At the heart of every successful return to work is a commitment from management and staff to look after every individual who experiences a work injury, and to improve injury management and prevention systems so sustainable RTW is achieved.

Here are six reasons why getting return to work right is worth YOUR time and effort.

1) It creates a culture of respect and active participate in rehab and RTW.

Your workplace may well already be a respectful one – and let’s hope that’s the case – but when you put in place policies that support injured employees, and let them know you care about their recovery and value their role in the workplace, you’re likely to find staff thinking even more highly of you and of their job.

And as a consequence employees will be motivated and engaged in their own return to work. You get what you give.

Those who aren’t injured, but can see the support that RTW coordinators, management and supervisors will dish out, are also likely to perform with increased morale in the positive environment. Poor management of people with work-related health problems reduces morale generally. It influences employees’ approaches to other areas: sickness absence, productivity levels, taking on extra work such as overtime and quality. Might sound mamby-pamby, but the evidence speaks loudly: supported employees perform better.

2) The business saves in direct costs (time and money).

Workplace disability and consequent work absence is expensive.

But when RTW is carried out efficiently and effectively, the direct savings a business can expect to benefit from include reduced WorkCover premiums and payment of wages not covered by the premium, or paid as 'excess', such as the first ten days of wages in many jurisdictions; health and safety fines, and more.

Whether you're the RTW Coordinator or the Financial Officer, these kinds of savings are going to make you look goo-ood!

3) The business saves in indirect costs.

Staff replacements, supervisor time and administrative time rack up greater costs when RTW is slower and ineffective.

Indirect costs include reduced productivity of the employee with the condition; reduced supervisor productivity as a result of increased time spent on return to work management; "on boarding" costs – ie recruitment, advertising costs for a new employee, lower productivity of new staff during training and staff training costs; and HR and administration costs.

In order to get a proper estimate of the cost of your system, indirect costs must be factored in. The indirect costs of work disability are estimated to be four times greater than the direct costs.

An easy way to estimate indirect costs is to double the employee’s daily wage. Take an employee who is paid is $200 per day. For each day they are off work, $400 is spent on indirect costs. Of course this varies depending on the employee’s role, their organisation and ease of staff replacement, but it’s a good starting estimate to get your manager’s attention.

4) Positive ripple effects follow positive RTW.

Do all you can to assist and support an injured worker back to the job and watch your business image improve.

Failures of the injury management system can have a huge impact on internal and external perceptions of an organisation. Preventing injury whenever possible and managing injury (including compensation) well when it does occur, will improve an organisation’s standing with both employees and the wider community.

Customers will notice the difference. Customer service will be better as a result of better staff engagement. In addition, it’s worth remembering that customers are also affected by work injuries, an impact that is greater in smaller workplaces where people may have direct connections with customers. Their absence can reduce communication flows and quality control, and negatively impact customer service.

Of course, there are positive ripples within the workplace as well. An injured employee’s expectations about recovery will be influenced by what has happened to others. An employee at work on modified duties before knee surgery, who returns to modified duties ten days after surgery, will influence the next person to be back at work within a short time. On the other hand, a person with the same knee condition off work for six weeks before and two months after surgery will have the opposite effect on the return to work of others in the workplace.

The workplace attitude and approach has a major impact on return to work outcomes. When the workplace is 'laisse-faire' about work injury management, the employee will often follow suit. A lax attitude reduces discretionary effort on the part of the employee, and this influences the next person with a health problem.

5) It’s legally and ethically responsible.

Employers are subject to a general duty of care for their staff. There is an obligation to support staff with an injury and, under current legislation, employers are expected to offer injured workers return to work. It ties in with the notion of corporate responsibility: a responsible organisation cares for its workers in times of increased need.

Regulators do assess employer performance, and prosecutions for not offering return to work programs are on the rise. However, the research consistently shows that a system based on CARE rather than CONTROL provides better outcomes for employees and costs organisations less.

6) Feel good about what you do.

Going home from work with the sense you've helped someone is a pretty good feeling.  Employers and RTW coordinators have the opportunity to help many people, in small and major ways. Coordinators often have just as big an impact as treating health professionals.  In terms of return to work, they can often make a bigger difference.

We all want to contribute.  Helping employees is a substantive way of doing this.

In conclusion…

Be aware: organisations that transition to a care-based system may have a short-term increase in claim numbers, as those who have been fearful of reporting their problem do so. This, however, will be followed by:

• A reduction in claim numbers;
• A significant decrease in lost time;
• Improved cooperation; and
• A reduction in expensive long-term disability claims.

Employees take the lead from their employer. When an employer adopts a constructive approach, employee discretionary effort increases and outcomes improve.