Results

You have a robust, effective and proven system and your managers are invested in injury management. You devote sufficient time and resources into injury management and you have an engaged workforce.

Next steps

1. Regularly review your system to ensure its currency and effectiveness.
2. Keep managers engaged in the process by regular recognition of their efforts.
3. Make sure the return to work coordinator is keeping up with his or her jobs and has enough time to do them effectively.

Results

You have a consultative mechanism in place but it may be incomplete or undocumented. You may inform your staff of new processes but this is done informally and you do not have a formal mechanism in place to receive and consider feedback. Even if you do engage your staff, without formal documentation it is difficult to ensure that all required consultation occurs and that the process is consistent and fair.

Whilst you do involve staff in major decisions you may not consult in other aspects of your business or provide a forum for regular feedback. You may not let people know that you do consider their feedback resulting in a lower level of engagement. This can be remedied by providing information on what has been received and giving feedback on the process.

In the case of the injury management process it is important that workers and managers are fully involved in the return to work process and that decisions are made considering all parties views. Above all the process must be transparent and fair to all parties.

Next steps

1. Make sure that you introduce a clear and simple consultation procedure based on the principles of transparency and inclusion. If you do not have a formal procedure in place you may not always consult when you should and having a procedure shows that you have a consistent and fair process in place. It also allows you to properly measure the effectiveness of your consultative process.
2. Ensure that employees are consulted about any decision or change that may affect them. This includes involvement in the injury management and return to work process.
3. Make sure your employees know that you consider and value their opinions. This can be done via team meetings, notices or other communications that show what feedback/suggestions have been made and what consideration has been given to them. You may consider formal recognition of particularly good feedback or suggestion.
4. Integrate injury management consultation into your existing consultation procedures/practices.

Results

You are aware that training is an important part of business and you have the foundation of a training system in place. There may be some gaps in the record keeping in the system or it may be that once training is performed it is not systematically updated to ensure its currency and relevance to the business. Induction may be incomplete or inadequate with respect to injury management.

Next steps

1. Make sure your training records are kept up to date and regularly review your training needs to ensure currency. You can use the same system to diarise updates and reviews as necessary. It is simple to cover all of the training and update requirements in a single document or system. You may build a spreadsheet yourself or purchase one of the many commercial products available.
2. Review the injury management portion of the induction and update it to reflect your policies and procedures. Make sure there is emphasis on the importance of return to work and the value of employees to the business.

Results

You have a successful and embedded early intervention and return to work system. You have a clear line of responsibility in the business and your supervisors and workers are fully trained in their roles and responsibilities. You have a strong relationship with a nearby medical clinic (where possible).

Next steps

1. Regularly review your system to ensure its currency and effectiveness.
2. Regularly interrogate the system to ensure that everyone is aware of and is performing their roles within the system. This is especially important where there are new supervisors and staff.

Results

You have a formal system in place but it may not be fully integrated into your other business systems. In practice your documents are well controlled but it may be that there is not restricted access and there may be some doubling up of procedures or unauthorised editing. You may informally review incidents but there is no systematic approach to analysis and addressing of emerging trends.

You may not have a robust system of internal audit or the audit may not be used properly to address system and practice issues. Your system of goal and KPI setting may not be sophisticated or properly targeted based on your own business needs.

Next steps

1. Consider your business structure and how it operates. Integrate your injury management into your other systems. Make injury management part of what you do rather than a legislative obligation.
2. Set goals, targets and KPIs for your injury management system and make sure you report on them regularly. The frequency of reporting will be dependent on the size of the business but should ideally be no less than quarterly. Review your goals annually based on previous and desired performance and never set goals that you cannot achieve. Remember KPIs are there to let you know that there may be a problem developing and to allow you to make adjustments before issues become big.
3. When you identify issues or set programs to reduce injuries/incidents place your actions on an action plan. This will assist management with ensuring required actions are completed and provide a record of actions and time taken to address issues. They can also assist with making sure actions are consistent with business requirements and that accountabilities are maintained.