Employer webinar on Duty to Cooperate: Accommodation Tips and Best Practices

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:21]Today's agenda is going to be on duty to cooperate, but more specifically on accommodation. And I'm joined today by our vice president for prevention and employer engagement, Tracy Newman. And in just a few seconds here, Tracy Newman is going to just lead us through some opening remarks before we get to the main portion of today's agenda on accommodation, which will be led by uh return to work specialist Brandon Galant. And we also have two moderators from our WCB team uh joining us today, and they've uh helped out in previous sessions as well. Matt Ross, our director for employer performance, and James Lamey, return to work specialist.

[00:00:58]So, a few things before I hand the floor over to to Tracy. Um, number one, uh, this is an um, a topic focused session.

[00:01:08]So, if you do have any questions very specific to a claim, this wouldn't be the appropriate venue for that. Uh, we encourage you to bring that up with your caseworker or with our uh, client relations officer. Um and if you attended these sessions before then you know the mics and cameras do remain turned off for the duration of the session just to minimize any disruption.

[00:01:28]Um however we have a active chat box.

[00:01:31]Feel free to post any questions that you have directly right in there in our chat because we also have a Q&A session at the end of today's agenda where uh Brandon will endeavor to answer some questions on accommodation in the time that we have. So I think that's it for me folks. So without further ado, I'm going to hand the floor over to Tracy Newman. Take it away, Tracy. Thanks, Katie. And thank you all for joining us today uh to learn about some accommodation tips and best practices to support better return to work planning. You may have noticed over the last few months uh and hopefully you're experiencing it, the workers compensation board is taking strides to become more accountable.

[00:02:18]We are showing up different. We are the new WCB when we think about how we're holding ourselves accountable to service level agreements and really leaning into return to work. Prevention always comes first and we're committed to keeping Nova Scotia injury rate on the decline.

[00:02:38]These efforts had le has led to Nova Scotia becoming the leader in workplace uh safe workplaces in Canada, but we lag behind most other jurisdictions in Canada when it comes to return to work measures. And we can change that collaboratively, working to ensure workplaces have a solid return to work plan in place to be ready to accommodate workers when they are injured.

[00:03:03]Unfortunately, too many employers and workers in Nova Scotia still do not see the value in recovering at work. When people are injured, they're going off for too long, and too many of them re move on to long-term benefits. We can't say enough. We're all working towards the same goal. We all want Nova Scotians working.

[00:03:26]As a refresher for those who have may have not been on our previous webinars, there is new legislation that's coming into effect July 15th. Duty to cooperate. And due to cooperate reintroduces the requirement for employers and workers to cooperate and workers timely and safe return to suitable and available and work. As we re prepare for the launch of duty to cooperate in July, we want to ensure employers have the resources in place to feel prepared. Today's sessions a part of that. Duty to cooperate will bring additional accountability for the existing responsibility that employers and workers have to cooperate in the return to work process. While this layer of accountability for cooperation is being introduced in July, you don't need to wait. We encourage you to get creative about accommodation right now. And today, my colleague Brandon Goland, who is a re WCB return to work specialist, will be presenting to you on accommodation tips and best practices that he's seeing in his work with Nova Scotia workplaces.

[00:04:39]Before I hand off to Brandon to present his tips and tricks, I want to open this discussion with the goal of duty to cooperate and some important definitions. The goal of introducing the duty to cooperate legislation is to continue to promote return to work planning so that we can support healthy and safe workers. We know that people who stay connected to work while they recover from an injury have better outcomes.

[00:05:06]Employers with an accommodation plan in place can reduce time loss, benefit their bottom line, and improve employee outcomes.

[00:05:15]At the core of this new legislation is an effort to move workplaces with a towards a sorry to is an effort to move towards workplaces with a return to work plan in place so that workers understand that if there is a modified job they can do when injured, they will be offered a suitable opportunity to stay at work while they recover. Of course, many of you that are attending today already do this in your workplace and you probably won't notice much of a difference with this legislation. However, there are employers in Nova Scotia that are likely out of compliance with this duty and we want to make sure that we're providing information to help you come into compliance.

[00:05:57]um WCB will be holding um employers that are not in compliance accountable as of July 15th on any active uh return return to work claims. So just before Brandon gets going and to help frame the conversation for today, I wanted to quickly review some of the key definitions that are important context to the accommodation discussion.

[00:06:27]So when we're talking about re return to work, it really is the act of reintroducing or maintaining injured workers to safe, timely, and meaningful work that eliminates or minimizes wage loss as soon as it's safe to do so. Timely and safe return to work starts as soon as the worker's injured and continues throughout that worker's recovery process, right up until they reach what we call maximum medical recovery.

[00:06:58]When we talk about accommodation, the use of modified work or adaptive technologies to enable a worker to return to work following a workrelated injury. We know with modified work, we want to when an worker is injured, we want to start with the their pre-injjury job. What can they do in their current role before we actually start looking outside of that? And but Brandon will cover much more of that later in this presentation.

[00:07:25]And then there's meaningful work. This is real work that the employer needs done. If any of you have attended the webinars before, you would have heard our co my colleague Kevin Foster talk about, you know, this isn't bringing someone back to work to count paper clips. Unless you're a workplace that needs paper clips counted, this is work that needs to be done in the workplace that adds value and is meaningful. Okay. So, now that we've set the framework and we have the foundation, I am really pleased to hand it off to our one of our return to work in-house experts, Brandon, to walk you through some of the tips and best practices on accommodations. Take it away, Brandon.

