The objectives of this retrospective study were to (1) examine the predictive value of employer's disability management (DM) perceptions and DM policies in return-to-work outcomes for the injured worker, (2) examine factors that influence employer's DM perceptions, polices and return-to-work outcomes, and (3) examine the relationship between demographic factors of the individual and return-to-work outcomes. Employers from a northern British Columbia, Canada community were randomly selected to participate. The findings of the study supported the hypothesis that company perception towards DM is a significant contributing factor to the presence of DM policies in the workplace and that DM polices are predictive of return-to-work outcomes for injured workers.

Successful rehabilitation outcomes rest on the quality of the links among multiple stakeholders. However, the literature has increasingly recognised the challenges in creating effective partnerships between stakeholders such as external health professionals, employers and injured workers. This study presents findings from an industry-directed project aimed at investigating the links between external health professionals and the employer in relation to return-to-work rehabilitation. Semistructured interviews were conducted with general practitioners (GPs), psychologists, and organisation-based rehabilitation personnel. Findings indicated several major points of consideration to facilitate health professional and employer partnerships, including educating stakeholders about organisational rehabilitation services and key contact personnel within the organisation, establishing standard communication protocols, understanding organisational culture and providing explicit organisational support for the rehabilitation process. To ensure appropriate and timely outcomes for injured workers, the current findings highlight the proactive and educative role that employers must assume when acting in partnership for rehabilitation.

This article describes the process and outcome of a systematic review that evaluated the effectiveness of workplace rehabilitation interventions for work-related low back pain (LBP). Between 1982 and 2005 CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE and AMED databases were searched for studies of interventions that were provided at the workplace for workers with LBP. Using methodological quality appraisal 5 reviewers scrutinised the articles. A total of 1224 articles were reviewed and 15 articles, consisting of 10 studies, were deemed of sufficient quality to be included. The best evidence was clinical interventions with occupational interventions, as well as early return to work/modified work interventions, were effective in returning workers to work earlier, reducing pain and disability, and decreasing the rate of back injuries. Ergonomic interventions were also found to be effective workplace interventions.

As part of a larger study into stress, absence and reintegration (Stress Impact 2003–2005), semistructured interviews were carried out with a range of professionals including general practitioners, occupational health physicians, health and safety officers, human resource professionals, general managers, mental health professionals and return-to-work coordinators. The aim of the study was to explore professional perceptions of stress recognition/diagnosis, experiences, stress factors, interventions, referrals, the return-to-work process and disability management in six European Union jurisdictions (Austria, Finland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom). The most striking characteristic of the responses was the lack of congruence in views and beliefs within the same professional group across jurisdictional boundaries and between professionals within the same jurisdiction. There was little evidence that any clear message is getting across to professionals. Professionals need to respond more flexibly to stress-related absence, particularly in the use of psychosocial and work-based disability management supports or interventions.

The idea of corporate integration of people with disabilities, who often have become impaired in the course of their working career, has been reinforced by the German Social Code Book IX. With the implementation of the Section 83 and 84.2, preventive approaches such as integration agreements have put the emphasis on the role of social partners in the disability management process, that is, on to the employers' representative, the representative body of the disabled employees and the Works Council. A sectoral case study of the automotive industry, funded by the German government, was conducted to evaluate the integration agreement, using both quantitative and qualitative data. This article explores the goal-setting function of the integration agreement and its role in the management process.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the rationale for labour involvement in the management of injury and disability at the workplace. The authors discuss the importance of joint labour–management collaboration in the development and implementation of disability management and return-to-work programs. Best practices in disability management are reviewed, with a focus on important implications for joint labour–management committees. An overview of the key elements of formal return-to-work programs is discussed, including established benchmarks for return-to-work program development and implementation. This article also provides an overview of a proposed pioneering research project to analyse collective bargaining agreements, to review evidence of a joint commitment to best practices in worksite disability management, and to determine the extent to which disability management best practices are evident within unionised worksites.

