 Hello and welcome to today's webinar on effective return to work coordination, opinions and best practice. My name is Rachel Hawkins and I will be your facilitator for today. Next to me is Anita Johnston, your expert presenter. Before I introduce you to Anita we have some tips on making the most of your webinar experience, a good one with us. Firstly, Anita will present for approximately 20 minutes and will then have about 10 to 15 minutes of question time depending on how many questions you send in. You can ask questions at any time using the box on the right hand side of your screen and we will collate and answer as many as we can towards the end. Also to encourage you to interact throughout the presentation we will ask poll questions. Again, a simple prompt will pop up on the right hand side of your screen and you will have a brief moment to respond. A little bit of webinar help if you don't have sound that might be a problem for today's webinar. So please follow these simple steps. In addition, feel free to communicate with us using the chat function on the right hand side of your screen. We have IT support and gurus as we call them on hand and we will ask you for your contact number and we will ask if the IT support can make contact with you on your mobile or a telephone number that you provide. Anita will be your expert presenter for today. She wears two hats being the national HR manager and return to work coordinator for the VAC group and Anita will give you a little bit more information about who the VAC group is and what they do. Anita has received the highest accolade in Queensland for her efforts, the return to work coordinator achievement awards which she received at the workers compensation regulator return to work awards in 2014. I will now invite Anita to share her award winning tips for successful and sustainable return to work including practical return to work strategies and her personal tips and opinions about her journey with the VAC group. Thank you so much Rachel for your kind welcome and thank you to everyone out there who has logged in to participate today. I'm really excited to have been given this opportunity to share how to do return to work in an effective way and how you can develop a more effective environment in your workplace. So in my experience there are some characteristics of workplaces that enjoy more effective return to work outcomes than others. So firstly we'll start out by looking at some of these and then once we're aware of this we can develop them and reap some really powerful positive results for all parties involved. So secondly I'll guide you through some strategies and practical tools so you can apply them in your workplace to reduce the duration of claims and their premium impact, strengthen the stakeholder buy-in and positively improve medical, psychological, social and financial outcomes. Now one of the wonderful things in my opportunity is that starting with the VAC group came in where the company was quite small and in a really positive directorship and leadership team. So I was able to put some strategies in place right from where it'd go and as we've grown they've gone throughout the business nationally and even into New Zealand and some of those tips are ones that I'd love to share with you today. So thirdly we'll wrap up with an effective opportunity. So please jot down some of your thoughts over the coming 15 to 20 minutes and get involved. So first of all I thought it would be interesting to find out what interest tree you work in so if you can make your selection on the top right hand side that'd be great. By way of an introduction to myself I've got a psychology degree and a business background and human resources, operations management and management consulting. And you may have noticed I've got a bit of a cold currently so that exacerbates my lingering New Zealand accent though I have been living and working in Australia for about 14 years now. Now I started as an HR manager and safety manager at the VAC group in 2008. One of my return to work coordinator responsibilities was to drive measurable return to work benefits in our processes in that area. Now this tied in really nicely with also project managing, developing a safety management system and an environmental management system to the international standards organisation ISO4801 and 14001 accreditation and also supporting our quality 901 certification. So we work in three of the four industries with the highest non-fatal injury rates. So before we find out what they are I thought it might be interesting to see if you too may be working in some of these industries. So while we're collating the results from your responses here are some of the Safe Work Australia statistics. Now you'll see in the grey highlighted rows four industries for the most non-fatal injury rates per thousand. I think it's interesting that some of the high industries as well as those four grey ones are wholesale trade, personal services, health and community services, property and business services and accommodation, cafes and restaurants. What are some of the injury rates for industries that you've worked in? So here are some of the audience poll replies. Now the company that I work for, the VAC group, is working in three of those four highlighted grey industries namely construction, manufacturing and transport. So we need to have our ducks in order for work to go well and for our staff and suppliers and clients to be in a happy space long term as well. Now I'm sure that in your career you've also noticed some common challenges faced by businesses and individuals and that they're addressed in different ways in various work environments. Now that happened to me regarding return to work approaches. I noticed that some companies seemed to show characteristics regarding their return to work approach which in my opinion can be classified on a continuum of development. On one hand we may see