Supporting an injured worker in the first week: an employer's guide

Why the first week decides so much

The single most consistent finding in return to work research is that time away from work compounds. The longer someone is off, the harder the return becomes, and the odds fall away surprisingly fast: workers who stay connected to the workplace in the early weeks return sooner, recover better and cost the scheme dramatically less than workers who go home to wait until they are fully healed.

The other early driver is how the injury is handled by people, not paperwork. Workers who feel believed, contacted and wanted back do well. Workers who hear silence from their employer in week one often start recovering from two injuries: the physical one, and the sense that they no longer matter. The second one is frequently the harder problem, and it is entirely preventable, for free.

Day one and two: care, notify, call

First, care. Make sure the worker gets the right treatment: first aid on site, a GP visit, or an emergency department for anything serious. Nothing else on this list comes before that.

Second, record and notify: enter the injury in your register of injuries and notify your workers compensation insurer within 48 hours of becoming aware of it. Our injured at work guide, linked below, walks through these first two days in detail, including the certificate of capacity and the worker's right in NSW to choose their own treating doctor and physiotherapist.

Third, make human contact. A call from the direct manager on day one or two, with three messages: how are you, we have notified the insurer so the claim is underway and treatment can be supported, and we want you back and will find duties that fit what the doctor certifies. That call, made warmly and early, is the cheapest claims management intervention that exists.

The rest of week one

Keep the contact rhythm going: brief, genuine check ins every few days, from the same person each time. Check ins are support, not surveillance, and workers can tell the difference immediately.

When the certificate of capacity arrives, read it the way it is designed to be read: start from what the worker CAN do. Most certificates are not a binary fit or unfit; they certify capacity for some hours, some days and some restrictions. That capacity is your raw material for suitable duties.

Know who is in the team. The worker's nominated treating doctor leads the medical side. The treating physiotherapist manages recovery and functional capacity and can talk duties with you, with the worker's consent. The insurer's case manager coordinates the claim, and for more complex situations a workplace rehabilitation provider can be brought in to drive the return to work plan on the ground.

What good suitable duties look like

Suitable duties are real, meaningful work matched to the certificate, offered in writing, with a start date and a review date. Good duties keep the worker inside their team and their routine wherever possible, use skills they actually have, and step up in planned stages as capacity improves.

The classic failures are worth naming. Duties that are demeaning or obviously invented make things worse, not better. Duties that quietly exceed the certificate put everyone at risk. And duties with no progression path turn a bridge into a parking spot. Every suitable duties arrangement should have a next step and a date attached to it.

If you genuinely cannot identify suitable duties, say so early and get help scoping options: the treating physio, the case manager or a rehabilitation provider will often spot workable duties that are invisible from inside the business. NSW employers have obligations to support recovery at work, including providing suitable work where reasonably practicable, and SIRA publishes plain guidance on what that means in practice.

Where the treating physio fits

A physiotherapist working in occupational rehabilitation does more than treat: we assess functional capacity in concrete terms, feed that into the certificate of capacity conversation with the doctor, report progress in language employers and insurers can act on, and help design duty progressions that match real recovery rather than guesswork. With the worker's consent, we would far rather have a five minute phone call with you about duties than watch a claim drift on paperwork.

PACT treats injured workers in clinic at Miranda and by telehealth across NSW, with insurer billing handled directly and, on an accepted claim, no cost to the worker. For employers who want the early intervention side systematised across a workforce, that is exactly the problem our occupational health services and the RADAR program were built for.