Flex Job Scheme – Supported Employment Program
Entity which complete it
Country
Town
Project name
Stating Year
Where it takes place
Range of age
Type of disability
Project link
Why is it a good practice of the Person-Centered Model?
National program in effect since 1998, managed by the Danish Government through the labor system, which facilitates the integration of people with reduced work capacity. The scheme guarantees access to decent jobs through wage subsidies that compensate the difference from the legal minimum, favoring inclusion without resorting to mandatory quota systems.
Person-centered approach: Promotes equal opportunities in the labor market through a flexible model that adapts the subsidy level to the actual work capacity of each person. This way, it ensures inclusive and non-segregated work environments, respecting the rights and autonomy of people with disabilities.
Integrated Assessment (Person, Family, Housing) and Life History
Fleksjob begins with an assessment of a person’s work capacity: individuals whose ability to work under normal job conditions is significantly and permanently reduced can be evaluated by the municipality. The assessment determines their potential for employment under adapted conditions — reduced hours, modified tasks — rather than focusing on a full biography, family, or housing context. The core is functional capacity: what the person can do, under what conditions, and with what adjustments. This makes the scheme flexible: it does not prescribe a uniform job, but allows tailoring to each person’s capacities and limitations.
Personalised Care and Support Plan for the Life Project
Once approved for Fleksjob, an adapted employment plan is drawn up: working hours and tasks are adjusted to the individual’s capacity; the employer pays for the actual work done, while the municipality supplements income to ensure a reasonable living standard. This “flex job plan” effectively becomes the person’s support plan: it enables participation in the workforce, economic independence, daily structure, and social inclusion — all adapted to the person’s real abilities. The combination of work + subsidy + flexibility supports the person’s life project in a dignified, realistic way.
Support groups
Fleksjob itself is not designed as a social or community–support group system. Its core is employment. There is no structured support-group or peer-group component embedded in the scheme by default. Inclusion happens mainly through work — integration in teams, inclusion in workplaces, relationships with colleagues — rather than via dedicated psychosocial support or peer networks.
Case Management and Resource Coordinator
The administration of Fleksjob involves coordination between municipality (which assesses and approves eligibility, provides wage subsidy), employer (who provides adapted work), and sometimes vocational counsellors or job-centre staff (who support job matching and accommodation). This institutional coordination functions somewhat like resource management: aligning social welfare support, labour market integration, employer accommodation and individual capacity — to make employment feasible for people with reduced work capacity. The scheme ensures the support is adapted to the individual’s needs while maintaining labour market participation.
Highlined results
Has significantly increased labor participation of people with disabilities in Denmark, consolidating itself as a reference public policy in Europe regarding inclusive employment.
Inspiring ideas for other enviorments. It can works! 😉
Fleksjob shows that labour inclusion for people with disabilities or reduced capacity does not require segregated special employment — it can be built into mainstream labour market structures as an adaptive, flexible model. By combining flexibility, rights-based support and subsidy schemes, such a model allows individuals to participate in work with dignity and respect their limitations. This model could inspire other countries: adapting work hours, tasks, providing wage support or subsidies, and enabling people with disabilities or chronic illness to maintain or rejoin the workforce — promoting inclusion, economic independence and social participation.
Other observations
Danish Government