Corporate Health

Room 06 · Reception

Returning to work: the workplace’s part

Return to work is about supporting someone with a work-related injury or illness to come back to their job, or to keep working, as they recover. Claims are handled by each jurisdiction’s own workers’ compensation authority and scheme, but much of what helps happens at the workplace: early contact, a team that welcomes the person back, and an end to the stigma that can make people reluctant to seek help.

General information, not legal or claims advice. For anything about a claim, the place to ask is your state or territory’s workers’ compensation authority; Safe Work Australia lists each one.

010203040506
Room
06 of 06
Name
Reception
Subject
Returning to work
Checked
8 Oct 2026

Why the workplace is part of recovery

Safe Work Australia’s National Return to Work Strategy 2020–2030 aims to minimise the impact of work-related injury and illness, so injured workers can have a timely, safe and durable return to work. It calls return to work a complex process, shaped by factors at the level of the person, the organisation and the system. Its five action areas read like a directory of who is involved:

  1. Supporting workershelping them take an active part in their own recovery and return
  2. Building positive workplace culture and leadershipreducing stigma and promoting positive relationships and behaviour
  3. Supporting employersincluding small and medium businesses
  4. Supporting other stakeholderssuch as insurers and claims managers, through early intervention and coordination
  5. Building and translating evidencethrough data and research, including the National Return to Work Survey

The two lit areas are the subject of this room.

Early contact: Queensland’s guidance

The details of return to work differ between schemes, so this section follows one: WorkCover Queensland’s guidance for employers. It says that by law, employers there must help their workers get back to work as soon as it is safe to do so.

Its word for starting early is “early intervention”: planning the return as soon as possible after the injury. It says the right support given early makes a faster, safe recovery more likely, and that an employer need not wait for the claim to be finalised before acting. There are legal steps too, including reporting the injury to WorkCover, and possibly notifying Workplace Health and Safety Queensland.

  • Who reaches out

    Usually someone the worker knows and trusts, such as their supervisor.

  • How

    In person or by phone if possible, so both can ask questions; email or mail if not. Clear, respectful and genuine.

  • What to cover

    Care for the person’s health and wellbeing, how the injury is affecting them, how they are feeling, who they can contact, and the next steps.

It also suggests, as optional but useful, an information pack: who will manage the return to work, everyone involved and their roles, how communication will work, and any forms or information about leave entitlements. For other states and territories, the workers’ compensation authority for each is on Safe Work Australia’s list.

When a physical injury affects mental health

WorkCover Queensland points out that a physical injury at work can lead to a mental injury as well, sometimes over time; it calls this a secondary mental injury. It says early contact, and staying in touch, often lead to workers returning to work sooner.

That is one reason this room sits on the same floor as mental health at work, which covers the support a workplace can offer a person, and psychosocial hazards at work, which covers the hazards in the work itself.

Stigma: what can get in the way

Safe Work Australia defines workers’ compensation stigma as an individual, group or organisation negatively stereotyping or discriminating against an injured or ill worker who seeks compensation. It can look like gossip, bullying or harassment from co-workers, or workplace structures and procedures that penalise injured or ill workers.

The effects reach the whole process. Stigma can stop people disclosing an injury or illness, reduce their engagement with the claim, weaken recovery and return to work, and stop some people from making a claim at all.

Who can reduce stigma, in Safe Work Australia’s words summarised
WhoTheir part
Co-workersHelping create a supportive and inclusive team environment for an injured or ill colleague.
SupervisorsThe link between the organisation and its workers, and so critical in building a positive, supportive culture that protects injured or ill workers from stigma.
Employers and HRPromoting positive and inclusive work environments that support injured or ill workers.

Safe Work Australia says that when an injured or ill worker feels supported and part of the team, they are more likely to ask for help, and that is good for them, for their colleagues and for the organisation. It publishes fact sheets for each group on its stigma page.

Stigma is also a WHS matter. Under WHS laws, a PCBU must remove or reduce risks to health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable, and that includes psychosocial risks such as bullying or harassment that grows out of stigma. Workers have a duty to minimise WHS risks too. What counts as bullying, and where it can go, is in workplace bullying.