A Day One Approach: Improving Worksite Productivity and Employee Engagement Through Stay at Work and Return to Work Programs
Each year, millions of workers in the United States experience an injury or a serious medical problem or disability that results in absence from work to receive needed medical care and allow time to recover fully. In many cases, time away from work is short in duration. Even a short time away, however, can cause stress to both the employer and employee. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average median days away from work increased from 8 to 12 days from 2019 to 2020.
For the employee, they are navigating a system (workers’ comp, disability, healthcare) for which they likely have little or no experience. Navigating the systems, loss of income, concern over the availability of work as well as their functional ability to return to work can cause undue mental stress on the employee which in turn may complicate and delay recovery. Many employees may also feel a loss of identity and social network when unable to work. At the same time, the employer may be suffering reduced productivity because the employee is absent. Given the current number of job openings versus available workers, employers may not always be able to easily replace a worker who is unable to work.