[00:08:11]Hello everybody. Thanks, Tracy. So, as Tracy mentioned, I'm one of the return to work specialists with WCB, and I've been uh in a role supporting return to work planning for um quite a while now.

[00:08:24]So, I've learned some things uh that hopefully I can share today that will help all of you um kind of work to build your own return to work programs. Um so before we dive in today um first and foremost I want to address uh the elephant in the room or the elephant online if you will in this platform that sometimes this is easier said than done.

[00:08:48]This duty to cooperate legislation in a way is a big call to action for all of us employers, workers, WCB um employees, service providers, healthcare providers to be a little bit more creative on how we think about return to work. So with that said, what we want to do is we want to encourage you, let's put our best foot forward, everyone together. We're all in this. We all want the same thing. So let's walk through this together.

[00:09:16]So in terms of my portion of the presentation today, what I want to cover with all of you is where do we begin with accommodations? Um how do we start thinking about setting up return to work plans and provide you with some definitions or some resources to expand your thought process, understand kind of how to break down tasks, conceptualize what modified duties might look like for you. Um, unfortunately because we have so many people here, I won't be able to give you uh industry specifics and how you would do that independently. But hopefully I can give you the concepts that help you walk away to be able to have the tools and the methods to be able to do that with your own teams. And lastly, I want to leave you guys with some resources that will help you be able to reach to to build these plans out. And if you take anything away from today, you're going to hear this as a repeated theme. Communication is key. When conversations stop, that's when things stop working and people stop working. So again, if you take anything away from today, let's think about how we talk to each other and support each other.

[00:10:31]So to dig into that a little bit, I want to expand on that communication piece.

[00:10:36]We don't realize how significant of a role as an employer we can have in in determining or influencing the success of a return to work plan. Um same thing with a worker. We don't realize how significant of a role we have there. Um duty to cooperate is dual responsibility. It's not on one person's shoulders. It's how do you as an employer and a worker work together as a team to achieve the same goal. So in that process, we're going to have to be flexible both in our thought process and how we approach our work. Um flexibility is going to be a crucial component here to allow some room for recovery plans. We all set them. We all set probably New Year's resolutions this year. I'd say quite a few of us probably aren't on track, but what do we do? We we reflect, we adjust, and we move forward, right? We've set the same performance targets in our workplaces.

[00:11:36]Again, if we're not on track, we reflect, we adjust, we move forward. The same concept applies to return to work planning. And to keep in mind for everybody, as a worker on WCB benefits, it has a cost. As an employer with workers on WCB benefits, it has a cost.

[00:11:54]It's cost-effective for everybody for us to all move forward together in engaging in return to work. So where do we begin? I would encourage you to walk away today. Again, like I said, we don't want to over complicate this. Communication is key. If you ideally we'll begin with our safety plan that already has a return to work program in place. Um if you know today what roles you have in your in your place of employment. If you know changes you can make to those roles to lighten some tasks to um maybe equipment you can reach to if somebody needs a little bit of extra help. If you have those possibilities already outlined that's awesome. You're one step ahead. If you don't, that's okay. These are things that I want you to think about as we go through this content today. Is if I were in this role, is there a way I could adjust? Is there a way I could make it lighter? Is there a way I can take some strain off my workers? Um, those are really important questions, right? But when we have an injury, where do we start? We start with a conversation.

[00:13:12]a discussion, a dialogue, right? Again, this is a two-way street. We want to approach each circumstance as a unique opportunity, right? Workers, you may have two workers in your workplace that have the same diagnosis on paper, that have the same mechanism of injury. The reality with injuries is that no two people are going to experience an injury the same way.

[00:13:42]Acknowledging that and being upfront with that is going to help you through this process. So on paper, we might have two of the same things. Your two workers that work in the same area may have different recovery rates. They may have different pain thresholds. They may have different experiences through that process. The conversation is your catalyst to be able to work through that.

[00:14:09]asking questions about what can you do?

[00:14:14]Um, asking questions about what supports do you need? Um, workers asking questions, what supports do you have available for me? Those are all really important questions and conversations that need to happen in this. One thing that we don't realize is that and it's important for us to think about is that work is a core component of our daily lives. Work keeps us in routine. Work helps us provide for our family. Work helps us stay fit depending on the the workplace you work in. Work helps us socialize and have connections. The reality is that we face every day is that we spend the majority of our time at work. And when that is not in the picture, life becomes quite a bit harder injured or not. Right? So, keeping people connected as early as we can, as safely as we can, that all promotes recovery. It helps instill a concept of value for your workers.

[00:15:29]One thing that I would encourage you to think about when you're having these conversations, and I've heard this a lot in my role, is approach the conversation from a lens of what can you do. You will be very surprised at the difference that a subtle change in wording makes when it comes to establishing a connection with a with a worker and with being able to promote return to work programming. Um why I say that so deliberately of what can you do is I often hear tell me what you can't do and I'll figure out what you can. Unfortunately, what what rings in the back of people's mind is when you say, "Tell me what you can't do." is that's kind of promoting a disability mindset, right? Let's focus on the loss. That's not what we want to do. We want to focus on what can we do and what have we gained as we recover. So, in saying that, when does that conversation start? It's a big question in everybody's mind. starts as soon as possible. Time matters. That can't be stressed enough. Stats on the screen that you see right now, those are statistics you can find on our working to well website. So, we know that after 6 months of being disconnected from the workplace, our chance of successfully returning somebody to work fully drops to 55%. After a year, it drops to 32%.

