Most Injured Employees Milk Their Time on Light Duty: Fact or Myth?

Do employees really try to stay out of work longer than necessary when they get injured on the job? To accurately answer this question, there are two key factors that need to be looked at – the employee’s personality and the conditions surrounding your return to work program.

In order to weed out the few who would take advantage of a more lenient return to work program, employers are forced to come up with programs that appropriately balance the day to day routine that employees crave with a job that is productive and meaningful, while still making the program a deterrent to prevent employees preferring the return to work program over their regular job.

Employees, in general, want to return to work as soon as possible for many reasons. Having friends in the workforce, the need for a steady daily routine, and the fear of becoming de-conditioned while not working, to name a few. However, every so often, you will come across an injured employee who does not worry about any of these things and would rather look at being injured as paid time off than an irritating interruption of their daily routine. Even though these employees make up a small percentage of the overall workforce, they are responsible for the strict conditions of many return to work programs.

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If You Don’t Talk to Your Employees About Workers’ Compensation, Someone Else Will!

There are some employers who believe that communicating the details of how workers’ compensation works with their employees will increase the likelihood that their employees will file a work comp claim. For this reason, many of these employers decide not to talk to their employees about workers’ compensation.

While they may think that this is saving them money, it may actually be costing them more than they think. Generally, employees who have questions about workers’ compensation are going to seek out the answers to those questions and if you are unwilling to give them the answers they are searching for, they will be forced to get their information elsewhere. Most of the time, if the employer does not answer an employee’s questions about workers’ compensation, the employee then decides to seek out the advice of a lawyer. So, now the employee is not only getting their information from an outside source rather than from you, but you have also just successfully alienated yourself as the “bad guy” in the situation.

I cannot stress enough the importance of good communication in any employer/employee relationship. Answering an employee’s questions fully and honestly will not only give you more control over the situation, but it will also serve to build up their level of trust in your company which, we all know, results in higher productivity and a lower turn-around rate.

7 Disincentives for Employees to Return to Work and How You Can Avoid Them

The following is a list of 7 possible ways that an employee can make just as much (or more) money while they are injured than they would make if they were not injured.

1) Double Dipping – Employees may receive funds from both workers’ compensation and disability insurance if their injury is one that puts them out of work for a long period of time.

2) Unemployment – In some states, employees who are receiving workers’ compensation may also qualify for unemployment under certain circumstances. Companies should offer all injured employees a transitional job which they can perform while they are injured. If the employee turns down the transitional job, they will most likely not be granted unemployment status.

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Accident Investigations: An Essential Tool in Every Work Comp Management Program

Performing accident investigations when an employee gets injured is an important step in carrying out your company’s work comp management program. The first reason that comes to many people’s minds for conducting an accident investigation is probably to prevent a fraudulent claim from being filed, but there are many other good reasons for conducting these investigations.

Accident investigations help to identify the root cause of the injury. Was an inadequate workstation to blame? Or, maybe a malfunctioning tool or machine? If it is found that one of these scenarios was the cause of the accident, they can be promptly corrected before another employee suffers a similar fate. Maybe the employee had a pre-existing problem with their injured body part. Or, maybe they were doing something that they weren’t supposed to be doing so there is no equipment that needs to be fixed.

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Showing Compassion for Employees on Disability Can Reduce Work Comp Costs

What happens when an employee gets injured while on the job and goes on temporary disability? They can’t come into work anymore and are forced to sit at home, or they’re in the hospital with almost no contact from anyone at work. In many cases, the only work-related person who they get to talk to is the claim adjuster. They become cut-off from their peers and supervisors.

Sadly, this kind of treatment often leads the employee to feel lost, scared, abandoned, and perhaps even angry. They begin to feel as if they are not wanted around and that their company doesn’t really care about them at all. In many cases, the result of such thinking will end up leading to attorney’s becoming involved and the employee ends up being out for far longer than would otherwise be necessary. This situation is neither beneficial to the company or the employee and most employees would rather it not come to that but feel that they have no other option.

