Operational integration management (OIM) among the Older Work Force in Germany
Findings from the lidA Cohort Study
Aim of the study
The aim of this study was to investigate the implementation of the statutory operational integration management (OIM) among the older workforce in Germany.
Methods
Since 2011, the representative lidA cohort study (www.lida-studie.de) has been investigating work, health and employment among the socially insured working population, born in 1959, 1965, and (since 2022/23) in 1971 in Germany. The recent assessment wave 2022/2023 included a newly developed OIM module.
Findings
Of 7,335 employed participants, 819 (11.2%) reported more than 30 days sickness absence in the past 12 months, thus indicating eligibility to OIM. Of those, 282 (34.4%) had received an OIM offer proactively by their employer. Higher odds of receiving an offer were found for those with longer sickness absence, in larger enterprises, in enterprises which value the workers’ health, and among those who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, had used the option to work from home. About a third of those who had received an offer declined it, mainly because they felt no need for it; 132 of the 819 OIM eligible participants (16.1%) reported they had been offered and had accepted at least one measure implemented by the enterprise, most often “stepwise reintegration”, followed by “regular feedback talks with the superior”. Among them, 114 (90.8% of 132) rated the measures implemented as “somewhat”, or “very helpful”.
Conclusions
Twenty years after the legal introduction of OIM, it is still insufficiently implemented, although – where measures have been implemented – these are almost always rated as helpful by those who have received them. The barriers to implementation of this obviously useful instrument in enterprises and proposals as to how to overcome them need to be investigated more intensively. National stakeholders in Occupational Safety and Health, the statutory occupational health insurance, labour authorities, and the statutory health insurances, as well as the statutory pension insurance could contribute in raising awareness in the course of their consultation activities in the enterprises.