[00:17:06]After 2 years, we have a less than 5% chance on getting people back to work. Time matters. We don't need to wait and I encourage you not to. Diving into the how a little bit. So again, acknowledging that each injury is unique in its own way. Each everybody's experience is unique in their own way.

[00:17:34]It's important for us to acknowledge that at the base of return to work planning. We need to identify with each worker who is their return to work team. I hope you take away from today that the core of that team is you as the employer, the worker and whoever their supervisor is or whoever's on the ground supporting them um in that environment.

[00:17:59]That might be their colleagues. So it's important to ask who's that team. We also have the support team. WCB is part of that support team. Our healthcare providers are part of that support team.

[00:18:13]But at the core of the team are the employer and the worker. We want to align somebody's abilities. After we've identified the the return to work team, then we want to determine their abilities. We want to align their functional abilities with the job demands that you guys have available.

[00:18:33]Um, a big question that's been been rolling around is how do we determine functional abilities? Do we need a clinical assessment to do that?

[00:18:41]Sometimes, yeah, sometimes there's reason for that.

[00:18:47]oftentimes, again going back to communication, your worker, if you are the worker or if you're talking to one of your workers, you are the best gauge of your abilities. Knowing where a start point is, where a comfortable start point is is a good start point. We never want to start above what somebody's comfortable with because confidence is key in return to work.

[00:19:13]We want somebody to be able to get some wins under their belt, get the ball rolling, and leverage the snowball effect. Again, this whole topic, like I said, you're going to hear this theme come up, communication. We want to keep workers actively engaged in this planning process. The it is a two-way street to develop a return to work plan. It is a dialogue and it can't be done individually.

[00:19:42]And so there's there's some key questions that will help you do this and I hope you take away from today. So a big question is how can your team or your supervisor support you? How much information would you like us to share with your team?

[00:19:58]What do you feel is pertinent? Is there anything that will support your success? Is there anything that you anticipate to be challenging?

[00:20:08]Those conversations, those questions help shape a plan. Those conversations help you identify what might be the icebergs.

[00:20:18]We're not on the Titanic. We have functioning radars here. We can all work together to avoid the icebergs. Um, so those are key questions to to ask yourself, ask your teammates.

[00:20:31]What is extremely important is to recognize that whether an injury is physical or psychological in nature, these questions still apply.

[00:20:42]These conversations still apply and it's okay to have them. This is diving into some of the definitions and concepts like we chatted about there.

[00:20:58]Um, we want you guys to approach return to work planning from a riskaware position. What we've done in the past and what we've seen in the past is a risk adverse approach. What does that mean? When you're risk adverse, it means that you are waiting till you have certainty of success. Right?

[00:21:26]Unfortunately, that's not an effective strategy when it comes to supporting return to work and return to work planning. I'll remind you of the statistics we just chatted about a few minutes ago there. 55% chance of return to work fully after 6 months if somebody's disconnected. If we're going to take a risk averse approach, that means I'm going to wait till somebody's 100% recovered to bring them back. Those statistics mean that the likelihood is probably lower that we're going to get them back versus if we take a riskaware approach. Riskaware approach would be understanding how that work is doing.

[00:22:07]Again, going back to the what can you do confidently using the work your your conversation your worker as the radar to identify what they're concerned about, get them connected.

[00:22:22]Um being risk aware would be knowing the difference between what could be harmful and what could be um sore but not cause further harm.

[00:22:38]Right? For example, if you have a potential rotator cuff injury, rotator cuff tear, you're not going to go ask a worker to then lift a 50 lb box overhead.

[00:22:50]But if they have a rotator cuff tear or a suspected rotator cuff tear, you might ask them to come back in and see if they're comfortable to do some administrative work that limits the reaching. That might be a point that they're confident that they can complete that without hurting themselves. So being riskaware is knowing about the variables that you can manage together.

[00:23:23]Now, in considering that to kind of go into thinking about how we map out these processes, there is a hierarchy. And this is where we tend to get lost and things get a little hairy. I'm going to be completely honest. Things can get complicated if we go too far down this.

[00:23:42]But that's okay. Again, bringing us back to the fact that we all have responsibility here. We all want to work together. We all want the same goal. We want to start thinking about modified duties. We want to get somebody back in their pre-injjury role if possible. We want somebody to start as close to their pre-injjury tasks as possible.

[00:24:10]That can be modified hours, full duties if tolerance is their biggest issue positionally. If it's specific movements, maybe it's you can do full hours, but we have to remove X, Y, and Z tasks. Maybe it's both.