developing workplaces with arguably a less adaptive approach to return to work but it's really good news that it's possible to build a clear business case to your senior change agents within your workplace and giving the right motivators and tools you can be open to evolving a more effective approach in the long term. So there we see that conversely on the right hand side some of the more mature approaches. Now I just want to mention that I'm not basing this on any empirical meta-analysis. This is from my own first 10 observations at various external training programs, listening to the findings of speakers at return to work conferences, talking to colleagues at industry functions and doing some academic reading by researchers in this area. Now clearly this is a potential area that could benefit from some thorough research and I'm sure many of you out there are already contributing to this. One place that I've noticed seems to be a really useful hub of information is a resource driven by Dr Mary Wyatt and her colleagues called the return to work matters.org website. Okay so now thankfully I work with a genuinely outstanding directors and senior management team and colleagues are all honestly passionate about driving innovation and safety. As an overview it's core of to what the back group do as a company and given that we cover three of the foremost dangerous industries we're really lucky to have that background. Now I've been tasked with driving some measurable benefits and here's sort of an overview for a common view from the starting line I could say. Now this is a hypothetical company we're calling She'll Be Right PtyLTD. Now in this situation in a worst case scenario they're actually perceived where it comes in a workplace that is yet to reap some of these benefits. Now firstly if we are considering the viewer's impacts on the return to work situation they're going to impact the return to worker, they throw the injured worker, their employer, the treatment provider and even the insurer. Now first out if an injured worker is not in a supportive well developed system they're really not going to know what to do. In that situation if they become injured they're going to perhaps know that their employer won't be too impressed with the situation, they're not sure what to do because they haven't got any clear training and they may not even be confident talking to their supervisor because working in that kind of environment their supervisor probably won't have any skills to know where to go or what to do either. So in that situation they are going to be unaware of their return to work processes or the suitable duties that are available. Now as you can imagine they're going to go and talk to other people outside the employer for guidance on what to do as you do. In that situation their social network is likely to tell them to go straight to their own GP which is naturally well within their worker rights to do so. However doing that without the support of a mature proactive and engaged workplace can unfortunately have some unintended consequences for the outcome. Okay so what might they be? Now we've slipped over to the management perspective. Now for the second stakeholder they are actually probably well actually unaware of some of the negative impacts of an underdeveloped return to work culture. So in this situation they may think that all workplace injuries are just a necessary expense. They personalise injuries if they occur and after all it can be simpler just to blame the individual worker than taking the time to look at the root causes and be open to continue improvement of the work process that's being used. Now you could be sitting there at your workplace at your desk recognising some of these characteristics and this is actually a fantastic opportunity for you to present these decision makers in your company with a solid business case. Once they're aware of the financial benefits they can reap from developing your return to work system you can turn this around by backing it up with some effective tools that can be rolled out and you'll be a long way ahead of the game in getting great stakeholder buy-in at the level that you need it to get results. We'll begin some of these practical tools in a few moments. So just to finish up this section we're looking at the situation that the medical treatment provider finds himself in. Now in this situation the injured worker has at the suggestion of their mates gone to see their local GP. Now that poor GP isn't familiar with their workplace, has not really any understanding of what the worker does day to day and has no fundamental understanding of what suitable duties might be available. Now you've got to put yourself in the work in the doctor's shoes. They're used to writing medical certificates every day and that's simply stating that that person is unable to present to do any work and it's certainly not used to thinking about what certain duties they could do. And actually that GP won't be familiar with the health benefits of work on a day-to-day reason perhaps and they may even be on an avid serial role taking the worker advocate position and may not be aware that collaboration gives the best health outcomes. So the poor worker isn't aware of what suitable duties are available and they sit back on the opposite side of the desk from the GP and put everything in that GP's hands to drive. And so therefore the GP without any support or guidance from the workplace or the worker just decides well we might as well just send you off home potentially. And then the outcome is that the worker is at home, they become isolated and things potentially did generate from there. Now here's a second opportunity to do a poll and we're interested in finding out what your thoughts are. Definitely to me when I heard it the first time. Out of live A, B or C on the right side of your screen which percentage do you think are the likelihood of an injured