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Working against the backdrop of extreme marginalisation: stigma and the social relational model for the setting of mental health conditions

Hadar Elraz Orcid Logo, Jen Remnant

The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Pages: 1 - 28

Swansea University Author: Hadar Elraz Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1080/09585192.2025.2608825

Abstract

This paper investigates how employees with mental health conditions (MHCs) experience and respond to working in the contemporary UK workplace. Employing the Social Relational Model (SRM) of disability, the paper positions stigma as an organising structural force that actively produces Social and Rel...

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Published in: The International Journal of Human Resource Management
ISSN: 0958-5192 1466-4399
Published: Informa UK Limited 2026
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71193
Abstract: This paper investigates how employees with mental health conditions (MHCs) experience and respond to working in the contemporary UK workplace. Employing the Social Relational Model (SRM) of disability, the paper positions stigma as an organising structural force that actively produces Social and Relational disabling barriers – impairment effects, barriers to doing, and barriers to being – that shape the working lives of employees with MHCs. Qualitative data from 42 interviewees working for varied employers – including small, medium and large enterprises, public and private sector – reveals how workplace processes and practices assume norms of the ‘ideal worker’, a worker characterised by uninterrupted productivity and emotional stability. We explore how these norms contribute to the stigmatisation of workers managing MHCs and how consequently these workers avoid workplace stigmatisation. By explicitly linking understandings of structural stigma to the SRM, we advance understanding of how stigma operates in often indirect and subtle ways to disable employees with MHCs. Conclusions with implications for HRM include the need to confront normative ideals and institutional practices that sustain stigma by advocating for practices that dismantle stigma, challenge ableist constructs, support diverse mental health experiences and, focus on creating ideal workplaces, rather than continuing to valorise the ideal worker.
Keywords: Disabilities, mental health conditions, stigma, inclusion, ableism, HRM practices
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Funders: This study was supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council [under grant number I902023].
Start Page: 1
End Page: 28

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