[00:24:32]Maybe we can do half of a day in pre-injjury duties with modified tasks and then we need to look to alternate work. If the answer is completely no, we can't accommodate in the modified or pre-injury role, then we look to alternate work. Is there a role within your organization that you need work done that remains productive for you as the employer and it is supportive for your worker in the rehabilitation process? That's where things start to get hairy. Remember, this is in a temporary accommodation role. That alternate work is a bridge to pre-injury work. Maybe you have a vacancy that somebody is doing double time. somebody needs a little bit of support. Maybe you have somebody that's cross-trained and that's really skilled in another area of your company because they moved and you can leverage that background. I would encourage you to explore that. If the answer remains no for alternate work, we go down a little bit further. Transitional duties. So, this is where the definition gets a little bit more complicated and a little bit more um confusing. So, hopefully I can clarify that. So transitional duties as it relates to return to work programming. It looks like a bundle of tasks that are productive that again are not specific to a role but need to be completed. We want duties again to act as a bridge with the ultimate goal to being full return to pre-injury work.

[00:26:16]If the answer is still no, there's nothing available there, then I encourage you to think about how do we just keep this person connected. Maybe it's you're in a construction company. Maybe you've got a project on the go and somebody got hurt at the very start. Maybe you send them updates on how that project's going.

[00:26:37]What stage of building are you at? What stage of their role is in play? Maybe you have safety training or changes in your organization that you want them to stay up to speed on. So, you facilitate reaching out and having a one-on-one session to bring somebody up to speed.

[00:26:54]Maybe you invite them to the morning toolbox meeting or call them in if they can't come, right?

[00:27:02]Keeping connection to the workplace is extremely important because it's very easy for us.

[00:27:11]Our brains have a tendency to fill in the blanks and I'm sure we've all heard this of the thoughts of what are people saying, what are people doing, what are the rumors. We want to squash that and the best way to squash that is to keep people connected and in the loop.

[00:27:34]This is where the fun begins in my opinion.

[00:27:40]Um, when it comes to thinking about modified duties, there's a difference between job function and job tasks.

[00:27:52]Your job function is the primary objective of what that job is. Right? So that would be what you've outlined on your job description. What do you need accomplished as a result of somebody being in this role? The job task is how you go about doing them. So I'll give you a couple examples here. So as you see on the screen, a good example would be a roofing company has been hired to shingle a new build roof. One of the tasks, so the function of that is you need to complete the job of shingling the roof. One of the tasks is how do you get the shingles or the bundles of shingles up onto that roof?

[00:28:41]One way of doing it would be potentially to have a team carry it up. Another way to do it would be to have a boom truck complete the delivery and float them up. Another way would be maybe you rent a piece of machinery, a teleahandle or a scissor lift that can access um somewhere near the roof that makes it easier. These are all potential opportunities on how to do the task. the function remains the same is we're still completing the job of shingling the roof. So if you've got a worker who has a back injury or maybe they have a shoulder injury and they can't lift a full bundle of shingles, maybe you explore the mechanical route of having a boom truck and maybe that's more effective, right? Other considerations would be the type of tools they're using. How heavy is the hammer? Are they using an air nailer versus a battery powered nailer?

[00:29:34]To give you an example, in another industry, um, food service industries, maybe you have a waiter or a waitress that has a shoulder injury. Um, their core function is to provide food and drink service to your customers. In order for them to do that, one of the core tasks for them to accomplish is bringing the food from the kitchen to the table. Maybe that's the task that's keeping them away from work.

[00:30:04]The way they do that might be typically carrying a platter. Maybe they're not able to do that at this point in time.

[00:30:11]Is that how the task needs to be accomplished? Maybe not. Could you use a curve to wheel the drinks? Could a colleague take a couple plates for them?

[00:30:27]Could they instead of taking a full tables platters over all at once take a couple plates at a time? Again, these are all things to consider in your own industry. There's logistical considerations that need to be made. Those considerations are all part of this process. Right? So again, going back to that think takeaway from today, look at the rules you have in your company. think about ways that maybe we could adjust that. Sometimes, and I've seen this happen, an accommodation is put in place and it actually revealed that it's a more effective and efficient way. So, you stick with that and that becomes the norm for all of your employees. That's a great outcome. If you can save everybody a strain prevention as a result of return to work, huge win. We want to do it first, but accidents happen.

[00:31:29]Another definition we want to look at here is something that we see commonly used interchangeably amongst the healthcare providers in Nova Scotia.

[00:31:40]It's something that we're actively working on kind of having discussions around. But the difference between a restriction and a limitation, those two terms are very different. Those two terms are indicative of a hard stop. So, red light and a caution. Take it slow. Might not be unsafe, but it probably will cause a flare up or potentially um a setback.

[00:32:10]Right? So, a restriction, to be more clear, a restriction is something that outlines clearly, do not do this because there's a safety concern to the person or others around them.

[00:32:24]An example of a medical restriction would be if somebody has an injury um that let's say a fracture in some cases often times through that recovery process we'll receive a medical restriction that says do not lift beyond 10 lbs for the first two weeks. Great. That's a medical restriction. If we don't follow that, then we could cause a change in the healing process. Maybe it's they're on a medication that impairs their ability to drive. We don't want to risk any safety of others. So, we were going to respect that restriction. A limitation on the other hand, a limitation would be example or an example of a limitation would be like a sprain strain injury.

[00:33:14]Um, we have a limitation lifting up to 20 pounds.

