This doctoral dissertation analyses the employability of persons with disabilities, taking into account the competency (in)sufficiency and motivation of disabled employees to engage in training, education and reassignment programs. The paper reviews, in the theory section, the recruitment and career advancement of persons with disabilities, the approach based on competence, education and training of employees with disabilities, and the area of motivation. Recruitment of persons with disabilities and, in particular, the associated job retention and career advancement are the core element of this analysis. The theories of motivation discussed herein serve as the basis to identify factors which affect training, education and reassignment motivation. In this regard, the paper focuses on the impact associated with the (un)satisfaction of the safety need, the impact of outcome expectancy with respect to training, education and reassignment programs, the impact of a mismatch between the competency level required by the job and an individual's perceived level of competency, and on the impact of career advancement opportunities on training, education and reassignment motivation. Focusing the analysis on employees with disabilities is vital because of the hurdles to employment opportunities and barriers to career advancement that the members of this particular group encounter due to their medical condition and the associated consequences on work-related performance. To this end, the paper aims to identify motivational factors which have a positive impact on job retention and career advancement of employees with disabilities so as to improve their work-related performance and competence in general. Taking account of the theoretical background and the topic selected, the dissertation discusses what motivates employees with disabilities to join training and education courses and reassignment programs.
The research was conducted in a large Slovenian enterprise made up of several controlled companies, from which two entities were selected as subjects: a regular company and one established specifically for persons with disabilities. The target group, comprised of employees with disabilities, included older employees and employees with a low level of education, adding an additional challenge as to the choice of method in designing and conducting the survey. The research consisted of five steps: conducting a transparent research study, analysing data obtained from the human resources information system (KIS) (quantitative approach), designing, testing and administering the questionnaire (quantitative approach), evaluating questionnaire data at the company level (qualitative approach) and at the level of external professionals, or third party level (qualitative approach).
The paper aims to design a model of disabled employee motivation with respect to training and reassignment to identify key motivational factors for taking part in training and reassignment programs. These were restricted to factors which, while fundamentally subject to disabled employee's self-perception, were influenced directly or indirectly by the employer through bylaws setting out the normative standards in this area, work process and workplace accommodations, appropriate activities and/or through opportunities for career development.
The results of the research suggest that employment security is not a factor in motivation to take part in training and education courses and in motivation for reassignment programs, which can be largely attributed to a relatively high average value of job security, translating to a need which is satisfied to a degree where it is no longer perceived a concern by employees with and without disabilities alike. The results indicate that physically demanding occupations also have no impact on training, education and reassignment motivation, and that this aspect of work is not a perceived concern on the side of employees with disabilities. This finding, similar to the lack of impact of employment security, is in line with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which states that a lower level of need must be fulfilled to a certain degree before the individual will focus motivation upon higher level needs (Maslow, 1982), and that human motivations move even if a low level need is not completely satisfied (Coutts, 2010, str. 661). The evaluation of survey results at the company and at third party level suggests that, through setting forth some of the variables discussed above (e.g. employment security and physical intensity of work), the type of corporation (a public company) and its legal status, which affects the status of employees with disabilities at both company and state level, have an important impact on the disabled employees' motivation to engage in the activities discussed herein. Employers are required under the law to take account of a person's disability and offer a position of work suitable to the type of their impairment, leading to the assumption that, in a regulated environment, employees with disabilities will be assigned to a position which matches their physical capabilities.
The results concerning the impact of a job's physical requirements are important largely because they indicate that, in a work environment compliant with the relevant disability regulations, employees with disabilities are not assigned to jobs which exceed their physical capabilities, and that physical suitability of a job is not perceived as a motivating or de-motivating factor; as a matter of fact, a certain degree of physical activity is even desired, judging by the results at the company level.
