MODIFICATIONS OF THE INDIVIDUAL APPROACH BY HELPING PROFESSIONALS IN HYBRID WORK ORGANISATION WITH THE LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED

Absztrakt

The paper explores how professional counsellors and social workers involved in activation work with the long-term unemployed subjectively interpret the meaning of an ‘individual approach’ to clients in different types of cooperating organisations. The use of an individual approach and the integrated performance of different types of services is an important element of the professional logic of helping people towards participation in the labour market and social inclusion. The organisation of the performance of activation work is faced with hybridity.

This research focuses on the role of professional counsellors, who are in direct contact with clients, in modifying the rules of individual approach in two types of organisations in the Czech Republic. First, in the public employment services and second, in non-profit organisations.

The results of the comparison of interpretations in two organisational environments show that (1) in both organisations professional “front-line” workers apply different concepts of individual approach to clients. Their modified approaches and practices appear to be an active response to the need to stabilize activities in these types of organisations. (2) In some cases, professional counsellors appear to have the power to formulate and practice the professional concept of individual approach toward clients in labour offices as well. (3) It appears that only some of these modifications are helpful in solving the problems of the long-term unemployed, and others are inappropriate for the use to client activation.