 2019Hansen, , 2020. The institutional changes that took place in the QP affected the situation for the QP participants in various ways, including for our research participants (see Findings section).…”

“…Other studies point to how predefined and generalized perceptions of-and prescriptions for activation do not necessarily fit the complex reality of service users (Danneris, 2018;Danneris & Nielsen, 2018;Friberg & Elgvin 2016;Gubrium, 2014;Gubrium & Hansen, 2019). Based on service user experiences and their encounters with social workers, several studies also render visible how institutional and structural conditions on the meso-and macro levels have consequences for service users' everyday experiences in activation (Lundberg, 2012;Hansen, 2020). Even so, the studies primarily focus on the situated context of the service user, as it takes place here and now -the person in today's situation in the here and now institutional context.…”

“…Along with other welfare measures and arrangements, the QP underwent several changes between 2007 and 2013, placing an increased pressure over time on service users to obtain paid employment (Hansen, 2020). In 2012, the QP was reduced from the initial offer of a two-year programme, with the possibility of adding an unspecified extension, to a two-year programme, in which the extension was limited to six months (Norwegian Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, 2011;.…”