Employers' perspectives on the provision of suitable duties in occupational rehabilitation

The workplace based approach to occupational rehabilitation depends on the availability of; and employer willingness to provide suitable duties to wor kers with injuries who are either temporarily or permanently unable to perf orm their pre-injury work duties. Given the importance of suitable duties t o the outcome of occupational rehabilitation, it is surprising that there h as been no research that examines the feasibility of providing suitable dut ies from an employer perspective, Accordingly, this paper presents the resu lts of a representative statewide survey of employers in New South Wales, A ustralia. Findings indicate that most employers experienced difficulty in p roviding suitable duties to their workers with injuries, and that small emp loyers (<20 employees) experienced more difficulty than large employers. Wo rkers' compensation bodies need to develop strategies to assist employers i n this central task of occupational rehabilitation.