[00:33:20]You would probably not cause further harm lifting above that. Should we go into the workplace and lift 30 lbs repetitively for 2 hours? No, we shouldn't. But we know that if it's a limitation, that's something that we can progressively challenge throughout the return to work plan and test and try to incorporate to build strength. So those are really key kind of definitions to to take away.

[00:33:54]Now we talked a lot about physical. It's important to recognize that physical and psychological injuries both can be accommodated. I'll touch on psychological accommodations very briefly here today, but if you're interested in learning more, I would encourage you to go back um we did do a webinar on um psychological accommodations or accommodations for psychological injury back when the gradual onset psychological injury um legislation was coming out. And this is a little bit of information here summarized for you.

[00:34:28]So we have depending on the um limitation or restriction as a result of the psychological injury, we can accommodate through adjusting schedules. Maybe it's having supportive meetings with a supervisor if there's a confidence issue. Um, maybe that there's confrontation concerns and there's a limitation in their tolerance to confrontation. Maybe this is somebody that is public facing in a in a service industry where you constantly have them coming in contact with frustrated customers. Maybe you remove them from that for a little bit or provide them some additional support. If it's a colleague, can you have them work with somebody else or have somebody there that can act as an effective mediator? When it comes to deadline pressures for psychological injuries, that can be a big trigger. Um, in saying that, maybe it's we add some window or a window of a deadline and be a little bit more flexible. There's always something we can do uh when it comes to this stuff.

[00:35:44]Again, the challenge and the call to action as a result of duty co to cooperate is for us as a collective WCB employers, workers, healthcare providers in Nova Scotia to be creative in moving forward. Know that when we are talking about return to work, you're not alone in this. As an employer, we strongly encourage you to start these conversations early.

[00:36:12]We encourage you to own some of these conversations if you can. Um, but you're not alone. You don't need to do it alone. Same thing for workers. It's good to take some ownership here. Um, but again, you're not alone. You can reach client care navigators is a GPI specific resource we have um or gradual onset psychological injury specific resource we have. Um, alternately, and if it's a physical injury claim, you might be reaching to a caseworker in that case or somebody like myself, a return to work specialist. Um, and if we need further resources, we have healthcare providers, we have occupational therapists, we have doctors. These are all resources to support return to work planning. Does it happen on every claim that we have right now in play? No. We're working on that again.

[00:37:06]duty to cooperate as a call to action.

[00:37:08]We still got some things to work on. So, some additional supports from everybody kind of to take away from today are outlined here. So, I encourage you to explore our working to well website. Um there's a lot of good information, good tools on there.

[00:37:27]There's toolkits for psychological injury. There's toolkits for return to work for physical injury. There's understanding transitional uh outlining transitional duties for workers. Um there's also other resources like the JDAP tool, the job demands and accommodations planning toolkit. If anybody's really on the cutting edge right now, um and you've toyed with AI a little bit, AI is a very powerful tool. So you can leverage that in some cases as well.

[00:38:00]And finally, in wrapping up, like I mentioned, if you take anything away from today, I want you to take away that the way you communicate and your communication throughout your return to work planning programs is going to be your biggest superpower.

[00:38:20]I heard a quote not that long ago that um unspoken problems are premeditated attacks and that was pretty cool quote and it highlighted for me that when we don't communicate with each other tension builds, frustration builds and the ultimate end point is that we have a hard time cooperating in those circumstances. So again, communication is key. Having supportive conversations, having open dialogue with all parties, unions, workers, employers, directors, supervisors, managers, all the way down the chain. That is the most important piece and approach it from a how can we do this together as opposed to a you have to do this and I will do this to a team is better than individual. So I want to thank everybody for your time today. Um hopefully this expanded kind of your thought process on accommodations. I hope I was able to give you some tools and help you think outside the box on how we take next steps forward. So now I'll hand it back to Tracy in order to uh talk about next steps before opening up for the question period. Excellent. Thank you so much Brandon for um taking us through all of that good information. So as you can see we're in our April webinar and we have two more webinars uh that are planned.

[00:39:58]We have some placeholder topics, but based on some of the great questions that you asked today, I can start to see the formation of some of the information that we'll need to cover in those topics, like restrictions and limitations. What does an employer have access to? Um, so Mary, I I noted you had a few things in there. I'd love to have a conversation before to help inform some of the webinars or the topics for May and June. Um, and I saw some questions too about specific topics for transitional duties uh for specific industries and that's something we can definitely look at. We want to make sure that these are webinars that are available to everybody and meaningful but if there are things for your industry specific we can definitely think about how we can best support uh the employers in those industries.

[00:40:49]So, as I mentioned, two more webinars, one in May, May 29th, another one on June 26th. Um, please sign up. And also remember that we also have our website uh with information on it today as well. And that's uh I think in the chat someone's probably putting the duty to cooperate uh link to our website there. So, What can you do right now? You don't have to wait for the policies to be approved. Um, following today's webinar, you are involved. So, there will be lots of opportunities be between now and July to be part of the discussion. Our consultation period for our policy ends on April 28th. So, if you haven't already or if you would like to make some formal submissions, please do so. Um, if not all of the feedback today that we've heard, we'll also consider. Get ready. Explore the working to well resources that Brandon talked about, the employer toolkit. Talk to your WCB reps. Um, don't wait. Uh, there's lots of time between now and July 15th. Get creative. So, think outside the box for those accommodations and look for solutions. Use that hierarchy of transitional duties um that Brandon talked about. Keeping the worker at work and connected to work will be the best ways to ensure that they will return to work. Get started and we can assure you that on July 15th we'll be ready.

