You’re the Expert: How Can We Help Employees Return to Work?

In every issue, we take one reader’s question and ask our other readers to weigh in. Here’s what you had to say about a recent question:

We need to improve our system to help employees return to the job as soon as medically possible. Can you share some tips on how to enhance our return-to-work program?

Here’s what you had to say:

• Talk to your medical provider and/or your workers’ comp insurer about any return-to-work programs they offer. Often, they have resources and training available, but you need to ask. — J.B.
• We enlist the help of other employees who do jobs similar to the returning employee’s—we encourage them to keep us posted if there’s a way to do their jobs more safely or if some of the work can be reallocated for a while to help prevent the returning employee from performing high-risk tasks. We find that keeping the employees involved in the process—while still being careful not to violate medical confidentiality—encourages teamwork and facilitates reintegrating the returning employee quickly and well, even if the person is on modified duty for a while. — M.T.

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• It’s really important to involve the employee’s doctor as part of the process. Some doctors are
  resistant to this, but they’re a key part of making the return-to-work program work.—A.S.
• We try very hard to find appropriate modified duty assignments when a worker’s ready to come back. They should be important, real tasks that don’t put the worker at risk of reinjury. We’ve found this takes more time than we initially thought it would, but it’s necessary. — B.B.
• This isn’t exactly what you’re asking, but we’ve recently started spending more money on injury-prevention initiatives. We find that the easiest solution is to try to prevent injuries before they happen, and so far it’s working well. — P.M.