Employment health support refers to the coordinated delivery of allied health services — counselling, psychological support, exercise physiology, occupational therapy, and related clinical interventions — alongside traditional employment services such as job coaching, résumé preparation, and employer engagement. Rather than treating health barriers and employment barriers as separate problems handled by separate systems, this integrated model recognises that they are frequently the same problem viewed from two angles. A person managing chronic pain, anxiety, or an unstable medication regime is not simply a person who needs a job; they are a person whose capacity to obtain and hold a job is directly shaped by their health status.
AKG delivers employment services to job seekers across a range of program streams, many of whom face complex, co-occurring barriers to work. Our Health Services team — comprised of allied health clinicians embedded directly within the employment service model — works alongside Job Coaches to provide clinical support before, during, and after a placement. This article examines what our internal participant data reveals about the measurable relationship between that health engagement and two core employment metrics: placement rate (the proportion of participants who commence employment) and retention (the proportion who remain employed at defined milestones, typically 4, 12, and 26 weeks).
What Our Participant Data Shows
According to data AKG has collected from our participants, those who engage with consistent health services support record a higher outcome rate at every measured point.
Placement uplift
Participants engaged with Health Services achieved a placement rate approximately 7 percentage points higher than those who were not — 28% compared with 21%. In relative terms, that represents roughly a one-third improvement in the likelihood of commencing employment.
Retention uplift
The advantage does not evaporate once a participant starts work. The retention uplift persists through 26 weeks, sitting at approximately +6 percentage points at the six-month mark.
This distinction matters. A placement-only improvement would suggest health support functions primarily as a pre-employment readiness intervention. The persistence of the gap through 26 weeks indicates something different: the health service isn’t just helping people get jobs — it is linked to sustained employment.
The First Four Weeks: Where the Gap Is Widest
In our program data, people who worked with our Health Services team recorded better results overall, but the effect was most pronounced early on. Around the 4-week mark, the gap between the two groups was at its largest.
This pattern is instructive. The first month of a new job is a period of concentrated demand — new routines, unfamiliar social dynamics, transport logistics, disclosure decisions, and the physical or cognitive load of full or part-time hours after a period out of work. Our data suggests health support may be particularly important for:
- Settling into the role — navigating expectations, supervision styles, and the practical realities of the workplace
- Managing early workplace stressors — providing a clinical outlet for anxiety, conflict, or overwhelm before it escalates
- Stabilising routines and attendance — supporting sleep, medication adherence, and the daily structures that make consistent attendance possible
- Preventing early exits — intervening at the point where a resignation or dismissal is most likely to occur
Early exits are disproportionately costly. They interrupt income, damage confidence, and often add another short tenure to an employment history that is already fragmented. If health support is most effective precisely at the moment of highest risk, that is a strong argument for embedding it into the post-placement phase rather than winding it back once a job starts.
Hear It From Our Team
In this video, Katie (AKG Allied Health Clinician – Counsellor) and Tristan (AKG Job Coach) explain how we support our customers during this crucial period — including how clinical and coaching staff coordinate in practice, what early warning signs they look for in the first weeks of a placement, and how they work with participants to keep a new job on stable footing.
Key Takeaways
- Participants engaged with AKG Health Services placed into employment at 28% versus 21% for those who were not — an uplift of approximately 7 percentage points.
- The retention advantage holds through 26 weeks, at roughly +6 percentage points.
- The largest gap appears at 4 weeks post-placement, pointing to the early-employment period as the highest-value window for clinical support.
- Taken together, the data supports an integrated model in which health services are not a pre-employment gate to pass through, but an ongoing component of employment support that continues well after a start date.
Note: These findings reflect internal AKG participant data and describe an observed association between health service engagement and employment outcomes. Participants who engage consistently with health support may differ in other respects from those who do not, and the figures should be read as indicative of a meaningful relationship rather than as a controlled measure of causal effect.
