As many of us in the construction industry, I was fortunate to learn the business from the ground up. Growing up on a farm in central Virginia, I had been running equipment of some sort since I was twelve years old, so naturally becoming an operator was my calling.
While I was working in Kansas City, MO, in the mid-1980s I jumped off my 4100 onto a patch of ice and, you can guess the rest of the story. I ended up with a bulge at the L4-L5 vertebrae. I was lucky enough to work for a contractor who, even in the 1980s, had a strong return-to-work program. During the four weeks I was in therapy, the contractor had me come into the office and do paperwork, help in the bidding process by calling subcontractors and suppliers and perform various other duties.
After I had reached a full duty status, I returned back to the field for about three months when the contractor came to me with an opportunity to become the division safety director. I have always been grateful for the chance they gave me. More importantly, the company as a whole, and the division president were committed to the people who worked for them and made every effort to assist their injured employees in their return to work.
As our industry continues to struggle with finding and retaining qualified and skilled labor, it makes good business sense to understand the best practices of injury management. It is important to understand how you can effectively manage the process for individuals that are on light or modified duty by identifying resources that benefit the employee, the project and the company. Additionally, as our workforce continues to age, the Social Security Administration estimates that disability costs will increase 37 percent in the next decade as it relates to employees in the forty-five to sixty-four age range.
Absenteeism also continues to be a drain on our industry, whether it be vacation, non-work-related or work-related. According to a Mercer and Marsh study published on February 26, 2003, time-off and disability program costs averaged 15 percent of payroll in 2001. Additionally, according to the same source, the direct and indirect cost of a disability averages over 21 percent of payroll. This, along with the fact that measurable costs for lost time per employee are in excess of $5,000 per employee annually, (Watson & Wyatt, 2001) indicates clearly that the financial impact is huge. Companies need to develop processes and programs to manage the loss potential. This doesn't even include the cost of doing business as it relates to your experience modification rate or workers' compensation rates.
To truly understand return to work programs, you need to know the history. Return-to-work programs were developed as a result of sports medicine professionals' determination to get athletes back to the playing field. The same basic concepts were put in place in the business world as it relates to work-hardening and assisting the employee to reach their maximum, post-injury, production level.
As with any program within your organization, this is a managed process, and a written program should be developed and customized to fit your specific needs. This should be tied into the development of written job descriptions for your firm. Expectations should be outlined between the employer and the employee. This can be easily accomplished in the opening objective statement. Of course, it does no good to just have the statement stuck on page forty-seven of your employee manual, high on a shelf over the plan desk. When I was in the industry, I would make it part of the hiring packet that the employee would sign off on, as well as posted it on all project bulletin boards.
First Response
The obvious first step to getting an employee back to work is to provide first aid treatment to the employee and provide them quality medical care.