worker returning to any form of work after being absent for this number of days? We will take some time to collaborate and collate your results. So as I mentioned my workplaces in civil construction what the back group do we protect underground assets. So obviously that either before I came to work in the civil construction industry and it's a new set of solutions basically whether a company or a government may be building a road extension expanding a motorway, putting in a new hospital, doing the Clemson tunnel, whatever it might be. They need to see what's under the ground to safely put in foundations and that sort of thing. So we use either vacuum excavation to uncover and see what's underneath and where the assets are or also two dimensional ground penetrating radar and even 3D filming as it were underneath the ground. So this means that we can instead of using the old fashioned Bobcat backhoe to auger which will smash its way through the assets like you know down go the Telstra cables and wipe out the whole EFTPOS system for your suburb. The new school way of things is to using either our vacuum excavation trucks or our earth spy ground penetrating radar locating what's under the ground safely. So this is a quick summary of what we do and here's some of the results that we can see and most of you actually got it right. Unfortunately the answer is A if someone has 20 days off work there's chance of getting back a 70%, 45 days, 50 and 70 days off you only have a 35% of getting back to any form of work. So that's quite an eye-opener isn't it to see how important getting back to work is. Naturally we'll see some of the metrics that reflect this. Just wanted to take a moment to talk to you about how the benefits of being in a civil construction where you see the trickle down effective learnings for a heavier industries. Now mining for example in other companies and those sorts of environments use metrics such as the number of days off. Since a number of days since an incident occurred that resulted in a worker being unbent to do any duties whatsoever in the workplace and it's also known as a lost time injury. So I was wondering does the statistics clearly show that keeping socially engaged in the workplace has a massive impact on your house. So some of the benefits are maintaining a routine, keeping your body and mind fit to work, then you're avoiding isolation and the impact on self-esteem and confidence. And you know there's a reason that solitary confinement has been one of the worst kind of punishments that we can inflict on humans when naturally social creatures that benefit from community engagement, even that in our workplace. So let's get through to some of these practical steps that I've got pretty ready for you. We've looked at the impacts of less effective return to work environments, so let's turn to some of these practical tools. Firstly get hands on, get to know your workplace and get involved with your managers and supervisors. Engage company leaders within your workforce, get involved with the Workplace Health and Safety reps in your committee and don't forget some of the change agents. They may not hold senior titles officially but their involvement in buying can have a huge difference in the outcome. Secondly, get to know your staff and their roles. So some of the things that we do involve having a ride day as part of our management team, the dashboard of success for our ISO Health, Safety, Environment and Quality metrics. And that's a fantastic opportunity to get out into the workplace, get hands on, get to know the supervisors, the staff, the clients. And once you do that, one of the benefits is that you'll be, with the relationships that you develop, have much more confidence built as a foundation of trust with your staff. They'll be familiar with what you do and vice versa and you can really have a really positive impact from that. So one of the other things you'll see there is that we engage an occupational physiotherapist. But that was a fantastic opportunity basically provided by our directors. So obviously initially it's a bit of an outlay but what we thought would be a wise move is to engage an external expert to come in and check out some of our more high risk duties and actually do the metrics and measurements and jot them all down into different tasks, how many kilos were involved, what the height, where the duration, all that kind of thing. And then we had an external expert tool kit basically that we could use to do both our pre-employment medicals. We can use them for suitable duties, provide them to our treating doctors. They know exactly what we're talking about and that's sort of a one-off expense but it really made a massive difference and we're all confident now to know exactly what these duties involve and we don't need to go back and rehash that. We've got that now sort of for the long term and highly recommend going down that path and the positive impact it has. And then thirdly, building a workplace treatment provider relationship. So obviously that, like I mentioned, is one of the tips. So instead of like we saw in that worst case scenario with she'll be right, PTYL today, sitting back and not really sort of getting into it and instead getting to know your local working GP's or even your occupational providers, the occupational physicians and the regional that you're working in. And actually building those solid partnerships. So getting to know who your local doctors are, getting them out even to your workplace like we said. That was such a powerful opportunity for our supervisors to be involved and our workers as well. And that way the doctors who, instead of doctors, they're going to actually know what it is you do, what options the staff have for suitable duties in different scenarios. And it's a fantastic opportunity too for a great training tool. So if you decide to use videos or take some photos while they're doing this and have