Browsing: Return to work and rehabilitation | Page 9

Many people infected with COVID-19 continue to experience symptoms after four weeks, and sometimes months, complicating their return to work. Managers play a vital role in ensuring they are safely reintegrated into the workplace, according to Europe's peak work safety body.

An employer that directed a worker to move hundreds of boxes, and then assigned him what it wrongly believed to be light duties after he became injured, has been ordered to pay him more than $700,000 in damages for his incapacitating neck and shoulder injuries.

A worker has unsuccessfully claimed her employer unreasonably rejected her "return to work conditions" aimed at protecting her from the "semi-hostile" workplace, making it liable for her psychological injury.

A worker who contends he was left to languish after he developed psych injuries, from being bullied, has failed to prove his employer unlawfully dismissed him for making a workers' comp claim.

WHS regulators have ramped up their focus on psychological safety, but with the recent onslaught of information on the issue employers are unsure about the first steps to take, according to a workplace wellbeing expert, who lays out the four key areas for preventing psych injuries.

Injured workers are frequently offered "non-evidence-based" treatments in the weeks following the injury event, significantly increasing the risk of their conditions becoming chronic and prolonging their compensation claims, according to an award-winning exercise physiologist.

The "softly, softly" approach to managing injured and very unwell workers helps them achieve their health and social goals and prepares them to tackle vocational issues, and is particularly effective for those with chronic conditions and costly long-tail claims, a specialist says.

The Federal Government has been urged to use its "deciding vote" to add industrial manslaughter provisions and s-xual harassment controls to the national model WHS laws, while Comcare has released a series of guides on preventing workplace s-xual harassment and implementing early intervention programs for injured workers.

Settling on passive treatments, and failing to empower workers with musculoskeletal injuries with the knowledge of what is causing their pain, are common failings leading to disability and excessive recovery periods, an exercise physiologist specialising in chronic pain says.

An excessive focus on preventing sick leave, and the absence of "preventive support", are common to interventions for workers with chronic conditions, according to researchers who say employers need to move away from reactive measures.