The study was the first qualitative phase of the participatory TAPE mixed-methods project, conducted from November 2022 to August 2023. It recruited organisational decision-makers from small and medium-sized enterprises across different sectors through regional networks, professional contacts, collaboration with partner organisations, media notices and direct contact. Purposive sampling sought variation in organisational role, company size, sector and previous experience of employing people with mental health problems. The 29 participants included managing directors, department heads and human resources professionals with responsibilities for recruitment, supervision or personnel management.

Researchers conducted semi-structured online interviews lasting 21 to 59 minutes. The interview guide addressed participants’ experiences with employees with mental health problems, attitudes toward labour market participation, perceived facilitating and hindering factors, and expectations of employees. Two researchers conducted the interviews, which were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and pseudonymised. Participants provided informed consent, and the study received ethics approval from the University of Ulm, committee reference 180/22.

All interviews and analyses were conducted in German. The researchers used structuring qualitative content analysis in MAXQDA 2024, beginning with deductive main categories based on the interview guide and then adding inductive subcategories as new material emerged. Coding decisions and interpretations were discussed in participatory workshops involving researchers with and without experience of mental illness. The team iterated the category system until consensus was reached, revisited coded passages to check consistency and continued recruitment until subsequent interviews produced no new substantive codes or categories.

Three main themes emerged: ambivalences and uncertainties; facilitating and resource-focused orientations; and employers’ expectations toward employees. Many participants described mental health problems as increasingly normalised and no longer taboo. At the same time, they expressed uncertainty about their prevalence within their organisations, how mental health conditions affect work, and how they should respond. Some employers described depression and burnout as comparatively manageable, while bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia were associated more strongly with unpredictability, risk, absence or disruption of the wider team.

Practical constraints were central to these accounts. Participants raised concerns about fluctuating capacity, frequent or prolonged absence, reintegration processes that could take months or years, staffing, scheduling and dependencies between colleagues. Some also described uncertainty about interacting with affected employees, including worry about behaviour that might breach workplace boundaries. Employers weighed individual support needs against the interests of the team, reflecting tension between inclusion and perceived fairness or collective functioning.

Supportive motives also featured prominently. Participants referred to social responsibility, the health-promoting role of employment, the value of retaining trained and experienced staff, and shortages of workers. Employment was described as providing daily structure, social integration and a sense of personal value. Several employers regarded experience of a mental health crisis as a possible source of self-confidence, resilience or sensitivity to boundaries. Positive previous experiences with an affected employee were also associated with greater willingness to hire or support such workers.

Workplace support was presented as conditional. Employers wanted practical information about an employee’s limitations rather than relying solely on a formal diagnosis. They expected employees to assess their needs realistically, seek treatment or stabilisation and take personal responsibility for maintaining their mental health, with workplace support viewed as supplementary. Disclosure was considered necessary for identifying support needs and arranging adjustments, although participants acknowledged the risk of stigma. Trust in supervisors and colleagues was described as a prerequisite for openness, and transparency about limitations could itself help build that trust.

The findings do not measure the prevalence of employers’ views or establish that any approach improves employment outcomes. The sample was confined to one region and consisted of small and medium-sized enterprises, limiting generalisation to other labour markets, organisational sizes and institutional settings. Self-selection may have favoured employers already interested in mental health. In addition, the study reports employers’ accounts rather than directly observing workplace practices, and it does not show how employees experience or negotiate the expectations attributed to them. The authors state that the qualitative phase was exploratory and that the subsequent quantitative phase was intended to examine the findings in larger samples and assess differences among employer groups.

Subject of Research: Employers’ perspectives on workplace inclusion of people with mental health problems

Article Title: Between support and uncertainty: employers’ perspectives on workplace inclusion of people with mental health problems

Article References: Krumm, S., Mayer, L., Feige, S., Stasch, N., Renz, L., Braun-Volkert, C., Kilian, R., & Almer, E. (2026). Between support and uncertainty: employers’ perspectives on workplace inclusion of people with mental health problems. BMC Health Services Research, 26(1), Article 1321. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-026-15665-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12913-026-15665-x

Keywords: workplace inclusion, mental health, employer perspectives, qualitative research, employment, work organisation, employee disclosure, workplace support, organisational practice, Southern Germany, Between, support

The context is stark. Global forced displacement rose from roughly 40 million people in 2012 to 108.4 million in 2022, and Sweden’s foreign-born population now stands at around two million residents, approximately 20 percent of the population. Yet integration into the Swedish labour market remains slow. The average refugee waits about three years for a first job, and after fifteen years in the country only 59 percent of refugee women are established in working life, compared with 82 percent of native-born women. Women with refugee backgrounds face the longest periods of inactivity, and once employed they risk double discrimination based on both ethnicity and gender, which can mean exclusion from workplace networks, blocked promotions, and lower pay.

