January is Best Time to Understand the Importance of Return to Work

 

There’s no better time of year to understand the importance of return to work than right now. Hello my name is Michael Stack and i’m the CEO of Amaxx and today i want to talk about some statistics in regards to return to work and the importance of it but i also want you to think about your own life. Fortunately in workers compensation, many of us have never experienced a work comp injury. We’ve never actually been hurt at work, we’ve never had to go through that some people have of course but most people fortunately haven’t. It is best when we can understand and empathize what’s happening and there’s no better time of the year for most people that can understand the importance of return to work is right now and so let me describe what happens for me personally. We take the last two weeks off of the year for the holidays, spend some time with the kids, see some family et cetera et cetera in that two-week period. We get out of our normal routine probably you do as well. maybe you’re sleeping a little bit later, you’re eating different foods, you know, you’re doing different things that you normally do out of your regular routine and then the longer that time goes on is the harder it is to get back to your normal routine.

For me personally, this is the second full business week of the year. Last week was the first week and i was like okay great let’s get these engines going, let’s get these warmed up, let’s get back to our normal routine and it kind of feels like maybe you’re trying to get that cold engine started you know in the middle of winter and then it takes you a bit to kind of get going and get back to normal business and now this now we’re starting the second week and it’s feeling like for me okay this is kind of back to a normal routine. Same thing happens when people get out of their normal routines when they’re hurt at work. So i want you to think about your own life. I want you to empathize, i want you to feel how you’re feeling and be like “oh yeah if that if that continued, i can see how i would just get stuck in that routine” so let me give you some statistics here to reinforce this and to just reinforce the importance of return to work.

Here’s the stats of ever returning to work ever, like ever going back to work at all, make sure this is major major life implications this is major major cost implications here’s the stats within 12 weeks: 92.2 most people get back to work if they can get back within 12 weeks the faster we can get people back to work, we like a return to work ratio of greater than 95% within 0-4 days so we we shoot for four days. 0-4 days is what we shoot for 95 plus percentage what we’re looking for the stats say 92.2 will will come back to work. So great, they’re not going to be off work for the rest of their life. 55.4 so this is 13 – 26 weeks, this is a precipitous drop from 92 to 55.

Almost half of the people that are out of work for greater than 12 weeks will never work again i hope you got that set. Almost half of the people who are out of work for greater than 12 weeks will never work again. Major major thing and i want you to think about in regards to this holiday season. This holiday feeling is to be like, oh that no you’d be like, no that doesn’t make any sense, that’s ridiculous but you can relate to that number if you took any time off of the holidays and got out of your normal routine getting back to that normal routine takes some effort and you can get stuck in that 32.2. This is after one year, after 52 weeks, so this is greater than 52 weeks and then if they’re greater than two years, so greater than 104 weeks, less than 4% of people are going to ever go back to work if you’re out of work. For greater than a year, 32 out of 42 years less than 4% those are the stats that’s the importance of return to work.

I want you to remind yourself and if you’ve been in work comp for any period of time you understand these numbers but there’s no better way to feel these numbers than right now there’s no better way to empathize with these numbers than right now. Think about that, think about the importance of return to work. Think about sharpening up those and think about those individuals that do unfortunately experience a work comp injury and how we can help them by getting them back to work and oh by the way saving our organizations a huge amount of money. Again, my name is Michael Stack i’m the CEO of Amaxx remember your work today in workers compensation can have a dramatic impact on your company’s bottom line but it will have a dramatic impact on someone’s life. So be great.

Author Michael Stack, CEO Amaxx LLC. He is an expert in workers’ compensation cost containment systems and helps employers reduce their workers’ comp costs by 20% to 50%. He works as a consultant to large and mid-market clients, is a co-author of Your Ultimate Guide To Mastering Workers Comp Costs, a comprehensive step-by-step manual of cost containment strategies based on hands-on field experience, and is the founder & lead trainer of Amaxx Workers’ Comp Training Center, which offers the Certified Master of Workers’ Compensation national designation.

Contact: mstack@reduceyourworkerscomp.com.

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