Kris Fraser is a registered occupational therapist and certified professional ergonomist who has worked at the University of Queensland, where she has been responsible for the prevention and management of musculoskeletal disorders across 34 sites, amongst 16,000 staff. She has dealt with between 30 and 40 compensable injuries a year, most of which were sprains and strains. 

We’ve created the following how-to guide based on our conversation with Kris, to help you manage modified duties in a way that promotes durable return to work for workers recovering from sprains and strains. 
 

• Have a return to work culture, and an expectation that normal duties will be resumed wherever possible.

 “Within my organisation there is a very strong suitable duties and return to work culture. There is an expectation that people will participate in rehabilitation. And that expectation is created by promotion of what we do and awareness and strong relationships with senior managers, supervisors, workers and medical specialists.”

• Be strategic about modified duties: promote rehabilitation and minimise risk.

“If you reintroduce someone into a workplace where they are exposed to the same risks, chances are that they’re going to be reinjured and  chances are they’re going to end up having an expensive statutory and damages claim.

“Many suitable duties programs re-introduce the person into the same normal duties gradually which is important, but it’s vital that we also identify OHS/manual tasks risks and work out how to minimise the risk of re-injury.”

• Where possible, employ a qualified, committed professional, who can make ergonomics assessments and recommendations, and implement changes to prevent re-injury.

“We are positive that this strategy produces savings, reduces the personal cost of injury and that the Ergonomics & Rehabilitation salary is fully cost justified.”

• If you can’t afford an ergonomics specialist, be strategic about up-skilling other employees.

“Smaller organisations should up-skill their workplace health and safety officer. They could think about combining their workplace health and safety officer and rehab and RTW coordinator roles. If you can allocate those responsibilities to one person, they’re more likely to be able to manage the health and safety risks and the suitable duties, and have a more integrated approach.”

• Ensure that the suitable duties program is goal focused.

“Staff are familiarised with the organisation’s Work Rehabilitation Policy.  This specifies  that a return to normal duties, if medically appropriate, is the preferred outcome.  The overall goal of the suitable duties is based on this.   Provided that we can adapt the current job to meet their new functional capacities – particularly if they’ve got permanent restrictions – it’s in their interest to return to normal duties.  Modification of their normal job or redeployment to a new position, are certainly options that are pursued in the case that a return to normal duties is not possible.”

• Get the injured worker on board to identify and help solve potential problems.

“Engaging the injured worker and getting them to fully participate in problem solving is important. They can provide insight into what some of the risks and barriers of returning to their normal job might be.”

• Foster a collaborative approach between the injured employee, their manager and health professionals.

“We have a workplace meeting between me as an occupational therapist and ergonomist, the employee and their manager, and put together some proposals about modified duties. We then take fax that off to the treating doctor, usually a specialist, and pay for an appointment between the worker and their doctor so that they can medically consider the suitability of return to those normal duties.”

• Opt for a graduated return to normal duties: remember slow and steady often achieves a better result than go, go, go.

“There needs to be a graduated approach to reintroducing the employee to the physical demands of their jobs. Otherwise, you jeopardise durable return to work.”