1/2/25 is the Best Day to FEEL the Value of Return to Work

The only way to truly understand it is to feel it. Hello, my name is Michael Stack and I’m the c e O of amax and happy New year to you. It’s January 3rd, 2023. Brand new start to a fresh and shiny year. I dunno about you, but when the alarm went off this morning, it was a little bit harder to get out of bed than normal. We had a nice week off. I took two weeks off at the end of the year.

Many Get Out of Their Routines Over the Holidays

Between Christmas and New Year’s, a lot of people kind of get out of their routines, including myself. We’re eating a couple more cookies, eat a little bit more different kind of foods than we normally would. Maybe drink a little bit more wine than we normally would. We get out of the habits, we start developing new habits. Remember not exercising as much as we can, or maybe that’s just me, but I think that’s a lot of other people as well.

We talk about the value of return to work so often in the work comp industry, and I talk about it a lot myself. We talk about it in terms of the value for the company, the value of getting people back to work, how it reduces costs, et cetera. The only way to truly understand the value of return to work for the injured worker, for the injured employee is to feel it yourself. And there is no better time than today and this week getting back off of this holiday season where we can understand that, where we can actually feel it when we could feel it as individual people. It’s a lot better for us to be in our work routines, to be in our routines, be in our healthy eating routines, be in our exercise routines, be in all those good habits that we develop in a working life.

Feel the Value of Return to Work for the Injured Worker

When we get out of those routines, a lot of poor habits easily seep in, easily seep into our life. Now we’ve been off, I’ve been off personally for two weeks. Maybe you’ve been off for a couple of days or week, et cetera, and over the holidays, whatever that is, but it’s been a different routine likely for you. Here’s the stats, here’s the stats in regards to return to work, and I want you to feel these in regards to what your own body is feeling today, particularly January 3rd, 2023. As we’re coming off this holiday break, here’s the stats between zero and 12 weeks, if you get an employee back to work, if an employee comes back to work within that timeframe, they’re likely going to work again. So this is percentages that they ever work again, ever like ever in the rest of their life, ever in the rest of their life.

It’s not, hey, it’s really hard for the alarm to go off and it’s hard for them to get outta bed. This is not that percentage. This is if they ever work for the rest of their life. Massive, massive, massive personal impact for that individual employee. So pretty good odds within the first 12 weeks, but still, you know, 7.8% of people never working for the rest of their life because they didn’t come back to work. Massive drop off at after 12 weeks, 55.4%, massive drop off right here. Only 55.4% of people will ever, ever, ever, I’m talking ever for the rest of their life, ever come back to work. 55.4%. Then it drops off 42, 32, 22, 10, 7 0.6, and after 104 weeks, that’s two years off of work, only fi uh, rough 4.9. Roughly 5% of people will ever come back to work.

Only Way to Truly Understand Value of Return to Work

The only way to truly understand the value of return to work for injured workers. I’m talking injured workers. I’m talking empathy. A lot of in the work comp industry, thankfully, have never actually experienced a workplace injury. The only way to really feel it, to empathize, to truly understand the value of return to work, the value of this graph that’s up here is to feel it. And there is no better time than today, January 3rd, 2023, as we’re starting a brand new year of how you’ve been off your routines for the last X number of days or weeks, and now you’re trying to get back to ’em and starting that engine going is not the easiest thing in the world. Once you get it up and going, you’re off to the races and you’re back in your routine and you’re rocking and rolling. But you can see as time gets on, it just gets harder and harder and harder and harder and harder to get back into those work routines. Lot of value in return to work. The only way to really understand it is to feel it. Remember your work today, your work, what we’re doing in Return to work is not only good for the company, but it’s a huge, huge value for injured workers.

Happy New Year to you and your family. I hope you put this information into practice.

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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