people modelling the different skills and tasks that they do, becomes a cool training tool that you can use yourself for different purposes internally. Great evidence. And it also, with the part of the process, actually develops trust within the company that you work for of what it is that return to work is. It shows that your money is where your mouth is and that you're generally here trying to prevent things and when it comes to if an injury is to occur, they're going to be much more confident in involving you because they know the process and they understand what it is and it's less threatening because it's unknown. And finally, while string return to work skills within your sick device. So this is something that is a really powerful, common characteristic of the more well-developed workplaces that we've seen out there. So instead of the return to work responsibilities lying with one person, such as what used to be me, actually empowering your supervisors to driving return to work processes themselves throughout the business. And what that means is that there'll be much better buying and understanding and obviously can achieve so much more with different people involved and who are going to be close to the ground and in the scene when it happens. A powerful tool that I used when we were delivering this across our company as we grew was using coaching. So reviewing return to work procedures with the supervisors, doing one-on-one role plays even of what they would do if a worker was injured in a certain place at a certain time and also coaching them on how to interact. Sensitively with the employee, what types of questions are appropriate, confidentiality, all that kind of thing, giving the employee space to speak with the treatment provider initially. And then at the end of the appointment, if it's consented to blow the employee and writing beforehand, then you join in. Pretty much because of this underlying relationship, there's never been an issue with that and there's always sort of a foundation of the trust that they have and they know both the worker and the training doctors that we hear to build a team and have a good outcome in the long term. And there's nothing sneaky or suspicious at all. So finally, I wanted to discuss some of the fast response pack contents with you. This is another idea through collaborating with my colleagues and the supervisors across our workplaces. Having a pack for them in a plastic folder, basically, and inside they're developing some of the things that they can have at their fingertips, you know, if and when an injury occurs. So we've laminated a return to work flowchart and that clearly shows who does what, when an injury occurs. And I've even noticed them sort of being up on the walls in the supervisor's office which is around the place which I thought was kind of cute so obviously they must think it's useful. Some directions to the local medical care centre facilities, emergency contact details for the supervisor and return to work coordinator for the blank work cover forms, confidentiality consent forms, the blank suitable duties pack that we've developed, lists of suitable duties with different options and photos. So all of these things are really helpful to have in a pack that we've put both in the youths or the work cover, sorry, or the work youths that our supervisors have. And I also have them sitting on top of the first aid kits in all the different workplaces as well. So they're easy to grab and, you know, because obviously if there's an emergency that's happened and someone's injured, you know, people can get a bit scattered and concerned. So you want to make it as easy and simple for supervisors and workers to have a successful outcome. Okay, I hope you've found this useful. I've come up with a few sort of final thoughts for you as well. A little bit cheesy, hopefully. That's okay. So yeah, starting out with the return sort of at Craneem there. So really good solutions I've found that being prepared is the best basically prevention because if you know what's in any thought ahead, your staff and management team are confident in what track you're going to be going down together before an injury occurs. So making things simple, communicating together and making things easily accessible and continual improvement will have massive positive impact. Also knowing your employees will, like I mentioned, getting out and making sure that your staff know you and also being engaged, finding out through your supervisors and staff what suitable duties you can do and it's going to have a genuine measurable impact on the lost time injury days you'll have and shorter suitable duties times. Thirdly, having treatment provider relationships where you're actually there to support the medical experts with just additional context. So you're providing them what they've mentioned about what the different duties are in your workplace, what options they've got to select from regarding suitable duties and that enables them to keep workers engaged which is the best outcome both for the employee and the workplace and then also being sensitive and discussing the health benefits of work with treatment providers because they may not be mindful of these kinds of more recent research outcomes. Fourthly, having an upbeat approach. So being a solutions focused part of the situation offering advice and support and good medical outcome expectation. So obviously this will be a stressful time for the injured worker and treatment providers of busy people. So focusing on what people can do. Talking through, even when you're discussing with an injured worker, maybe you're in the waiting room ready to go in to see the doctor. Talking them through about what things they feel they could do before they go in and see the doctor. So it's top of mind for them that they can think, well, yeah, even though I've hurt my back I can still, you know, restock something for a certain amount