INJURY SOLUTIONS
Your company has complied with all the rules and regulations, you
have done everything the federal labour laws on duty to accommo-date
have dictated and what the 2013 WCB Act says has to be do-ne
when establishing a functional and real Return to Work (RTW) program. You
have done your part.
An injury happens and your company’s RTW plan jumps into full gear as it was
designed to do. The injured worker does their job – they report their injury to the
appropriate person within your corporate hierarchy. The supervisor does their job
to ensure that both the injured worker and the site are safe and secure. Then, an in-vestigation
is initiated and the injured worker is taken for treatment by a respon-sible
person. The appropriate forms are sent along with the injured worker so the
primary care provider can document the physical restrictions and accommoda-tions
so a RTW plan can be formulated in everyone’s best interests. On this form,
it is clearly printed that the company can and is able to accommodate any and all
physical restrictions.
Everything and everyone are doing what they are supposed to, as the entire sys-tem
is designed to be. The injured worker comes back from the care provider, let’s
say for the sake of argument, a physiotherapist. They hand the RTW form back to
the supervisor and on it, it says the worker is to be off for two weeks, no work re-strictions
and no accommodations at all.
The injured worker tells the supervisor that they are now going home because
the medical professional told them to do so. This injury is now going to turn into
a time loss, even though you have a very robust RTW program and your company
can and will accommodate any and all physical restrictions. Something does not
seem right. What do you do now?
• You can accept the professional advice from the medical professional and take
the time loss and hope this will not affect your WCB rates too much and/or
your ability to bid on some contracts if you are involved with the third-party
contract management companies, such as ISNetworld, etc.
GEORGERUDY/123RF 42 Think BIG | Quarter 1 2019 | saskheavy.ca
/saskheavy.ca