The costs of occupational stress are rising and employers increasingly need to address occupational stress, prevention and rehabilitation issues. However, there is a relative lack of understanding about implementing strategies within specific organisational contexts. Extant literature indicates a need for integrated prevention and rehabilitation strategies that address specific organisational climates that contribute to stress. The Queensland Police Service (QPS) is one policing organisation facing significant occupational stress issues requiring organisational solutions. This article describes a Participatory Action Research case study, the aim of which is to develop an occupational rehabilitation system within the QPS to address identified stress issues. A combination of background information, interview and focus group data is being used to determine stress issues and provide potential solutions to specifically address the needs of the QPS. The findings of this study emphasise the importance of participant involvement in identifying issues and generating solutions, as well as demonstrating the value of taking a systemic approach. The findings suggest that the use of the Participatory Action Research approach is invaluable in promoting the long-term success of the QPS change process.

Early work-related interventions are extremely difficult when an employee is on long-term absence and in medical rehabilitation because of a severe illness or injury. The role of the medical rehabilitation setting is often focused on care and cure; there is little focus on work and work resumption. In this respect health care can hinder employees in their work resumption and in their focus on work. In this study, an intervention was undertaken to increase the focus on return to work in the medical rehabilitation setting with the aim of an integrated approach to return to work. The intervention was carried out in eight rehabilitation settings. During implementation, four different organisational models related to the return-to-work activities were recognised, varying from an integration of return-to-work activities within medical rehabilitation to a complete separation of the medical rehabilitation and the return-to-work activities. Every centre reported an increase of work-related activities and an increase in the return-to-work rate of employees was found.

The role of work environments in employability was examined at approximately 8 months postaccident in a sample of 69 trauma-exposed, injured adults with and without PTSD. Results showed that participants with PTSD reported significantly lower employability than those without PTSD and this translated into significantly poorer return-to-work rates. Two work environment dimensions, low work support and poor organisational structure, were significantly associated with low employability in the sample. Low levels of work support were significantly related to high PTSD symptom severity. A combination of 3 variables, PTSD symptom severity, physical functioning, and workplace organisational structure, accounted for 60% of variation in employability. Interventions in the workplace should aim to minimise and accommodate PTSD symptomatology and physical dysfunction. In addition, this study has also shown that workplace-based interventions should be aimed at clarifying expectations about job tasks, and promoting moderate managerial control in the workplace. These factors should be considered for inclusion as standard disability management practices for this population.

In the Dutch literature on occupational health and sickness absence many references can be found on organisational factors that influence the sickness absence. Many of those factors are related to the culture of an organisation. To classify and analyse those factors we used a well-known management model — the seven S model. After identifying the cultural aspects that might influence sickness absence, we developed a simple management tool consisting of 30 questions. The goal of the tool is to explain the organisational culture in relation to sickness absence. This explanation enables the organisation to choose interventions to change organisational aspects in order to prevent or to reduce the sickness absence in the organisation. We tested the tool with seven human resource (HR) managers in the governmental sector. They completed the checklist and the results were discussed with them in a face-to-face interview. To date, the checklist appears to be helpful in analysing the organisational culture in relation to sickness absence, but it still needs to be tested with a larger population.

A significant problem in Sweden is the large number of people on long-term sickness absence and disability pension. To prevent long-term absenteeism, increased focus has been put on employers and disability management (DM). Effective DM, however, also requires a motivated employee. One way to motivate employees to return to work (RTW), is to provide economic incentives. The aim of the current study was to investigate the occurrence of economic incentives for people in Sweden to RTW after long-term sickness absence. The study is based on three fictitious cases. The results show that only marginal economic incentives presently exist in the Swedish RTW system. The necessity for economic incentives in the RTW process can, of course, be usefully debated. Research suggests, however, that such incentives play a part in the RTW process. With stronger economic incentives for the employee, the effectiveness of DM and prospects of job return would, arguably, be enhanced.

