A professor surrounded by his students
Research

Cooperation between Employees and Employer Services

NWCEE

Project lead
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Brandl
Prof. Dr. Michaela Schulze

Project duration
2022 – 2024

Cooperation partners
Associate Professor Thorsten Braun & Edda Merete Luth
VIA University College – Society and Social Work | K-8000 Aarhus C, DK | /

Cooperation partners for case study surveys
Denmark: Ph. D. Hans Erik Madsen, Århus, DK,
Austria: SCHUMACHER – Reformative FORSCHUNG, Dr. Ulrike Schumacher, Görlitz/Zittau,
Germany: ZEP - Zentrum für Evaluation und Politikberatung, Kaps & Oschmiansky PartG, Berlin, Petra Kaps, Frank Oschmiansky,

Publications and presentations

Core Issue and Aim

The core issue of the investigation is new forms of cooperation between employee and employerteams within local employee services, and new ways of addressing issues for companies so as to integrate vulnerable people into the labour market (the long-term unemployed, those with few qualifications, and others). The organisational changes will be compared across countries, namely in Denmark, Austria and Germany, and the role of the counsellors involved (in Germany: integration specialists, IFK) and the options they have will be examined.

The aim is to develop the conditions for such internal and external collaborations, focusing on specialists' requirements, skills and ways of behaving, depending on their organisational integration. Based on the experience from the countries, requirements and ways of behaving such as the integration specialists' need for qualification are to be determined, learning incentives for the further development of effective forms of counselling derived, and the corresponding teaching modules drawn up at the HdBA and VIA.

Starting Points, Research Status

The integration of vulnerable groups of people in the first and social labour market in job centres in Denmark and in Germany is the focus of various projects. Initial findings show that innovative applicant and employer orientation sometimes takes place in clear distinction from established structures and ways of working in regular employee-oriented (applicant-oriented) placement and employer services (AGS). There seems to hardly be a transfer of experience in regular placement work. [1]

The results confirm a dependency found in many previous studies: the lower the care ratio and the higher the level of contact and therefore the chances of the unemployed having more individual counselling, the higher the probability of integration. Proactive and personal contact with local employers combined with - compared to the AGS - a more comprehensive range of services and indepth knowledge of the work situation (specific requirements, such as how tasks can be reorganised for the benefit of those being supported but with no professional training, amongst others) also have a positive effect. At the same time, it shows that splitting into regular employer- and employee-oriented teams and technical matchingprocesses causes interface problems. These seem to be resolved by being able to create mixed teams or through new forms of cooperation. Independent of whether the original division of work is maintained or whether a counsellor serves both sides, specific demands are placed on their own role model: A mutual understanding must be developed for the other field, respectively, knowledge must be exchanged, new ways of working and both formal and informal communication structures established and experienced. More intensive work with clients and employers brings about further skills; however, managers also have to direct processes differently and take into account aspects like motivation, procedures and support, instead of just the results. It does not always appear that detailed training and other support services are always available or necessary for this purpose. The development of newer offers for employers and employees or also those looking for work depends on freedom of action and windows of opportunity opened up centrally (by legislators or on the national level of employment administration) for example in the form of ESF projects or new funding tools as well as both internal and external local conditions.

[1]       Generic findings can be found in: Brandl, Sebastian; Braun, Thorsten (2022): Arbeitgeberorientierte Integration von Langzeitarbeitslosen – Zur Relevanz von street-level organizations am Beispiel von Jobcentern in Dänemark und Deutschland. (Labour Market Integration of the Long-term Unemployed – On the Relevance of Street-level Organisations Using the Example of Job Centres in Denmark and Germany) Working Paper Nr. 2 of the HdBA Sociology and Labour-Market Policiessubject group. August 2022. 

Research Questions

The current status of research has produced the following project questions:

  • What organisational process and communication changes were implemented for tighter communication links between employee and employer services and cooperation with employers? What are the specific steps dependent on? What boundaries/stressful relationships can evolve?
  • What changes came about during the Corona crisis for such approaches?
  • How do these innovations change the work of the counselling specialists? What (skills) requirements arise? How do the counsellors deal with them ("what they can and are allowed to do") and does the close contact change what action they take?
  • What qualification opportunities accompany the new formats?
  • What boundaries are an issue for transfer effects from model approaches to regular teams ?
  • What similarities and differences can be noted between the cases and between the countries? What learning input can be derived?

Methodological Approach

Based on literature and documentation analyses, the winter of 2002/23 will see four comparable case studies in Denmark, Austria and Germany. These will be selected based on good-practiceinsights, regional aspects and the cooperation with national labour administrations. The methodological basis is mainly expert discussions with those involved from various areas of responsibility and hierarchical levels within local/regional labour administration and with selected cooperating companies. Data from the country studies will be analysed by the project team using case studies based on interviews and documents. The overall evaluation and the country comparison will follow and should be completed by autumn 2024. The transfer of findings (publications, practicalworkshops, further education/teaching modules) will take place successively.