Return to Work

Return to Work (RTW) of an employee from an injury or illness is a success and should be very fulfilling for the employee and the workplace. An employee who has an injury or illness doesn’t need to be fully recovered to return to work. It is often recommended that an injured employee should return to work on alternative duties or reduced workloads, this will usually reduce the chances of other work-related issues developing.

Companies dealing with RTW employees generally do it very poorly for several reasons, such as:

• The workplace is unprepared for a RTW employee, and colleagues have not been briefed
• Alternative duties and workloads are not productive or relevant
• Poor procedures, work instructions and allocation of responsibilities
• Those responsible for managing the injured employee are too busy or consumed by other duties
• HR and / or WHS Managers are not aware of the Legislation and Regulations.

Workers generally know what initial steps to take in the event of an injury or illness yet are unaware of the process past the initial step of reporting the injury to their employer. A lack of understanding, fear of negative employment consequences, perceptions of the complexity of the system, and distrust in employers all act as barriers to accessing information on workers’ compensation and making a claim.

Our approach

The goal in injury management is to have an established procedure that involves activities that are undertaken to enable workers with a work-related injury or illness to achieve a timely, safe and long-lasting return to work.

Compliance 4site can develop an inexpensive, custom or tailored made and straightforward procedure and supporting documents that outline the duties and obligations of your workplace, the injured person and the required reporting obligations to the regulator.

We can also develop and deliver affordable information and awareness sessions for managers and employees to streamline the process of RTW employees. Some of the crucial advice and awareness sessions that we provide include:

• Communication and reporting obligations
• How to create Return to Work Plans
• Plan, develop and implement proactive injury management and rehabilitation strategies for injured workers
• How to coordinate receipt of new injury notifications and ensure timely communication with injured parties and key stakeholders such as client management, brokers and doctors
• Why actively participating in the management of worker’s compensation claims is crucial to your business
• Importance of working collaboratively with all internal stakeholders to achieve desired RTW outcomes
• Accurately complete administrative tasks associated with injury management and worker’s compensation including file notes, RTW plans, maintenance of documentation on injury management system and registers
• Be able to track, control cost in injury claims and ability to prepare timely reports for senior management
• Actively participate in claim reviews with agent, brokers and internal stakeholders on a regular basis
• Liaise with injured workers, health professionals, employer, insurance agents, rehabilitation providers, operations/support personnel, legal providers and WHS as required.