Lincoln Absence Advisor

The benefits of transitional work

August 27, 2020 Lincoln Financial Group Season 1 Episode 23
Lincoln Absence Advisor
The benefits of transitional work
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In this episode of Lincoln Absence Advisor, we’re joined by two Lincoln Financial Vocational Rehabilitation specialists, Michelle Reddinger and Jennifer Irvin to discuss transitional work. During this conversation, we take a deeper dive into what transitional work is and how this accommodation option can benefit employees and employers. 

We also discuss:

  • How to determine if transitional work is a reasonable accommodation option
  • Examples of transitional work put into practice
  • Common misconceptions about transitional work

AM-LABTW-AUD001   8/23  Z01   LCN-5908325-082523
©2023 Lincoln National Corporation. All rights reserved.

Chris Takesian:

Hi again, everyone. This is Chris Takesian marketing manager for leaving disability at Lincoln Financial Group. And on today's episode, we take a deeper dive into transitional work and how that can benefit employees, employers, and fit into the overall accommodation landscape. Joining me for today's conversation are two of my colleagues from Lincoln Financial Group, Jennifer Irvin, and Michelle Reddinger two consultants from our vocational rehabilitation team. All right, so welcome Jennifer, Michelle. It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

:

Thank you. Thanks.

Chris Takesian:

Yeah, we've had a few conversations on the podcast about, you know, return to work accommodation, the impacts of mental health ADA. But today I really want to dive a little bit deeper into transitional work and how that can be a great accommodation option. So to get the ball rolling, could you define what transitional work is?

Michelle Reddinger:

I think it means a lot. It can mean a lot of different things for different people. I think it depends on I'm going to say product meaning if you have long-term disability worker's comp or even in the not-for-profit world, um, it can mean a host of different things. It can be volunteering to get to return to work. It can be going from a part time to a slow transition to full time. It could be modified duty. Yes.

Chris Takesian:

How being so broad, how can this option, you know, be beneficial for an employee? Is it because of that, you know how how many things that covers?

Jennifer Irvin:

Yeah, I think the overall help for the employee is it, it keeps them busy. It keeps them their skills current, or it can help to build new skills, to go to a different, um, different position that is within their restrictions and limitations.

Michelle Reddinger:

One of the big benefits to work, um, for most people or an aspect of work that we don't always think about is this social aspect. Um, people go to work, they have friends, they have coworkers that they enjoy seeing they go out after work or they meet before work. And when people are hurt or sick and they're out of work, they, they miss that social aspect and their lives start to change. So keeping them active and engaged as far as even with their coworkers, think it's definitely a benefit.

Chris Takesian:

Absolutely. And what about for the employer? Are there, are there benefits for them as well?

Michelle Reddinger:

Absolutely. I think one of the biggest benefits for an employer's, they still have that person doing the job. A Job if it's not their job, they're still ditched, still have a body at work doing, you know, they didn't lose that head count. One of the things kind of going back to, you know, employee and employer, both of them is you're not losing that skillset. So if you have a skilled worker and they've had to be off for several years, they're losing some of that skill level. So at least if you keep them working, that's a benefit to both to the employee and the employer.

Jennifer Irvin:

And it also helps with the overall morale of the employees within a certain employer, the employees can see that the employer wants to help them out, wants to help them get back to work and keep that sense of identity that they have through the world of work.

Chris Takesian:

Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Where do you start in determining if transitional work is the right option, more talking about a reasonable accommodation?

Michelle Reddinger:

Everything is pretty much medically driven, correct. Jenny, just like from the, their work restrictions and limitations. That's usually where we start for most of folk, I would say.

Jennifer Irvin:

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. We look at the restrictions and limitations and then we look at just the position that they are currently working in, but definitely the starting point is looking at the medical information.

Chris Takesian:

That's kind of the, you know, like you said, the starting point for where those ideas would come from, when thinking about transitional work, you'd start with the medical diagnoses and then kind of build from there to get creative with how to help out this employee?

Jennifer Irvin:

Right. We would, we could then, you know, talk to the employer, we could talk with the employee and what they know about their job duties. Um, the essential job duties, maybe take away the non essential job duties at the beginning. It's almost like you're just kind of brainstorming for different ideas on ways to keep their body at the place of employment.

Michelle Reddinger:

In that respect to like when you're doing stay at or either, or I guess transitional work is just, it's a form of, I don't know that we said that it's a form of an accommodation, right. It's one of your tools in your toolbox.

Chris Takesian:

Yeah. And going off of that, could you provide us with some examples of what may be typical for transitional work? What we see in that field?

