Job retention for chronically ill employees: manager perspectives

Human Resource Management

Joke a Haafkens, Helen Kopnina, Martha GM Meerman, and Frank JH van Dijk.

"Facilitating job retention for chronically ill employees: perspectives of line managers and human resource managers." BMC Health Services Resources.

(2011) Vol. 11, No. 104. Published online 2011 May 17.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3118107/

In two or three sentences, abstract the article. What is its major stated purpose?

Chronic disease is one of the most significant issues in the contemporary workplace because it is the single leading cause of loss of employment and disability that affects work adversely. Prior to this study, there had been no research into the approaches of line managers and human resource managers to mitigating the detrimental effects of chronic disease in the workplace. The purpose of this research was to identify issues and approaches considered important to the retention of employees suffering from chronic disease by both line managers and human resource managers.

2. Write down your immediate reaction (can be both intellectual and emotional) to the article.

On an emotional level, I was surprised and saddened to realize that chronic disease is such an issue in the lives of so many people and that it often is the main reason that people lose their jobs. In an intellectual level, I found it interesting to learn how the respective perspective of line managers and human resource managers dictates different approaches to the issues.

3. Does this article report on the findings of research?

Yes. Line managers and human resource managers shared certain perspectives: they agreed that knowledge about chronic disease and its effects on employees is important, that employees share responsibility for job retention, that certain adaptations are necessary, and that company policy must be clear. Meanwhile, line managers focused more on relations between management and employees and on knowledge transfer within organizations whereas human resource managers focused more on organizational culture and support for employees.

6. Is an attempt made to test the hypothesis (es)?

Yes. To the extent the hypothesis was that different types of managers would express different views, that hypothesis was tested by the concept mapping methodology.

7. What is your assessment of how well the author(s) relate the findings to the original question or hypothesis?

The authors seem to have related the findings very directly to the implied hypothesis. The results presented the similarities and differences in the perspectives of the two subject groups.

8. Is the research design specifically stated; what design did they used?

Yes. The authors employed a concept mapping methodology to identify clusters of ideas that could be expressed as being characteristic beliefs and views of the two different groups of subjects and analyzed qualitatively.

9. Is there a comparison and/or control group?

No. The study was a direct comparison of the two groups of subjects.

10. Does the author discuss validity and/or reliability of the instrumentation used?

No.

11. Finally, summarize your assessment of the article, including whether you think the article achieves its originally stated purpose. How well written is it: Is it clear and coherent? Is it logical? What are its primary strengths and weaknesses? Is this article relevant to practice? The litmus test: a) Would you recommend this article to others, if yes, who? b) Could you replicate this study?

The article provides a valuable insight into the different ways that managers may regard and respond to chronic illness in the workplace. It achieves its implied purpose because it does identify explicit beliefs and attitudes of managers and identifies characteristic differences in the respective approaches of different managers based on their specific responsibilities and positions within organizations. If there were any weaknesses in the article, it would only be that the study was conducted on such a small number of subjects instead of representing a larger number of identical inquiries. The article would be highly relevant to practice, precisely because chronic illness is such an important employee retention issue and because management response can either mitigate or exacerbate the related problems. I would recommend the article to any working person facing chronic illness and to any professional manager or HRM professional. Finally, the study is highly replicable by conducting the same survey with different subjects.