of time or just coming up with ideas and focusing on ability, not disability. Now record keeping, obviously we've got a very busy healthcare system and it's really good to, given that you've got a foundation you've built of trust and relationship with your colleagues, they're going to be more than comfortable with giving you written consent to keep engaged in the medical treatment process. So that will help you keep your files current and complete and then you'll be able to have a full record of what has been happening in the medical intervention and it can also be helpful for the insurer as well. And then finally nurturing, so that old saying who cares for the caregivers and in this situation who cares for the return to work caregivers. So keeping yourself supported for long term success, so using things like networking, return to work awards, conferences, there's wonderful new templates and like even these webinars or these sort of new projects of positive solutions that the Department of Justice and Attorney General are providing. There's so many resources out there, we've got Facebook, websites, all kinds of wonderful communities that you can join and get engaged in and that's really going to help nurture you and yourself in keeping in mind to do the things to keep a bit of a work-life balance happening and doing the day-to-day things also that keep you filled up and inspired and functioning well. Hope that was helpful. Love to hear some of your thoughts now. Okay, well thank you Anita. We have never received so much feedback about you and I'll just have to say some of those on the air because they're great. So great presentation. Thank you very much and someone loved the accent. They were obviously from New Zealand. So no, that's wonderful. We've also got some resources that Anita has referenced throughout her presentation and we will ensure that they have been attached to the webinar copy that is disseminated out to you. I just wanted to officially thank you for your informative and entertaining presentation, Anita. It was great. It's always really good to get some very good practical insight and tools from the industry. Thank you to our audience for your questions and we will now answer some of those. So the first one related, there was a lot of activity actually around your supervisor prepack. So one of the questions was what type of photos is in the supervisor fast response packs? Very good question. So those photos refer to when we have gone through and taken, I guess these are tools for the treatment provider as well. So we have photos in our suitable duties, options for them. Look at you blankly when they are saying, yeah, I'm a back truck driver. So naturally, if they can't picture what the job is that they've been injured doing, then they can't also either imagine what they can't do. They can pose as they may do day to day on when they're moving on to the park or listening when we engage the occupational analysis of different tasks involved in the job and their different weights and kind of being reassessed. So they're just different types of jobs and kind of that this would be in. And then depending on the injury, the medical treatment provider, the doctor, can sit there with the supervisor and the injured worker at the end of the consultation and go, well, I'll give not a particular weight, but just a visual cue. It makes things a lot easier than looking at long lists of tasks and weights and that sort of group. How many employees are in the organisation that you work in and how many return to work coordinators are there? So when we started, and I started with the company back in 2008, there were about 30 staff and we had about 12 back trucks earlier the directors brought in the first four VATRON units from the States and toughened them up for Australian conditions. Now since then the company has grown very healthy and dynamic. Obviously I'm sure you guys can tell that some of these effective tools to running a great return to work system are also tools that are basically running a great organisation. So naturally the company has grown well. We've now got about 180 staff who are across the different states in Australia and even into New Zealand. And yep, that's me. I'm the one who just worked with the coordinator as well as the human resources manager. But that's a thing like as companies develop and get more skilled, if you disseminate your skills and use your supervisors and managers in the different states then your skills will be multiplied across them and customised as well. So I'm more of a resource now for them where they turn and just make sure they're doing the right things and being fantastic the results that we've had as we've developed the system. Thank you. There was also I guess just a bit of a comment about having that preset list of suitable duties. Do you find that they can be a guide? Do they allow for change? Is there flexibility within them? Absolutely. Great question. So what I've done is basically it's like a menu almost. So when this supervisor is sitting in the waiting room, ready to go in with their injured worker to see a doctor, for example, and even in with a doctor at the end of the session, they will list different options of what kinds of things they can do. But I find it's even more effective to start beforehand and the first page has got a whole heap of blank lines basically. So they can select, they can themselves say, well, yes, I feel I am more than able to do these various administration duties. I can, you know, there's a whole variation of different types of things that the employee will be able to say themselves what they can do. And together you'll be able to write these things down and discuss them with the doctor and they'll be able to match them and decide which ones are safe basically. So definitely start out with an open mind and a bit of a blank slate and together fine tune it for the given situation. Thanks, Rebecca. Okay. Another