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Section 4 - Outcome 1 - 0-4pts

Results

It is likely that you have no early intervention process or a limited one. This does not mean that you do not care about your employees or that you never provide duties – simply that you do not have a systematic approach to early intervention.

An important aspect of injury management is integration into your normal business process. Where the response to an injury is “I am too busy to deal with that now” or where your response is to await what the agent does you are dramatically increasing the likelihood of longer periods of time off of work and increasing your overall risk as workers that are so inclined will know this and you may develop a culture of claim = time-off. This can be avoided by implementing and managing an injury management system.

Next steps

  1. Design and implement an early intervention system. This is a simple process of writing out your expectations and describing the roles and responsibilities of all employees. Your procedure should contain tight timeframes for reporting of injury and protocols for workers, supervisors and the return to work coordinator to follow. The procedure should also include your commitment to return to work and how you will communicate this and the availability of duties to the employee’s treating doctor. You may also include details on preferred medical providers if applicable (refer below).
  2. Include supervisors as the first contact and provide training and authority for them to be the “frontline” for early intervention and return to work. Your supervisors are in a position to know the employees, what jobs are available and how an injured worker is coping with duties. It makes sense to rely on them for ensuring the return to work process is working.
  3. Remember the injured employee. Make sure they are involved in all aspects of the process and are kept informed.
  4. Always provide alternative duties where at all possible. Remember that in a vast majority of cases alternative duties are temporary in nature and you do not need to restructure your entire business to accommodate them. The benefits in the reduction of time lost and claim costs far exceed the inconvenience of providing work for a little while.
  5. Where it is practical to do so develop a relationship with a nearby clinic. Invite doctors to meet you and tour the worksite. This will assist in identification of duties and will reduce the instance of time lost due to doctors being unaware of what workers do.