It is your employer’s responsibility to make sure that a safe and healthy workplace is provided to its workers. Even the best intentions when it comes to doing so can still end up in an injury at work occurring. This can be a traumatic and often very painful experience. It can also be quite complicated since you will need to hire a workers’ compensation lawyer.

At a certain point, however, you should heal from your injuries and be ready to get back to work. Going back after an injury is a bit complex so it pays to know what to expect. In this article, we will go over several ways to make the process of returning to work after a worker’s compensation case go smoothly.

1. Keep your employer in the loop.

Although you don’t need to go into too many personal health details about your recovery, it is important to keep your employer up to date with your recovery progress. They need to be able to plan on how to get the work done and will have to know how long your replacement needs to be there, or if they can just pause your workload for now.

This will result in a lot of goodwill since it won’t seem like an adversarial position on your part. You may not be able to pinpoint an exact date for your return but if they are kept in the loop then they will be able to adjust their needs based on the information that you’re providing them.

There may also be accommodations that they need to get ready for you when you return and knowing how much time they have is helpful to both of you.

2. Stick with your recovery schedule.

If you are somebody who hates to sit around and is eager to get back to work then you may tend to rush your recovery. It is a bad idea to go back to work before your recovery date has passed since it can cause a relapse or take longer for you to properly recover.

You may even have a boss that is pushing for your return and you could be tempted to give in to the pressure. This is actually illegal on the part of your boss so make sure to remain firm that you will not be coming back until you are cleared by a doctor to do so.

3. Request reasonable accommodations. 

Your injury may have resulted in some long-term changes in your health and physical ability to do your job. It may be possible to return to the office if the employer is able to make some changes to help you get the work done.

For instance, it may be possible to do your job from home. If you are healthy enough to work but are not able to commute then this is a reasonable accommodation to request. Another example is to allow you to come to work later or reduce your hours to help you get the rest that you need.

There are a number of ways for your employer to meet you halfway to accommodate your new needs due to your injury.