Furthermore, the analysis showed that the severity of impairment was not a statistically significant motivational factor with respect to training, education and reassignment programs. Contrary to expectations, a serious health condition is suggesting a negative effect on training and education motivation and on reassignment motivation. A good health condition was shown to have a positive effect on the motivation to take part in training, education and reassignment programs. This reflects a consideration expressed when formulating the hypotheses, and which suggested a possibility that a serious health problem may have a negative impact on the motivation to engage in additional activities because a person's health takes priority over other objectives. The results also show that better career advancement opportunities do not lead to increased motivation for training, education and reassignment. Under the theories of motivation discussed in this paper (Vroom's expectancy theory in particular) and the evaluation of survey results at the company and third party level, the lack of motivational impact associated with career advancement is layered, and related to an individual's expectancy about their opportunities to develop a career. It is important to note that, on the average, employees with disabilities gave a relatively low rating to their career advancement opportunities.
As far as competencies are concerned, the results indicate that employees who are overqualified for a particular job do not feel less motivated to take part in training and education programs, which is an interesting and unexpected finding. Conversely, this means that employees who are insufficiently qualified for a particular job do not feel compelled to engage in training and education in order to bridge the competency gap, which goes against the expectation that insufficient competencies would serve as a motivating factor to obtain the missing qualifications (Elliot in Dweck, 2005). Being insufficiently qualified also has no effect on the motivation for reassignment. The results show that qualification deficit amongst employees with disabilities is minimal, so it could be assumed that their competencies have reached a point where the employees perceive them to be sufficient for the job concerned, and hence do not seek further improvement.
The results confirmed, to the highest degree, that positive outcome expectancy with respect to education, training and reassignment programs increases the motivation to take part in the said programs, which is in line with Vroom's expectancy theory. The evaluation of the results points out that the effects of outcome expectancy are universal regardless of the status and traits of persons with disabilities. Furthermore, the results lead to a number of additional questions relating to the main topic of this paper. The evaluation at the company and third party level, for example, suggests a strong interrelation between the factors and the potential effects thereof on training, education and reassignment motivation. While a better understanding of these relations could have been obtained through an analysis of the quantitative data structures, the sample collected under this research was unfortunately too small to carry it out such an analysis. As stressed in the evaluation of the results, an important contribution in this dissertation is also the inclusion, in the research study, of a population which is largely absent from international and, in particular, national research.
The methodological objectives of this dissertation are closely associated with scientific and practically applicable objectives, and are intended to deliver, through deploying a number of different research techniques, the highest possible degree of credibility of the research study concerned, assess the acceptability of the survey's data collection method for the subject under research – this proved to be a good and essential point of departure for the qualitative analysis later on – and create a standardized quantitative method of measurement to identify motivational factors amongst employees with disabilities relating to training, education and reassignment programs. The research results – the questionnaire, the two models of motivation and other findings – are as important in the methodological sense of serving as material for further research on this topic as they are in terms of providing useful information in working with this vulnerable group of employees.
Below is a list of the key methodological findings which can benefit future research studies:
The target population's traits can have a significant effect on how the research is conducted (this has been confirmed), so it is imperative to adopt a methodical and consistent approach when structuring and performing the research, testing the method of measurement, and adjusting the way the research is performed.
In-house (company type and bylaws) and external factors (the legislation) can have a significant effect on both the subjects' perception (e.g. employment security) and the variables (e.g. relating to physically demanding work), which affects the research results and can lead to various effects become neutralised in the process, making it difficult to ascertain which effect on the independent variables (e.g. employment security, disability category) is the strongest, and whether this is relevant to the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable.
External factors such as the legislation may affect a variable to a degree which necessitates, for better insight, redefining and splitting it into multiple variables (e.g. a disability category examined by the statutory act under which the disability was recognised and categorised), which has an impact on the complexity of the research and method of measurement at a later stage and can be hampered by limitations associated with the target population's characteristics. To give an example, older employees with a low level of education might not be knowledgeable concerning relevant laws under which their disability was recognised, and the research went so far as to identify that some subjects did not even have knowledge about the category of their disability. The effect of external factors in this particular case was large enough to believe that it helped neutralise the effect on the two dependent variables (i.e. the training and education motivation and the reassignment motivation).
The complexity of the topic at hand suggests the need to adopt advanced multivariate methods such as Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), which can be challenging to apply on populations difficult to include in research, however, owing to a lack of samples which are big enough (a few hundred subjects) – even when the research is conducted in large organisations – because participation is subject to an individual's decision, which in turn depends on the characteristics of the target group.
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