[00:42:28]Okay. Um Katie, maybe I'll turn it over to you for some questions for Brandon that came up in the chat.

[00:42:38]Um, just off the jump, we did get a lot of questions in the chat very specifically on case managers. So, there was a couple I kind of wanted to bundle together, but um, Brandon, I think this one would be for you, might be for Tracy, but can you kind of expand on the case manager's role when it comes to the return to work journey? So, specifically how a case manager would work with an employer to just set realistic expectations of accommodation.

[00:43:08]Um, I'll I'll leave it at that. There's one that I'll I'll kind of bring to you after, but I thought we could just expand on specifically case managers and their role with employers, how they'll work together in the return to work journey.

[00:43:23]Yeah. So, as things stand right now, um there's there's a lot happening already on that. Um we have a lot of internal training happening on getting case managers um up to speed with return to work planning as well in preparation for duty to cooperate.

[00:43:41]Um really and truly what the responsibility comes down to is that case managers are being asked to promote return to work, have more in-depth discussions with employers in terms of identifying accommodations opportunities. Um and be more specific with our healthcare providers. Ask for more reasoning as to if we're saying we can't why. What's our rationale behind that? Is there something that we can get creative with together? Again, I know I sound like a broken record here, but the the the the main takeaway that we're seeing already that's promoting return to work is that we need to work as a collective, not as individuals. Um, and it's happening. We're seeing changes across the board and case managers are being asked to have more challenging conversations when it comes to healthcare providers and dig deeper for reasoning as to why we might not be able to and ask the question like I mentioned understanding what's a restriction what's a limitation I was on mute there for a second thanks Brandon because I I kind of want to expand on this for a second.

[00:45:02]So, um, Mary Morris, who is with the office of the employer advisor, just for the room, um, had a question again related to case managers. Um I guess there's been some issues um from the employer perspective where they are absolutely willing to accommodate a worker in their return to work journey but they're um experiencing some issues with case manager perhaps being kind of reluctant to provide certain information on limit the workers limitations or abilities functionalities. Um I wanted to bring that to you just to see if you could expand on that. Um, and I think actually Kevin did maybe touch on this. Sorry, our our chat is very active. Um, maybe touched on this in the chat, Katie. I can't find it, but yes. Can I maybe take this one for a quick second?

[00:45:57]I think Please do. Yes, for sure. So, thank you Mary for the question. I think it's a really good one and I think it's one that we have seen in a couple of the different webinars. So, what I'm suggest what I'd like to suggest is maybe that we can bring this back to the next webinar and have a little bit more.

[00:46:13]We'll come with a little bit more information. We'll talk a little bit about our case management process as it relates to the restrictions and limitations. And Mary, maybe I'll even be able to give you a call ahead of time so that I can make sure that we're really uh addressing the concerns of employers that you're hearing so that we're adequately making sure that they're prepared and we're prepared for July 15th.

[00:46:36]if so I'm hoping that that seems reasonable to everybody. So stay tuned May 29th, come back for that for the next session on that piece. Awesome.

[00:46:47]It's a good plug. Um Tom Champion also with the Office of Employer Advisor had a a good question. I thought this was actually a great chance for us to talk about how we're holding ourselves accountable with our service level agreements. Uh because Tom asked, "How will WCB hold themselves accountable and duty to cooperate?" We kind of chatted a little bit about this, but I think it's a great opportunity to really expand on this. How will WCB staff Oh, sorry. Will WCB staff require special training?

[00:47:16]Brandon, you kind of touched on that. Um but I think it's a great way for us to talk about our role in the return to work journey. There's lots of moving parts. What are we doing to hold ourselves accountable?

[00:47:27]Tracy, that might be for you. Yeah, I missed the last part of that. Can you just repeat that to make sure that I'm going to respond appropriately? Yeah. Um Tom just added in, is there any like special training required of WCB staff for duty to cooperate? But the general nature of his question was, you know, there's lots of moving parts in the return to work journey, lots of people involved. for us at WCB, how are we ensuring that we are going to support somebody's journey back to the workplace and accommodation but also just the general return to work journey. What role do we have in that to make sure that we live up to that? Absolutely.

[00:48:04]It's a great question. So, thanks for asking it, Tom. One of the pieces that we're doing right now uh at the WCB is we're actually grounding everybody in a new practice model based in best practice based on literature and all of those things that we've learned from other jurisdictions across Canada. And we have been retraining all of our case workers over the last 6 months and we continue to do that and really invest to make sure that they have the competencies and skills to be um supporting early and safe return to work. Um, we want to make sure that we're setting everybody up for success and being able to have challenging conversations both with health care providers, coaching conversations with employers to think about return to work and modified duties in a different way and making sure that we're supporting the worker and appropriately and giving them confidence that recovering at work is the best thing for them. So, lots of training happening. duty to cooperate is just really um a another tool or a different ability to have a conversation that we already need to be having. So the work had already started and this is just a complimentary uh tool in the toolbox for our case workers.