Previous research has catalogued the barriers and facilitators of labour market entry: higher education speeds the transition, language learning and vocational training help, and strategies such as volunteering, using social networks, and accepting low-quality survival jobs are common. But the Swedish team wanted to move beyond this structural accounting. Drawing on the sociologist Vanessa May’s conceptualisation of belonging and on Yuval-Davis’s politics of belonging, they reframed the question. Belonging, they argue, is not a fixed end-state achieved once someone is employed. It is a dynamic, continually negotiated process shaped by interactions, emotions, and power dynamics, and it captures dimensions of integration that employment statistics cannot see.

The researchers recruited eleven women aged 22 to 44, all from non-European countries, all with work experience in Sweden and all able to speak Swedish. They had lived in Sweden between three and ten years and were recruited through a local church, a Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) school, and Women On Wednesdays, a networking organisation for foreign women. Each participant took part in a life-story interview lasting between 60 and 130 minutes, with a median of 100 minutes, and face-to-face sessions included a deliberate coffee break to ease conversation. The transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis in an abductive logic, moving back and forth between the women’s narratives and the theoretical concepts of belonging until four robust themes emerged.

The first theme, navigating language and everyday communication, revealed how deeply linguistic hierarchies structure workplace life. The women described Swedish as the currency of participation, the language that opened doors to recognition and trust. One participant initially refused to learn the language because she did not see her future in Sweden, but a difficult first job changed her mind. If you cannot speak Swedish, she explained, someone else can go to the boss faster and tell what happened, and that is unfair. The study found that formal language instruction was insufficient on its own; workplaces became crucial arenas where women gained confidence by being surrounded by Swedish-speaking colleagues and given opportunities to speak and be heard.

The second theme concerned the embodied negotiation of cultural norms. Women described adjusting dress, gesture, tone, and even humour as they learned Swedish workplace codes. One participant explained that her hijab was part of her identity but not always a religious statement; at work it signalled her boundaries, such as not hugging colleagues, and when those boundaries were respected she felt safe and accepted. She also noted that some immigrant women removed the hijab to avoid discrimination or missed opportunities. Others described learning to interpret jokes and indirect communication over months of listening and observation. The researchers interpret these accounts as a gradual, embodied learning process in which women remained authentic to themselves while navigating expectations implicitly coded as Swedish, exposing the conditional nature of inclusion.

Relational belonging emerged as perhaps the most powerful force in the women’s trajectories. Informal mentors, Swedish families who extended invitations, internship supervisors who helped write CVs and served as references, and community organisations all filled gaps that formal integration programmes could not. Crucially, the quality of relational encounters mattered more than mere access to networks. Trust, moral affirmation, and sustained interpersonal investment enabled women to move from isolation toward participation, and some described these relationships as forming a new family. Many women then turned around and supported others, organising study groups, book circles, and introductions to networks, describing the satisfaction of giving back once they had received help themselves.

The sensory and temporal dimensions of belonging proved equally striking. Several women described visceral, physical reactions at moments of recognition: one trained nurse from Iran cried the first time she took a blood sample during her internship, shattering an internalised label that she could not handle anything. Others described shaking with nerves before colleagues began to trust them, and then trusting themselves more in turn. These affective moments, the researchers argue, show that belonging is not merely cognitive but corporeal, and that affirmation in hierarchical workplaces is often sporadic and must be repeatedly earned. Temporally, the women’s narratives traced a journey from dependency to independence, from waiting to strategic action, with civil society organisations acting as anchors that helped re-establish daily rhythms and future-oriented aspirations.

The study’s implications are pointed, particularly as Sweden’s government shifts toward stricter migration and integration requirements emphasising language, self-sufficiency, and reduced asylum-related immigration. The authors argue that policies equating labour market participation with integration miss the point: workplaces must actively cultivate cultural, relational, sensory, and temporal belonging through mentorship programmes, early access to meaningful work, and managers who understand that inclusion depends on respecting difference rather than demanding assimilation. Belonging, the findings insist, is an evolving process rather than an achieved state, one that shapes identity, agency, health, and the capacity to imagine a future. When a woman can say, as one participant did after many rejected applications, that she declared she would work at a certain company someday and last week signed the contract, the pathway to working life has done more than deliver a paycheque. It has delivered a self.

Subject of Research: Immigrant women's experiences of belonging during their pathways into working life in Sweden

Article Title: Belonging as a part of the pathway to working life: immigrant women’s experiences in Sweden

Article References: Lydell, M., Garell, C., Lindgren, E.-C., Zimmerman Nilsson, M.-H., & Hertting, K. (2026). Belonging as a part of the pathway to working life: immigrant women’s experiences in Sweden. BMC Public Health, 26(1), Article 2808. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-026-29688-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12889-026-29688-w

Keywords: belonging, integration, immigrant women, Sweden, labour market, refugees, qualitative research, thematic analysis, workplace inclusion, language learning, social networks, public health