RETURN-TO-WORK (RTW) MENTORSHIP

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The Workplace Safety & Wellness Solutions mentorship service involves our staff coming to your company for a half day or full day, for a period needed to improve company RTW program performance.  

We walk your key staff through one-on-one practical disability management tasks.  For example, how to do proper communications with employees, charting RTW progress, and  correspondence / meeting with medical, government, and insurance personnel – all rudimentary day-to-day disability management activity. 

Service steps involved:

1. AUDIT

An audit of your absence management processes looking for bottlenecks in your management of employee sick time (i.e. considering LTD/STD and WSIB if applicable).

2. TRIAGE 

We triage issues and make recommendations regarding customized policy, procedure, template letter updates / improvements based on the above audit. 

3. DIRECTION ON RTW MATTERS

Immediate direction  is provided on priority RTW matters (i.e. excludes paralegal services, though preferred specialists may be recommended for the 1-5% of expected cases)

4. STAFF MENTORSHIP

Class training and one-on-one staff mentorship is provided to assist in implementing specific needed improvements (i.e. includes letter writing, assistance with phone calls, etc.)

5. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

We provide ongoing support and check-ins to ensure continued improvement.

Most Human Resources staff struggle with the lack of time to perform the administrative paperwork tasks involved in disability management, let alone the diligent attention needed for return-to-work efforts with their employees. Add complexity such as knowing technical and legal requirements (i.e. WSIB) and then many companies, WRONGLY, jump to the solution of contracting out all activities to sometimes multiple third parties at great expense. 

There is a time and place to contract out to specialists, but this should only be with the 1-5% of your most difficult RTW cases. Money would be saved for those rare situations, and only involve the hiring of the most competent specialists. However, if a company contracts out to generalists to complete LTD applications, WSIB Form-7s, etc. yet ‘lacks’ funding for occasional specialist job site assessments, then they may need to rethink their absence management program. 

Specifically, if a company struggles with half of their RTW situations, in spite of the hired third parties, then a change in approach is needed. Start taking those resources back and learn how to get it right in-house, as neither time nor resources are being saved perpetuating the wrong strategy.

A company can hire their own disability management / WSIB or related specialist. This is the ultimate goal but is mostly practical for large companies. For many others that can’t afford a full or even part time in-house specialist, there is a middle ground of developing their own existing staff. 

Your Human Resources staff have been doing the best they could on their own for some time – thank you very much – and just need some investment to upgrade their skills. Theory workshops and even courses are fine for ideas and inspiration, but we recognize through decades of experience that some practical apprenticeship is needed by most. Try it!