[00:49:25]Great. Thank you Tracy. Um, Brandon, I think this question would apply to you and it's a it's a great one to circle back to when we talk about the expectations on employers for accommodating somebody back to the workplace. So, I'm actually it's right here in the chat, so I'm just going to read it verbatim. What do employers do if they have no work that fits the injured employees restrictions? And this person gives an example. We outsource a lot of our clerical work. So when a field engineer for example gets injured, they can return to work with restrictions, but there's nothing we can offer them. So what do we do? We've talked about this before, but I think it's a great thing to bring to the room over expectations on employer when it comes to accommodation.

[00:50:06]Yeah. So again, the the ask with duty to cooperate is really about trying to get creative and see what we can put in place. There is a bar in which it's not reasonable for us to to to request. That bar is quite high, however.

[00:50:28]So, when it comes to accommodations, it's really about drilling down into what those abilities are and getting creative. Um, it's hard to give specifics when I don't know your operation in your organization, right?

[00:50:43]Because every operation, like I kind of led with at the start of this presentation, has different logistical needs. Like you said, your firm might outsource a lot of that leg work. Maybe it's something that we can leverage different contracts. Maybe it's something we can look to work with others and create teams um to be able to to support that. Um like I said, there's not a one-sizefits-all answer to this and some people it it may be scary in some cases, right? But I think it's also fun in a lot of cases because we get to be creative with this and we get to support people in new ways. Um Tracy, I don't know. Do you have anything to add to that?

[00:51:27]No, I think you did a really nice job on that, Brandon.

[00:51:32]I I I think for me, the one thing that I'm recognizing as we chat through some of the questions and there there's a lot of uh desire and ability to really re to think about accommodation and think about how does this apply to my workplace and my industry and all of those pieces. And I think here at the WCB, we're going to have to think about how how do we come back um and support those conversations in this form. Um I think May 29th or this will probably be a continuation because there is a real desire to kind of get in and look at some real scenarios and unpack how does um accommodation and modified work work in workplaces. Um so I think stay tuned.

[00:52:21]There's more to come. Uh I I really hear a desire to to lean into this topic a little bit more.

[00:52:29]Yeah, absolutely. I agree, Tracy. We do have a lot of questions specifically related to case managers and their role in this too. And something that I'm just noticing in the chat is um and this is great. It's it's an overwhelming um response to employers absolutely wanting to accommodate a worker back to the the the job, but they just they want to make sure they get it right. And so it's great to see that. Um Kelsey had a question um on accommodation. Um she just wants some clarity around um work um hiring another or sorry having another worker perform the same job. So, she basically says, "Is it the case that part of accommodation is having another employee available to perform job duties of that worker?" I didn't believe it was. I just want some clarity around that. I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially what Kelsey was asking.

[00:53:23]Not always the case, right? Sometimes it is, depending on the industry. Sometimes the buddy system is the best system, sometimes it's not.

[00:53:32]um if if somebody is inherently out of work, we typically do have to fill that gap unfortunately um in a lot of industries. Now, in saying that, it may be um that that person can do a large portion of their job and it might be a shuffling of tasks. Accommodation isn't always removing tasks. It might be thinking about how we do them and the order which we do them, right? So, expanding how we think about a workday.

[00:54:05]For example, I'll I'll use a cleaner as an example. Um, somebody who's having trouble reaching. Maybe it's you adjust.

[00:54:14]You're not doing all of your sweeping and mopping of the entire main floor in one go. Maybe you stop and do a little bit of like dusting. Maybe you take it one room at a time. Right? It's not always about removal. Sometimes it's about process and kind of rethinking how we go about the day, right? So, it's again I I wish I could give more specifics in these circumstances because there we could get really in the weeds into some of this stuff and it's fun to get in the weeds in some of this stuff where we can dive really deep. Um, what I would encourage everybody to do on the vein of kind of what do we do when we don't have accommodations, I would encourage you to go back and really ask, do we have a deep task analysis of every role in our organization? That's a really good place to start when exploring accommodations is when you know specifically what is what that role entails in its entirety because there's nuances. Um when you know those specifics and the movements required um that's where we can really tease out how we can adjust. Maybe it's different equipment, maybe it's different, um procedures, maybe it's um different approaches, right? Maybe it is a buddy system. It's very situational.

[00:55:35]Great. Thank you. Um, Brandon, uh, this is a question actually related to health care professionals and their role in the return to work journey. And we've gotten questions before on this.

[00:55:49]Um, it's a great one. It's from Karen.

[00:55:51]Uh, how quick are health care professionals going to be expected to respond? So Karen makes the point, you know, they're already overwhelmed to begin with. um in terms of their return to in terms of their involvement in the return to work journey. What are their requirements when it comes to getting the information off in a timely manner?

[00:56:10]The cor um the information that the uh employer needs that we need what is their role in this?

[00:56:20]Brandon, do you want me to take this one or do you want to?

[00:56:23]I was going to say I can't speak to a contractual level necessarily, so if you want to tackle that, Tracy. Sure. So, we know um here in Nova Scotia that a lot the majority of our injuries are strains and sprains and we have a direct access to physio and relationships with physiootherapists that we have under contract. They're WCB approved providers. And in those um relationships, we do have contractual timelines. And I will say maybe in the past we haven't been really great at holding physiootherapists or providers um to those timelines. That's part of our improved accountability and we're we're starting to do that in a way that we haven't done in the past. So I would say they will be you know for our tier one tier 2 tier three providers uh we'll be holding to them to the time frames in the contract. I don't know them right off the top of my head. So uh but they are in place to actually support the timely and safe return to work. When it comes to physicians um and specialist and other healthc care providers, we don't have that same level of um contractual uh relationship with them in all cases.

