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Getting back to work….. Is it too soon?
You cannot avoid the relentless message spruiked by WorkSafe about getting injured employees back to work and a significant part of our role in representing employers involves exactly that. An early return to work helps with recovery and keeps WorkCover premiums low – it’s a no brainer.
However, do we sometimes need to back off and let the employee recover sufficiently to support and enhance their return to work prospects?
The insistent push to achieve a return to work can sometimes be to the detriment of all parties, as returning employees too early can ruin relationships, jeopardise a positive claims outcome and impact recovery.
Balance is the keyFinding…

Hazards, What Hazards?
Incident reporting. Seems pretty straight forward doesn’t it?
Have an incident; report it. Have an injury; fill out an injury report form. Straight forward.
So what about hazards and near misses?How does your business go about reporting these?
In my opinion, they’re a really important part of incident reporting. I feel like I’m constantly asking people to report their hazards and/ or near misses; because we don’t know what we don’t know.
You’re the person working your job, if there’s a hazard that might cause you or someone else to be injured, your employer needs to know about it in order to fix it, and to hopefully ensure no-one…

Conciliation – To Fear or Not to Fear
Common scenario – You’ve just received a letter advising that an employee has lodged a request for conciliation. You read through it and it tells you the nature of the dispute, when it was lodged and who is involved – the Agent, employee and the employee’s representatives (often this is a legal firm).
At this point many employers may feel a sense of unease – What is conciliation? How did this happen? The employee is represented, who is representing us? Do I need legal representation?
Well, you can relax because we understand and are here to help.
Conciliation is not to be feared. It is an informal meeting between…