Margaret Spence presented to a standing room crowd at SHRM12 – “I’ve Fallen & I Won’t Get Up – 10 Strategies to Manage Workers Comp Injuries Effectively. The key points of her presentation were:

• HR must understand the link between workers compensation and HR compliance.
• Every organization must remove the emotion from injury management and treat the employee as an employee. HR must have clear policies and procedures for managing injuries starting on day one.
• Effective Post-Accident Policies are essential to managing injuries – we need to define our expectations after the injury. What do you want the employee to do?
• We must have a clear transitional duty program that addresses return to work – starting on day one.
• HR must build a tribe of believers that support the return to work process – we cannot manage injuries alone – it takes a village of people who have a singular mission, getting injured employees back to work successfully.

Margaret went on to identify for the audience what matters most in the Injury Management process – her list included:

• Building a compliant team that includes your insurance carrier. It’s not ok to just blame the injured worker sometimes the system fails to provide the employee with appropriate immediate medical treatment. This fact creates fear that leads to litigation.  
• Educating Supervisors and Managers is essential to preventing derailment of the injury management process. As Margaret said, “Noting wreck an injury management plan than a supervisor who doesn’t feel like cooperating.”
• HR Must learn how to sell success – if we succeed at getting injured employees back to work successfully, we must sell that success to everyone else.

Finally, Margaret implored the audience to add Safety to their hiring strategy – because as she put it – “you can’t catch a horse that has already left the barn.” Safety is the key to employee retention – prevention is better than the cure.

If you missed Margaret’s presentation she will be presenting at the HR Florida Conference on August 28, 2012 at the Rosen Shingle Creek. Visit the HR Florida website for more information on where she will be speaking next.