[00:57:41]Um but we do do our best to help them understand the importance of it and attempt to get that information quickly.

[00:57:49]Um we try to educate our physician community through our doctors Nova Scotia etc. But um we we are doing our best to influence uh where we can and hold those that we do have contracts with to our timelines.

[00:58:05]One final question here and then Tracy I'll I'll hand it back to you. But I do think this is important because we've talked a lot about an employer's role in return to uh in the return to work journey and health service providers.

[00:58:18]But this one is particular to a worker.

[00:58:20]So what happens if as an employer you've made an accommodation that meet the need that meets the needs of the worker but they refuse to do the work? Do they stay on WCB? Is the employer then charged with payments for the yearly rating? You know what is the accountability for the worker in this to also participate in the return to work journey?

[00:58:40]I'll take this one too, Brandon. So under the duty to cooperate, there is a it's an equal obligation for both the worker and the employer to cooperate uh in returning that worker to the workplace. We want to make sure that they're being returned to safe return to work. And I think sometimes that's where the debt where the rub comes between the worker and the employer is whether or not that uh accommodation offer is suitable and safe for them. That's where the WCD case manager becomes a a party and helps facilitate that conversation because our duty too is to return them to safe return uh to safe work. So I would say under the duty to cooperate there's an equal um there's an equal obligation for the worker and the employer to both uh strive to get that worker back to to the workplace.

[00:59:38]Great. Thank you, Tracy.

[00:59:40]Um, Mary Beth, I do see your comment here of having your question answered.

[00:59:45]Can you just clarify it a little bit more in the chat here? I did see it early on, but the chat has been so active. If you can just while Tracy is just um making some closing remarks here, Mary Beth, feel free to just um clarify your question again in the chat and either we'll answer it right before we hop off here or we'll uh chat offline about it. Over to you, Tracy. Thanks, Katie. I just wanted to say thank you to everybody. Um, these webinars are such an essential part of us making sure and hearing from employers and workers and everybody that's a part of return to work to make sure that we're um understanding the needs and the questions that are out there so we can make sure that we have the right supports and information in place um to bring everybody into compliance before July 15th. So, I just wanted to say thank you so much for your time. Um, it's so valuable to us, but we want to make sure I'm just doing a plug for those future webinars. If there are specific topics that you think would be really valuable for yourself and other employers or representatives to hear, I really want to know what those are so that we can make the best use of all of those times. So, you can either put it into the chat, you can email on the website. Um, but you guys can get to help shape and mold what those next webinars look like. There will be one with the final policy that we'll walk through and I'll talk about how it applies, but other than that, um, we have a few hours together that we'll be able to shape together. So, I invite you to, uh, put some information in here. Okay, that was it for me, Katie.

[01:01:30]Thank you.

[01:01:33]No problem. Um, we did have a particularly active chat today. So, I just want to remind everyone, we know we didn't uh have an opportunity to get to every single question in the time that we had, but we are still taking these questions and compiling them into a Q&A.

[01:01:47]So, for the ones that were asked and the ones that didn't get answered necessarily on our webinar, we will absolutely have a Q&A for you on our website. Um, and always by all means, we also have a um either my colleague Heather will throw it into the chat here. We can go back to the slide. We also have a duty to cooperate email address, I believe. Um, and we'll share it right now because I think it's important that if you um feel your question didn't get answered or you want to expand on it, by all means, please flip us an email.

[01:02:22]There it is. Heather put it in. It's duty to cooperate at wcb.ns.ca.

[01:02:27]CA. This will help us generate that Q&A.

[01:02:29]Um, and as you saw, Tracy touched on the fact that we had a lot of questions in particular about a case manager's role in the return to work journey. So, we'll be clarifying that in our next webinar.

[01:02:42]Um, oh, this is this is an easy one. I saw someone answer this. Michelle asked, "Can you provide details for the distance?" So, um, a few people, um, asked this, Michelle included, if somebody, um, if we're, if we're accommodating somebody back to the workplace, but it's going to be like at a different site, what are the distance parameters for that? How far away um, are they allowed to travel to? I thought that was just something we might just know off the top of our heads. Someone mentioned 100 kilometers. I think I think there is 100 kilometers but I will say it depends on the circumstance and the specific cla case. So I there is some parameters but I I think um we'll leave it at that and we'll follow up in the the question answers. Thanks. Yeah, there you go Michelle. We think it's 100. We'll get that answer for you and we'll include that in the Q&A too when we get that posted to our site. So listen where I am in Halifax it looks like a gorgeous day out. So, I'm going to give you all your afternoon back and I hope you can go out enjoy the sunshine wherever you are in Nova Scotia if you have sunshine where you are. Um, but thank you so much for everyone for joining us today. Uh, hopefully you found the session very helpful. It was certainly active and certainly beneficial for us. So, we'll get that Q&A up and running on the website um in the not too distant future. And keep your eye out for the next invite for our upcoming uh duty to cooperate webinar.

[01:04:08]And thank you so much for joining us today.