question. You referred to change agents in your presentation and not necessarily having a title. Can you talk us through that a little bit and how did you identify them and then how did you use them? Yeah, I guess I'm sort of referring back to some change management concepts here. So in any organisation and group of people there'll be different ones that have perhaps a formal title that brings with it authority. Obviously the senior leadership team, the owners, directors, these sorts of people in an organisation. And then there'll also be all different kinds of personalities and people with different roles within the company. And some of those people may have quite a strong social impact and political impact within the group. And they may not actually officially hold a strong title but from the calibre of their personality and their networks and that sort of thing, you'll sort of recognise the ones that can make change within an organisation just by nature of who they are. So I guess that was some of the things that I was thinking can help and my experience make effective changes is getting people involved at all different levels who once they understand the benefits for themselves and they're involved in the change process, you'll have a really much more powerful outcome than if you're just trying to push a horse yourself. Thank you. And okay, this is an interesting one. What kind of scenarios would you use as an exercise to engage workers and supervisors? Again, I think I'm pretty lucky in that we're all very passionate about our company. We pretty much will treat it as if it's our own. So when sitting down and discussing with supervisors the different situations that they find, just talking with them really, so we've... Yeah. Sorry, I'm just talking about just general innovation and continual improvement ideas providing them with the current situation that you may have in your return to work system and then being open and listening to them, talking to them and saying, well, what can we do better? What can we do differently? What have you noticed works? What doesn't work? And really collaborating and getting them to give the information and ideas, the best ideas come from them and integrating them and implementing them. I hope that answers that. It sounds like a great place to work because you have these ongoing discussions with your workplace. So I think if that's one message that we're hearing loud and clear today is that you talk constantly with your workforce at all different levels so that certainly helps return to work outcomes. Okay, one final question. Do you find using preferred medical providers reduces the ability to identify pre-existing injuries that a worker's regular GP would know? That's a good question. We use pre-employment medicals that will identify these. But to be honest, generally if an employee has got a genuine injury that has occurred in the workplace and they are aware that it relates to a pre-existing condition or a related condition that they have, they're going to be talking about that with the doctor. So whether that is their GP or an expert occupational healthcare provider, I would hope that given the relationship and that they know that you're looking for the best outcome that they would be open and discussing that relevant information as it were anyway. Thank you. Okay, so every question and every response basically is opening up a whole range of different other questions and tangents. So it's very evident that I think your presentation has been useful to a wide range of our audience today and that has been large. So thank you. We do need to start coming to a close though, but we will endeavour to get Anita back to help answer some of the questions. So some of you have asked for a little bit more information about some of the strategies that you use internally. So it's most definitely been very useful. There are participants out there. Thank you so much for your interaction. It has been amazing. We're sorry that we can't get to all of your questions, but we will endeavour to get Anita back and also keep talking to you. So she's giving us a big thumbs up, which is great. Okay, so in closing today, I'm just going to find some of my notes. I just wanted to again, as the Workers' Compensation Regulator, confirm that we are committed to supporting you in your roles and we are doing that through a community of practice. We've created a return to work coordinator community and that's on Facebook. To ensure that you receive regular communication and current information from the regulator, join using the address on your screen. Subscribe to our eBulletins and then you can be the first to hear about upcoming webinars through this particular community. We also continue to bring you together at our return to work conferences. Townsville will host the next one and that will be the North Queensland Return to Work Conference held on Friday, the 24th of April. Tickets are selling fast, so make sure you secure your spot now. Because of the venue, we do have a limited number, so make sure that you do let your colleagues know and also secure a spot as soon as you can. This year's theme will be on leadership and influence and we hope to bring you a mix of world-class speakers on a range of topics as well as some very practical ideas from your peers. So we've got a couple of return to official, very popular presenters, so thank you so much. It's obvious why you were a notable award winner, so thank you for coming along. That concludes our webinar to ensure success in your roles. We acknowledge that it can be a bit tough at times and we want to, I guess, as the Workers' Compensation Regulator, provide you with education and initiatives that can help make that job a little bit easier. So finally, on behalf of the Workers' Compensation Regulator, thank you for joining us today and being involved in our new initiative. Have a great week. Goodbye.