RTW Matters has extracted the data from the last six Australian & New Zealand Return to Work Monitor reports and analysed the information on a jurisdictional basis. As one of a series of publications covering the various jurisdictions, this review analyses Victorian results. Our analysis has sought to highlight trends and comparison between the jurisdictions. 

The executive summary is below, to view the graphs and full information click on the purple icon below.

Return to work results

Over the last 24 months return to work rates have improved in Victoria.

In 2010-11 86% of injured Victorian workers had returned to work seven to nine months after submitting a claim. This is in line with the national average. The RTW rate in Victoria is now above the rate of 2005-06. 

In 2010-11 the Victorian durable RTW rate has again increased and is now back to the levels of 2006-07 but not yet back to the levels of 2005-06.

Over the last five years there been an decrease in the proportion of employees are back doing their normal duties and hours at the time of interview. There is a corresponding increase in the proportion are performing duties different duties with the same employer.    

In this year's Monitor analysis we have again included information on sources of income at the time of the interview. This is a second measure of return to work, providing another snapshot to assess whether return to work has been partial or full, and whether return to work has been sustained (the question is about income at the time of the interview).   

The main source of income coming from employment has risen over the last 12 months. There has been a corresponding decrease in the number of people who declare workers compensation to be their main source of income. This measure corroborates the rise in RTW and durable RTW rates.

Return to work influences

In the last 12 months there has been a decrease in the number of people reporting they have been involved in the development of a RTW plan. At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of respondents who say that they found their RTW plan helpful, reversing the downward trend of previous years. 

There has been a general decline in the number of people who identified someone as being helpful for their RTW in 2010-11. 

In Victoria employees identified the main source of help for RTW as their doctor. 75% of employees in Victoria reported their doctor assisted with RTW.

The number of people who said their supervisor made it harder to return to work has dropped significantly over the last two years to 11%. 17% of respondents said their employer made it harder for them to return to work, and 14% said their insurer made it harder.

The last 12 months show a rise in the number of respondents who said the main reason they were not working was injury related, at 75%. This has dropped from a high of 96% in 2005-06, but is a sharp improvement from 2009-10's result of 66%. The number of people who said retrenchment was their reason for not working has declined as a result, to 10% in 2010-2011.

The Return to Work Monitor has assessed workplace culture under new criteria for 2010-11, and therefore the results of the survey are not directly comparable to previous years. Respondents reported a sense of work satisfaction, feeling valued at work, the importance of their work in line with the national average.  

Victorian employees reported a lower result on measures of employer policies on RTW, adequacy of OH&S spending, and management help in RTW. 

Victoria has seen a turnaround in the number of respondents who consider it easy to get information to make a claim. In 2010-11, this was in line with the national average at 80%. The process of putting in a claim is also becoming simpler, with 71% of respondents saying it was either simple or very simple for them to lodge a claim at some point in the past five years.

Rating of customer services

Insurer’s service ratings remain 3-5% below the national average in 2010-11. 

Rehabilitation services

The percentage of Victorian employees who have some rehabilitation expenditure as part of their claim cost has declined over the last 12 months to 22%. This is well below the national average of 43%. The average cost spent remained steady from last year at $1800.

Previous claim experience

In 2010-11, 34% of Victorian employees reported they had had a prior claim. 30% reported they had a previous lost time claim. Both of these results are steady from last year and both are slightly below the national average.