Return to Work Options for Siteless Employers Such As Trucking PEO Construction
A Question and Answer Exchange took place on Workers Compensation Roundtable, may be of interest to many because it contains information about how to minimize indemnity payments when your company is rather limited by what types of on-site work options are available for injured employees.
QUESTION:
What options do you use for employers without an actual work site for employees returning to work from an injury to come back to?
I use volunteer/charitable work, home-based work, work hardening/rehab centers with job-simulation settings.
How have these worked for your companies. Any success stories? Problems? Obstacles?
ANSWERS
#1 Our company has done a lot of "cross-divisional" programs that are generally very successful. In addition to offering viable transitional duty tasks, they also allow the division providing the "free" personnel (to the division receiving the personnel on transitional duty to reconsider their stance and become more flexible in what return-to-work (RTW) options they will consider.
#2 Being a national trucking company we also use volunteer organizations. It's a must for our organization, since there are plenty of situations where we do not have an on-site light duty position nearby. There are companies out there able will find these temporary light duty jobs for you. Two companies that come to mind are Eagle One and Workers' Transition Network.
#3 National Job Finders has another alternative. We find injured workers with permanent restrictions new positions outside the insured employer. This is often useful for employers who either cannot or will not provide light or modified duty for their injured workers.
#4 Many employers don't want RTW program, and this is their right. Rather than continuing to push unwanted programs on them, let's offer options, and work with other options. There can be many reasons RTW is not desirable in every circumstance, so a program like National Job Finders (NJF) should be considered for those programs in addition to "site-less" employers.
A Question:
How effective are these organizations supporting employees in rural areas?
#5 As a nationwide, interstate trucking company, we implement both an on-site and off-site program. We utilize a vendor to locate off-site placements at not-for-profit organizations. They have been successful in obtaining rural placements.
One challenge we face is locating full time off-site work. Part time placements are less desirable because we have a policy limiting leave to 12 weeks. If a part-time placement is found, the employee's leave continues to run and they time out faster. Are there any suggestions?
#6 At NationalJobFinders we find full time positions at paying employers and never use non-profit. Usually with the nonprofit jobs or charity work, the insurer must continue to payout.
We are also successful in rural areas, a majority of our casework. Sometimes we have cases where the person was injured living in a city or suburb but then moved to the middle of nowhere after they were injured. The claimant often insists "there are no jobs where I am."
#7 In this job environment, finding full time positions is difficult. Do you have statistics tracking your performance by industry type of injured employee, referral success rate, type of success (settlement, placed with new employer etc.), length of time to reach that success, cost to reach that success or other metrics that you think show the advantage of your program.
#8 Most of the time we are not given exact details on the closing of the case. I have historical statistical data available and other info on our online media kit http://tinyurl.com/ykx438d
The average case closes in 8-12 weeks. Although we may not be told the specific results of our work, clients do let us know they are pleased with the results and immediately send us additional cases.
Usually, after we have successfully worked cases for a client, the cases begin to get "younger" and we get more of them from each client. We do survey our customers after cases close via a feedback form to help get more of the type of information you are asking for.
Note: much of the discussion is by www.NationalJobFinders.com, a service that finds jobs off-site on behalf of employers.
Author Robert Elliott, executive vice president, Amaxx Risks Solutions, Inc. has worked successfully for 20 years with many industries to reduce Workers' Compensation costs, including airlines, health care, manufacturing, printing/publishing, pharmaceuticals, retail, hospitality and manufacturing. He can be contacted at: Robert_Elliott@ReduceYourWorkersComp.com or 860-553-6604.
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