Return-To-Work Plan Objectives:
- to preserve, as closely as possible, an injured worker’s pre-disability earning capacity
- to reduce an injured worker’s period of disability
- to reduce or avoid negative effects on an injured worker resulting from long term absences from work
- to retain an injured worker’s employment skills
- to maintain an injured worker’s contact with co-workers and employer
- to improve an injured worker’s physical, social and psychological well being after a work related disability
- to assist an injured worker maintain dignity and self-esteem
Options for Return-to-Work include:
(in order of preference)
Modified Work may include hours of work, job duties and work-site modification: any and all modifications to the physical work environment (ergonomics), job duties, tasks or hours of work that will accommodate an injured worker’s abilities and/or functional limitations.
Graduated Return to Work is aimed at facilitating an injured worker’s gradual transition from injury to full employment. A program may be implemented when it is considered appropriate to achieve maximum physical, psychological, economic and social recovery from the effects of a work-related injury on a timely basis. The objectives of a graduated RTW are:
- to allow an injured worker to achieve a steady progression of hours and/or duties
- to improve an injured worker’s physical capabilities
- to increase an injured worker’s physical strength and tolerances gradually
- to improve an injured worker’s psychological readiness to RTW
- to restore an injured worker’s job skills
- to ensure an injured worker can perform tasks without safety or health risk to the injured worker or others
Transitional Work is a valuable form of rehabilitation in the workplace. It is work that is not considered part of the employer’s “bottom line’ (not budgeted), but that would benefit the injured worker’s rehabilitation and return to work. This might include:
- the injured worker shadowing a person doing his/her pre-accident job
- a meaningful make-work project
- taking on various duties of co-workers that are suitable
Trial of Work is a trial placement of an injured worker with an employer to test and assess an injured worker’s functional capabilities in a job setting.
Training on the job: Where this option is chosen and the employer is not a signatory to the vocational rehabilitation plan, a contract between the employer, injured worker and the YWCHSB is used to identify key elements, milestones, timelines, and the final outcome in advance.
Claim Closure
Upon completion of the Return-To-Work plan, the goals of rehabilitation will have been achieved validating that the worker is fit for employment and the claim will come to a close.
Yukon Workers' Compensation Health and Safety Board
