Development of the workplace inclusion questionnaire (WIQ)

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Psychology
• Sociology

Background:

• Workplace inclusion of individuals with health problems is crucial for a diverse workforce.
• Understanding employee and manager attitudes is key to facilitating inclusion.
• Existing tools for measuring these attitudes are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a questionnaire assessing attitudes towards including employees with diverse health conditions.
• To evaluate the questionnaire's utility in a real-world labor market population.

Main Methods:

• A questionnaire was developed via expert discussions and pilot testing.
• The final instrument, comprising 10 case stories, was administered to 485 managers and employees in Norwegian kindergartens.
• Risk ratios and confidence intervals were used to analyze inclusion likelihood based on health conditions.

Main Results:

• Attitudes towards workplace inclusion varied significantly across different health case stories.
• Individuals with mental illness presented higher risk ratios for exclusion compared to those with musculoskeletal disorders.
• Chronic or unspecific illnesses also showed higher exclusion risks than acute or specific conditions.

Conclusions:

• The developed questionnaire effectively measures attitudes regarding the inclusion of individuals with various health issues in the workplace.
• The tool demonstrated its value in identifying significant variations in inclusion likelihood based on specific health profiles.
• Findings highlight the need for targeted interventions to address attitudinal barriers to workplace inclusion.