Tips for a Successful Transitional RTW Program

Saturday, January 28, 2006 | 0

By Robert B. Hall, Ph.D., CDMS, CRC, Principal, AtWork Resources

When returning an employee to the workplace after an illness or injury, one of the main challenges is identifying work tasks that the person is able to perform given his or her medical work restrictions. From the company's perspective, it is more cost-effective to have an employee on the job and productive in some meaningful capacity. Reducing the time that employees are off work may also decrease the company's indemnity costs associated with disability.

A task bank, a listing of previously identified tasks in various departments of the company, is an essential tool for the disability or return to work coordinator. To ensure success and "buy-in", frontline managers and supervisors need to be highly involved in this process by identifying tasks in their respective departments.

A task bank should include, but is not limited to, the following information:

**Task name and description of duties;
**Location (department, facility, etc.) and work hours;
**Key contact information;
**Detailed description of physical/mental work requirements and work activities that can be matched to a given employee's functional capacities.

It is important for the disability or return to work coordinator to communicate regularly with frontline managers and supervisors to ensure that the task bank is kept updated. This allows the employee's abilities to be matched with tasks that represent work which needs to be done.

By matching the employee's abilities with specified tasks, the potential for re-injury is minimized. Since the managers and supervisors themselves have previously identified the tasks that need to be done, it helps ensure that a person in a transitional assignment is doing meaningful work that helps their team.

From the employee's perspective, a task bank is beneficial both therapeutically as well as economically. The employee does not have to wait until he or she is fully recovered but, with the physician's approval, can return to work on a limited basis and then grow into a job assignment. Returning to the workplace maintains an important social and emotional connection for many people, enabling them to interact with others and feel productive. Moreover, the longer an individual remains separate from the workplace after an illness or injury, the smaller the chances are that the person will ever return to work.

Building and maintaining a transitional task bank is beneficial from both the company's and the employee's perspective. Importantly, this functional focus emphasizes ability, not disability.

Article by Robert Hall, Ph.D., CRC, CDMS . For more information, please contact AtWork Resources at 1-866-463-0562 or visit http://www.atworkresources.com.

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