Beekman, Liz

Reintegration and working from home: A guideline for the responsible integration of working from home in return-to-work trajectories.

After long-term sickness absence, it is important to implement proper return-to-work trajectories to help employees in responsible work resumption. Until recently, working from home was not systematically considered in return-to-work trajectories as a potentially effective way to enable step-by-step work resumption. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, tools are now in place to enable working from home in many work sectors and occupations. This creates a momentum to investigate the potential benefits of embedding working from home in return-to-work trajectories. A guideline that helps to systematically consider working from home in return-to-work trajectories would be opportune. The goal of this project is to develop this guideline together with societal stakeholder parties, to enable employers, employees, and occupational physicians to systematically consider if, when, for whom and under which circumstances working from home can be used as a useful tool for work resumption in return-to-work trajectories. The value and effectiveness of using this guideline in practice will be investigated by means of realist evaluation research.

(Co-)promotors:

Dr. Debby Beckers (promotor), Prof. dr. Cecile Boot (promotor), Dr. Yannick Griep (co-promotor), Dr. Brigitte Claessens (co-promotor).