How supervisors and coworkers enable workplace practices to foster success for employees with mental health and/or addiction challenges

Abstract

PurposeThe goal of this study was to understand which employee-focused workplace practices and priorities – more formally known as human resource (HR) practices and priorities – employees with mental health and/or addiction challenges (MHAC) valued and how they perceived the day-to-day implementation of those practices and priorities in the workplace integration social enterprises (WISEs) that employed them.Design/methodology/approachTwenty-two WISE workers who self-identified as having serious MHAC participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and coded to identify ways that employees did or did not feel supported in their WISEs.FindingsParticipants identified three HR practices and two HR priorities as important to establishing an inclusive workplace that accommodated their MHAC. The extent to which individual participants felt included and accommodated, however, was shaped by interactions with their supervisors and coworkers.Originality/valueBy evaluating the salience of WISEs’ employee-focused workplace practices and priorities through the lens of the employees themselves, our study articulates the critical role that interactions with coworkers and supervisors have in determining whether HR practices and priorities have the intended effect on worker experience.