Return to Work
Resources
for Workers

Implementing a RTW Plan 

Once the details of the RTW plan have been developed, the plan needs to be reviewed, and agreed to by

• You
• Your manager
• Your return to work co-ordinator
• Your primary medical/ healthcare practitioner

And also by your

• Injury manager coordinator (if you have one)
• Workplace rehabilitation provider (if you have one)

Once the plan has been agreed, you should all be provided with a copy of the final plan so everyone can implement whatever they are responsible for, and have the plan to refer back to as needed.

You might also like to take your plan back to your healthcare providers and other support people to get their perspectives and advice, especially if the arrangements that were ultimately negotiated differed from what they originally recommended. You can then also discuss with them how they might be able to provide additional support during your RTW.

Getting support while your RTW plan is being implemented

As you get ready to return to working, it can be useful to put some extra support in place for your mental health and your energy levels. You may find, for example, that thinking about how your return might unfold, and getting arrangements in place, draws on your mental and emotional energy and makes you feel more fatigued. It may also bring up worries about how your return will go. Getting some extra support will help you have more energy to draw on, and help you deal with any concerns when they first arise.

BeyondBlue  provide some resources you can use to check how you’re going,

BeyondBlue | Check your mental health

You might also like to schedule some additional ongoing support from your doctor or mental health professional so that you have extra assistance as your return to work arrangements are implemented and as you re-engage with working.

If you've been receiving mental health support as part of a worker's compensation claim, you should be aware that that support will potentially end when you return to work. So you may need to organise additional or replacement assistance to support you through that time.

In the first days and weeks of your return, you might find it helpful to work through the "How Is My Mental Health Impacting My Capacity to Deal with Work Demands" questionnaire in your workbook to identify - and track over time - how your mental health may be impacting your capacity to deal with different types of work demands, and whether the supports you have might need to be adjusted.

Reviewing and revising a Return to Work Plan 

Because people’s recovery and return to work can vary so much, its important that you and your manager check in regularly about how you are going, and how support arrangements are working, so these can be adjusted as needed. 

To aid this process, you can use the 'How Am I Going' worksheet and the Review checklist in your workbook to write your views and thoughts on your RTW such as  

•  How is it going?  
• What has worked with your RTW?  
• What needs to be reviewed?  
• Was there anything agreed upon but not put in place?  
• How have you felt throughout your RTW?  

Re-engaging with RTW may impact your energy levels far more in the initial stages than when you've been back in the workplace after a little while. You may find it helpful to monitor how your much energy you have at the end of the day, as this can help you determine whether your current work hours and supports might need adapting.

You might like to use the advice and tools that BeyondBlue provide to work out – or revise – a workplace wellbeing plan for yourself to give you more support as you implement your RTW, or to support changes in your help and support needs.

BeyondBlue | Working with poor mental health

Reviewing your out of work support arrangements

You may also find it helpful to review the support you are receiving from outside your workplace to see if those supports are working as you hoped, or made need adapting. This could include considering:

• Are you getting the rest time at home that you need?  
• Are household arrangement for things like transport, childcare, rest times, etc. providing support you need or might they need adapting?
• Have you had a check in with your doctor, counsellor, other support people.  
• Check in with supervisor but also out of work people to see how you're going.  

Revising arrangements  

Ideally, you should check in with your manager regularly during your first weeks back at work and you might, for example, schedule a check in for  

• Your first day 
• Your first week 

But you should also have arrangements in place with them so you can contact them or another workplace support person betweentimes if they need to.  

The key consideration, when reviewing arrangements with your manager, is whether they are working as anticipated to help you safely and successfully resume working.  

If they are not, then you should   

• Review the existing arrangements to determine which ones are not working as anticipated 
• Re-do the processes detailed in Topic 4 to develop a new set of accommodations that better align with your needs.    

When you do so, its crucial that you begin that process, as in Topic 4, by focusing on how you are now  feeling and how your health medication or treatment is now affecting you. That way, you can ensure the new arrangements you are developing will  

• Address the needs you now have (rather than address needs which may not be as relevant any more) 
• Work more effectively than the previous arrangements, as you will be able to discuss with your manager how new arrangements may work better or worse than the ones in place before

If your RTW arrangements do need to be adapted, that doesn't mean you or your manager got things 'wrong' the first time! It just means that it is now apparent that there are better ways you can be supported. Perhaps the original supports didn't work as anticipated. Or it may be that you had needs that only became apparent once the original arrangements were put in place. Or it may be that other issues and considerations came into play.

So there can be many reasons why a RTW plan might need to be adapted. As we said in Topic 4, the best plan, and planning process, is the one which provides the best match between your needs and the organisation’s supports that can be achieved at any given time, which means being flexible, responsive and open to change. So if a change is needed, it's far better to find out, and make the change, as soon as possible!

References

Material on this page sourced from:

Return to Work. (2023a). Return to work: Topics for employees. Retrieved from https://returntowork.workplacementalhealth.net.au/

Return to Work. (2023b). Return to work: Topics for supervisors. Retrieved from https://returntowork.workplacementalhealth.net.au/

WorkCover Tasmania. (2023). Guideline number: G-020 Guideline for preparing return to work plans and injury management plans. Retrieved from https://worksafe.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/622448/RTW-and-IM-plans.pdf