This study documents the findings of a qualitative investigation of the structure, process, and outcomes of an Intensive Case Management (ICM) program that was implemented in several government departments to improve the management of psychological injury and to reduce costs. The study demonstrated that the ICM model was effective in meeting its intended outcomes. Specifically, the model facilitated the delivery of timely and coordinated services to the workplace, and consequently, reduced the incidence of claim lodgment, assisted with accommodated return to work and minimised time away from work. Issues for future consideration included how the model could be integrated more firmly into the organisational culture and how to incorporate systematic follow-up and the capacity to address longer-term issues for injured workers.

Postinjury vocational achievement is an important index of successful vocational rehabilitation. This study involved the identification of factors reported to facilitate labour-force participation of people with spinal cord injury (SCI) who, even though lacking the personal characteristics found to correlate with labour-force participation, were actually members of the labour force. The empirically identified subjects comprised the 20 most extreme prediction errors from the application of discriminant function analysis, which was conducted with the aim of predicting vocational achievement (in the labour force vs. not in the labour force) following SCI. Subjects were interviewed to gain an understanding of their explanations for their erroneously predicted labour-force status. Principal factors nominated as most influencing the postinjury labour-force achievements were the assistance of family, friends and representatives of preinjury employers. Implications of these findings for the delivery of rehabilitation services are presented, including the need for more community-based and employer-related services.

Functional capacity evaluations (FCEs) and other work-related assessments continue to be used in occupational rehabilitation to determine the capacity of injured and disabled workers to either return to their preinjury jobs, or to determine what they are capable of doing in a work context. New instruments have been developed and others refined. There is a continuing call however for these systems to demonstrate acceptable reliability and validity. Comprehensive reviews of reliability and validity of work-related assessments were published and included information up to the end of 1997. This study updates that information by examining research conducted on five FCEs over the subsequent 8-year period (January 1998–March 2006). The Isernhagen Work Systems (IWS) FCE had the most comprehensive coverage of all aspects of reliability and validity, while the Progressive Isoinertial Lifting Evaluation (PILE) was also extensively researched. Newer FCEs show promise and should continue to be investigated. Clinicians and others are encouraged to be informed consumers of the evidence that exists for the reliability and validity of FCEs and other work-related assessments.

The aging workforce is likely to result in increasing numbers of workers with disabilities. The US Census Bureau projects that the 45- to 54- and 55- to 64-year-old population in the United States will grow by nearly 44.2 million (17%) and 35 million (39%) in the next 10 years (US Census Bureau, 2004). By the year 2010, this group will account for nearly half (44%) of the working age population (20–64), and the number of people with disabilities between the ages of 50 and 65 will almost double (Weathers, 2006). Disability management and accommodation policies and practices readily lend themselves to addressing the challenges employers will face with an aging workforce, and the increasing prevalence of disability that these demographics bring. Proactive education about ways to maximise the productivity of an aging workforce, effective case management, and workplace accommodation can significantly contribute to maximising aging worker retention.

Various factors have meant that employment in welfare states is much more insecure than just a few decades ago. Entrepreneurship has become an important alternative for many people, as a way to increase both security and flexibility. At the end of the 1990s and the start of the 2000s, an average of just over 10,000 people per year received grants in Sweden to start their own business. Of these, just under 10% had some type of ‘work handicap’. This study surveyed a group of new entrepreneurs with disabilities about their entrepreneurial activities. Of those who answered the questionnaire 51% were women. The average age of respondents was 43 years. Only 31.2% reported at follow-up that they were 100% involved in their business. The vast majority of disabled entrepreneurs worked part-time in their firm, which is quite different to the work contribution of entrepreneurs without disabilities. However, the main finding is clear: entrepreneurs with disabilities succeed to roughly the same extent as other entrepreneurs. In terms of disability management programs, entrepreneurship should also be considered as an option for people with disabilities.