Qualitative Study of Well-being at Work among People with Intellectual Disabilities in Sheltered Employment: Perspectives of Workers and their Supervisors

Despite its central role in supporting job retention, the well-being of persons with intellectual disabilities in the workplace remains insufficiently documented in the scientific literature. This qualitative study sought to address this gap by contributing to a better understanding of how the concept of well-being at work is experienced by people with disabilities in sheltered employment, drawing on the Demand-Induced Stain Compensation-Recovery model and theories of recovery at work. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 workers with intellectual disabilities and nine supervisors who support them in their daily work to capture their respective perspectives. A rigorous thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews was conducted by combining deductive and inductive approaches with a double-coding of certain interviews. The results globally highlighted the specific nature of job demands and job resources in sheltered employment settings, the presence of work recovery processes, and relevant indicators for assessing well-being at work in this population. In addition, a number of individual factors—either facilitating or limiting—were identified as influencing the workplace experience of this population. These findings, while demonstrating the relevance of the models considered, also underscore the need for future research to empirically test the theoretical relationships, using designs adapted to this population.