Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Longitudinal Job Satisfaction of Persons in Supported Employment.

2000; Volume: 35; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

1079-3917

David W. Test, Tonya Carver, Lisa Ewers, Jennifer Haddad, Julie Person,

Family and Disability Support Research

A study was conducted to investigate longitudinal satisfaction with supported employment jobs and services of a group of individuals who had been working and receiving services between 1992 and 1997. Thirty-two individuals participated in two interviews conducted in 1992 and 1997. Data indicate that participants were consistently satisfied with both their chosen supported employment jobs (including the work, friendships made, and money earned) and other supported employment services provided by their job coaches. Results were discussed in terms of future research. For twenty years data have been collected sumers include or sup which carefully document the positive emported employees, or ployment outcomes achieved by people with individuals who purchase or hire a service (e.g., disabilities involved in supported employvocational rehabilitation counselors, parents, ment. From the early 1980's to now, data have employment specialists), immediate commu been collected demonstrating positive outnity or individuals who interact with direct comes in terms of individuals placed, job reand/or indirect consumers on a regular basis tention, absentee rates, increased wages, and (e.g., supervisors, coworkers, neighbors), and taxes paid (Hill & Lehman, 1983; Hill, Lehextended or persons who live in man, Kregel, Banks, & Metzler, 1987; Kregel, the same community but who do not have reg Wehman, & Banks, 1989; McCaughey, Kierular contact (e.g., taxpayers). While only limited nan, McNally, Gilmore, & Keith, 1995; Rusch data exist in each of the four categories (Test, & Hughes, 1989; Shafer, Banks, & Kregel, 1994), to date the most frequently assessed con 1991; Wehman et al., 1982; Wehman, Hill, & sumer is the who is the sup Kochler, 1979a, 1979b; Wehman, Hill, Wood, ported employee. & Parent, 1987; Wehman, Kregel, & Shafer, Studies investigating the success of supported 1989; Wehman, Revell, & Kregel, 1998; West, employment from the perspective of the direct Revell, & Wehman, 1992). consumer (supported employee) began appear While these data are one indication of the ing in 1990 Firet) Mason (1990) reported that longitudinal success of supported employment, (a) persons with severe disabilities who had lim they are not the only measure. As Test (1994) jtcd verbal skills had little input into many qual noted, little attention has been paid to gatherity of life issues; (b) while many agencies ad ing more qualitative measures of consumer dressed wages, hours, benefits, and community outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, customer satisintegration, they did little to assist with other faction). Possible supported employment conquality of life issues; and (c) some supported employers lacked a work-related vocabulary. Second, Naeve, Harding, Shea, and Allen The authors gratefully acknowledge the assis(1990) found that 69% of supported employees tance of Pat Keul and Ann Howell of SET, Inc. for chose lheir own job> 91% iiked their job, their on-going assistance with this project. Correwere satisfied ^ ^ hours and earnings, and spondence concerning this article should be adm . , . . , . . , , _ ., ... .. r-, , „ o • , 99% said that they got along with others at work, dressed to David W. Test, UNC Charlotte, Special _ „ , , Tr , /nTMo, Education Program, 9201 University City Boulevard, Third, Test, Hinson, Solow, and Keul (1993) Charlotte, NC 28223. E-mail: dwtest@email. interviewed 34 supported employees and found uncc.edu. that the majority (a) like their jobs, (b) were Longitudinal Job Satisfaction / 365 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.18 on Sun, 07 Aug 2016 07:29:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms satisfied with their job coach's assistance, (c) TABLE 1 had a voice in choosing their job, (d) preferred „ , . r . . r _ . . . ° J r Demographic Intormation 01 Participants m 1997 community employment over sheltered employ^ ment, and (e) reported having friends at work. Fourth, in probably the most comprehensive study of direct consumer satisfaction with sup ported employment to date, Parent, Kregel, and Johnson (1996) conducted face-to-face inter views with 110 individuals with disabilities in Virginia. Results indicated that (a) the majority liked their job, (b) most were happy with their supported employment services and would use them again, (c) almost half would like to change some aspect of their job to make it better, and (d) more than half felt their current job was not their permanent career. Finally, as part of a test of the theory of work adjustment, Melchiori and Church (1997) measured the vocational satisfac tion of 45 supported employees with mental retardation and 45 coworkers without disabili ties. Their results indicated that (a) supported employees and coworkers were satisfied with their current jobs; and (b) supported employees were more satisfied than coworkers with the variety of work tasks, supervision, compensation, opportunity for advancement, working condi tions, recognition, achievement, and ability uti lization. While these five studies indicate that sup ported employees are satisfied with supported employment in terms of both jobs and ser vices, they are limited by the fact that they represent opinions at a single point in time. Although both Parent et al. (1996) and Test, Hinson et al. (1993) suggested the need to investigate the stability of job satisfaction over time, no reports document the job satisfaction of persons in supported employment over time. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the longitudinal satisfaction with supported employment jobs and services of a group of individuals who had been working and receiving services over six years.