Graded Work, the Activation of Sick-Listed Workers and Employer Participation in Continental Europe

Abstract

There is an increasing emphasis on activating workers on sick leave and on using their residual work capacity. This article compares activation via graded-work schemes in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands, with a focus on the role of employers. The analysis of literature sources and survey data reveals an ongoing reform activity, as well as great diversity in terms of employer obligations and incentives in the countries studied. These differences are very consequential for the intensity of employer efforts to activate sick-listed workers, even when comparing countries that otherwise share many institutional features. The distinction between public and privatised systems of sickness insurance, on the contrary, seems to be less relevant for the question of employer participation in activation. The findings are consistent with the expectation that less comprehensive employer participation is correlated with stronger selectivity in activation efforts. Depending on the prevailing approach in the individual countries and on developments to date, policy-makers are confronted with different challenges and priorities.

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“…Making use of partial working capacity has been seen as an important tool for increasing work participation ( 1 , 2 ). During the last decades, the Nordic countries as well as some countries in continental Europe have strongly begun to develop work disability policies to promote part-time work during sickness absence (SA) ( 3 , 4 ).…”

Associations of employment sector and occupational exposures with full and part-time sickness absence: random and fixed effects analyses on panel data

“…Partial sickness allowance is a benefit that enables employees with work disability to be absent from work for rest, treatment or rehabilitation and still remain working for a proportion of the time. Partial sickness 2 Scand J Work Environ Health -online first Work-related factors and full and part-time sickness absence benefits and graded return-to-work have been increasingly used in the Nordic countries (24) and continental European countries such as Germany and Austria (25) to support part-time work participation during sickness and to facilitate faster full work resumption. There are yet only a few studies concerning the use of partial sickness benefits in different groups of employees (26,27).…”