Despite all your organization’s safety efforts, an employee gets hurt while on the job. Luckily, you have Workers’ Compensation insurance that’ll help pay for the employee’s medical care. However, there’s a period of time where your employee can’t work his or her regular job due to the injury. Some organizations decide not to accommodate injured employees. After all, what’s the point of having them work if they can’t do their normal job? However, not accommodating injured workers can have a negative impact on both the organization and the workers. 
Bringing an injured worker back to the workplace and assigning modified duties is very beneficial for both the worker and the company. Benefits include:
- Decreases workers’ compensation premiums.
- Promotes a constructive relationship between employees and the employer.
- Improves employee morale.
- Addresses injured workers’ fear of the unknown by maintaining their regular routine.
- Helps employees feel positive about their contributions and enhances self-esteem.
- Decreases turnover.
- Reduces productivity loss.
If your organization doesn’t have an Early-Return-to-Work program in place, West Bend has a resource that’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of implementing one at your facility. This resource includes tips for developing your company’s program statement, completing injury assessment, and identifying light-duty tasks. It also includes sample letters for employees and medical providers and much more! Check it out here.
One barrier for Early-Return-to-Work is the challenge of identifying tasks that are useful to the organization and that employees can perform within their restrictions. Luckily, we also have a list of sample tasks which includes the different restrictions that each task falls within. This can be a very useful place to start when brainstorming specific light-duty tasks for your organization.
