Supported employment - ensuring flexibility or introducing new demands? a longitudinal case from Denmark

Introducing new approaches to existing services can potentially create tensions within organizations. This article demonstrates how implementing a modified Individual Placement and Support programme in unemployment services in Denmark affects professional roles and creates new flexibility in practice. As a central contribution, we demonstrate how changes evolve over time. Our analysis of qualitative interviews from three job centres in Denmark collected over a four-year period reveals a duality in professional experiences. The respondents refer to regulations and requirements that characterize existing services, while also describing numerous new demands in the wake of a new method following implementation of the programme. Despite these apparent limitations, respondents repeatedly point to an overall increased flexibility in daily practice. A central paradox thus becomes as follows: How can the implementation of a new programme inflict numerous new demands on an already highly regulated field of public service delivery and yet still be experienced as a liberation of practice? We qualify our response by drawing upon the notion of frontline professionalism and concepts of systemic time and wasted time. We argue that professional experiences should be understood in the light of a timeline ranging from early implementation to sustained practice over a four-year period.