Preventing this from happening can be very simple. All it takes is a simple phone call about once a week to follow up with the injured employee and ask how they are doing. They will be glad to hear from someone from work other than the claim adjuster and it is a good way to monitor the employee’s progress. Sometimes, the information that an employee reveals through conversation can help to better understand the notes from their doctor. A small gift such as flowers or a “get well soon” card is another nice gesture that may be extended to go that extra mile and really make the injured employee feel reassured that they are cared for and eager to return to work.

Could Your Employee Workstations Use an Upgrade?

Warehouse employees are subjected to a great deal of repetitive stresses on the body and as a result, musculoskeletal disorders are their most common forms of injuries. One way to significantly decrease the number of musculoskeletal injuries sustained while on the job is to make their work stations more ergonomically sound.

Ergonomics is the science behind why things are designed the way that they are. Handheld tools, for example, may have ergonomic handles on them that decrease or disperse the force that is applied to the hand. Also, workstations can be designed in a way to maximize productivity while reducing employee fatigue and risk of sustaining an injury.

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A Stressed Employee Can Be An Expensive Employee

Studies show that Americans today are more stressed than ever. Experiencing and coping with high levels of stress for an extended period of time can factor into many different negative health-related outcomes such as; depression, anxiety, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, and increased risk of injury.

High levels of stress are also related to workplace violence and absenteeism. The United States has the highest violent crime rate of any industrialized nation with 18,000 non-fatal violent crimes and 20 people murdered while on the job every week. The number of employees calling in sick because of stress increases every year and in very large companies, this could add up to costs of millions of dollars annually.

Stress also differs between men and women. Studies have shown that women reported a higher level of overall job stress than men. Stress had the highest level of association with migraines and psychological distress in men and with work-related injuries in women. Also, blue-collar workers experienced the highest amount of stress induced work injuries.

You may be asking how you can protect your employees from the dangers associated with stress. A few examples of things that employers can do to help reduce the stress levels of their employees are:

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Don’t Let your Employees Return to Work ‘Broken’

When an employee gets hurt on the job and goes on Worker’s Comp, they usually just end up sitting at home all day long waiting for their injury to heal so that they can go back to work. In most cases, the employee’s regular job is a very physically demanding one that keeps them fairly healthy. But when they get injured, their job becomes a far more sedentary one. This sudden shift to a sedentary lifestyle can be detrimental to their body and overall health, including a wide spectrum of different types of diseases and disorders affecting all parts of the body. Some of the risks can be increased by as much as 50% or more.

A few examples of these risks include:

  • Musculoskeletal Disorders: Low Back Pain, Osteoarthritis, Bone Fractures, Connective Tissue Tears, Osteoporosis
  • Cardiovascular Disorders: Hypertension (High Blood Pressure), Congestive heart Failure, Atherosclerosis (Hardening of Arteries), Coronary Heart Disease, Hypercholesterolemia (High Cholesterol), Cardiomyopathy (any disease affecting structure and function of heart)
  • Metabolic Disorders: Overweight, Obesity, Diabetes
  • Cancer: Breast, Colon, Lung, Prostate
  • Pulmonary Diseases: Emphysema, Asthma, Chronic Bronchitis
  • Psychological Disorders: Depression, Mood, Anxiety

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Preventing and Rehabilitating Injuries in the Workplace

If you are like most people, you suffer an injury from time to time. No matter if it is as severe as a herniated disc, or as miniscule as a paper cut, it is still an inconvenience. Some minor injuries, like a paper cut, can simply be avoided by being a little bit more careful and maybe doing our work a little bit slower. While the same rule applies to preventing major injuries, they also require a little bit more work on our part.

The best ‘treatment’ for injuries is prevention. Good agility, technical skills, and cardiovascular and musculoskeletal fitness are important in injury prevention. In order to achieve all of these things, a multiphasic training regimen (training regimen consisting of multiple phases) should be used. A good multiphasic training program should include warming up and cooling down, the use of safe and familiar equipment, muscle strengthening exercises, cardiovascular exercises, and the training of neurophysiological functions (balance, coordination and reaction time). These are all essential in preventing injuries and they become increasingly important as you get older.

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