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Supporting participation in the return to work process

As a return to work coordinator, learn what steps you can take when a worker does is not participating in their return to work plan.

Understand why your worker isn’t participating

In the vast majority of cases, injured workers return to work as soon as they can do so safely.

Returning to work after injury is a crucial part of a worker's rehabilitation and, similar to employers, workers have a number of return to work obligations they must comply with:

  • Make reasonable efforts to return to work in suitable or pre-injury employment.
  • Make reasonable efforts to actively participate and cooperate in planning for their return to work.
  • Actively use an occupational rehabilitation service if provided, and cooperate with the provider of that service.
  • Actively participate and cooperate in assessments of their capacity for work, rehabilitation progress or future employment prospects.
  • Actively participate and cooperate with the WorkSafe agent in an interview to enhance their opportunities to return to work.

If you believe that your worker is not complying with their return to work obligations, talk to them. They may have a very good reason for this. Remember: good, early communication makes most issues go away.

Talking with your worker may help shed light on the 'reasonableness' of any perceived or actual non-compliance. Talk about:

  • their ability to travel to and from work or appointments
  • changes in medication
  • changes in work capacity
  • relationships with individuals involved in the return to work process
  • ability to perform agreed return to work arrangements
  • issues/concerns the worker has.

If you still believe after your discussion that the worker is unreasonably not complying with their return to work obligations, talk to your agent about your concerns.

Your agent will most likely contact your worker and try to better understand the worker's rationale for not complying and resolve the issue where possible. After this step, if the worker is still deemed to be non-compliant, your agent may suspend your worker's weekly payments and may progress to terminating them if the worker continues not to comply.

Steps your WorkSafe agent will take

Your Agent will take the following steps when managing a worker who is not making reasonable efforts to participate in the return to work.

Each step is individual, and the process may stop at any time based on worker activity/contact.

  1. Contact the worker to discuss their return to work obligations and discuss any concerns about their participating in the process.

    • If, after speaking with the worker and reviewing the available information, the Agent considers the worker is unreasonably failing to meeting their obligations, the Agent may issue a warning advising weekly payments could be suspended.

  2. If an Agent believes a worker is unreasonably not meeting their return to work obligations, they may issue a warning notice. The notice will explain what the worker needs to do to demonstrate compliance and provide a period of 14 to 60 days for them to take action.

    • After the warning period ends, the Agent will review the worker's participation and may contact them to discuss their progress.
    • If the Agent determines that the worker is still unreasonably not complying with their return to work obligations, they may suspend the worker's weekly payments for up to 28 days.

  4. Following the suspension period, the agent will contact the worker to discuss their obligations.

    • If the agent determines that the worker is still not complying with their obligations, they can take further action to terminate weekly payments.
    • In some situations, the agent may issue a notice seeking to cease and determine weekly payments altogether. This means weekly payments would no longer be payable on the claim.
    • The decision to take this step is made by the agent and will depend on the specific circumstances of the worker's non-compliance.

Make sure you’re meeting your return to work obligations

It's important to note that it will generally not be reasonable for a worker to be deemed as non-compliant if you, as their employer, have not met your own return to work obligations.

This principle applies even in situations where you believe or know that your worker is not meeting the own return to work obligations.

Your agent will manage your worker's return to work non-compliance, just keep them informed if there is something it would be useful for them to know.

Legal obligations during return to work  

Solve return to work problems

Return to work coordinators play a valuable role in helping an injured worker get back to work. Find out how to solve common return to work problems to help you if you're having difficulty supporting an injured worker.

Find solutions