Jennifer Irvin:

Yeah. As far as an accommodation, um, like I alluded to earlier, if somebody is transitioning back to their own job. So if they have been out of work and their stamina is less than what it was, it might be starting them out at two hours a day for two weeks, and then moving on to four hours a day for two weeks and then increasing gradually till you get back to their regular schedule, that would be one example.

Michelle Reddinger:

One of the things I had seen, and this is it's on the worker's comp side is where we used to take. Um, or we have, we would work with workers to get them a position. Like if their employer didn't have light duty. So maybe that was a heavy machine shop, for example. And they were a welder or something where it was heavy, we would try to find them something in a volunteer setting. So they were doing something and it was considered transitional employment. So they would be doing a volunteer work, but being paid by their employer to keep them active.

Chris Takesian:

Yeah. So it's clearly a, it's definitely a very helpful benefit for both the employee and the employer. Could you have more than one of these transitional work examples happening at the same time?

Jennifer Irvin:

I mean, you could, if they, um, so let's say their stamina is really low. So they might be on a intermittent schedule where they are working two hours and then gradually increasing their hours throughout the day. At the same time, they might not be able to lift more than say 10 pounds. So you might start them out doing a desk job for two hours a day. And eventually you mean, depending on the employer and employer can do it however they want, but eventually you're going to get them back. The idea is to get them back to their original job. In the meantime, that kind of, one of the benefits of it is that you may have this employee who didn't have any office skills prior to this, but now they are able to do some data entry that they weren't doing before. So if they can't go back to their regular original position, maybe there's an opportunity for them to move into a permanent position in a less physical job. Now that might be a long shot, but in an ideal world, that could be a situation.

Michelle Reddinger:

Yeah, that was some of the idea around the volunteer work too, is the fact that they're learning a different skill than what they're used to. And they're doing their transitional duty as far as hours at the volunteer site too. So maybe they're working two hours one week, the next week they're going to work four hours, you know, then the next week, six hours a day up to eight hours. So they're still doing the modified duty or the light duty work outside of the employer, but they're working on that stamina piece to get up to an eight hour a day. And with the hopes that they eventually can return to work. The only other thing about that I was going to say is when they're doing something, that's not their normal jobs, they're learning a skill. So if they can't go back to their regular job, they've learned something that will help them if we have to do return to work outside of that employer or at a different job within the employer.

Chris Takesian:

Yeah. So you kind of answered my next question. I think so when thinking about modified duties, did these have to be related to an employer's regular duties? So I guess the answer would be not necessarily.

Jennifer Irvin:

Right. That that's kind of the, the beauty of transitional employment is the biggest idea is just keeping them at work, doing something. I mean, we want them to do something meaningful, but as, as Michelle said, early work gives us a sense of identity. So if they can be there doing something, then they haven't lost that while everything else might seem so up in the air. And so non normal when they're recovering from an injury or disability.

Michelle Reddinger:

Yeah. And there's so many things like, for example, like when you, you're working, you have daycare, you have two cars, you are, you know, if you're married or you have a significant other, you may have two vehicles, you have daycare, you have everything set up for you to go to work every day. Then when you go out of work and you start to, you're offered a long period of time, you may get rid of your daycare. You may get rid of the second car to make ends meet or whatever needed. And so those are the things that hopefully you can avoid happening. So that makes it harder than for the person to transition back into the workforce because they have these other issues that they needed to do for necessity, but it's made it harder to transition back into work. So that's one of the good things about keeping people on the same sort of work routine, for example.

Chris Takesian:

And, and it's all about, it seems to me that it's all about gradually transitioning employees back to their original duties, right? We don't want to rush somebody back. So how can you go about that gradual transition? When, when bringing them back to their original duties?

Jennifer Irvin:

There would have to be communication with the doctor to really outline the restrictions and limitations, and then talk with the employer to identify kind of what the demands of their job are. And then looking at how, how much they can accommodate a gradual approach.

Michelle Reddinger:

And maybe looking at other jobs within the employer too, to see what they have, what that person can do. And if maybe if there's even parts of those other jobs that may be heavy, that can be taken away and given, you know, making a lighter job for that person.

Chris Takesian:

Once somebody goes into this process, are there time restrictions to getting transitioned?

Jennifer Irvin:

I think it's going to, again, depend on the employer, but if the employer is patient and willing to bring the person back in a transitional type role, then it's something you'd would want to try and set at least a soft date when the person comes back. So, you know what, you're going to start with a six week plan. Then when you get to that six weeks, you can talk to the employee, the employer and see how it's going. And then moving on to the next step, an employer at that point would probably have to decide, can they continue to do it? Or is this something that's too much of a hardship on them or their environment?

Michelle Reddinger:

I would say, as far as what the employee needs, we, you know, we understand that there's a business need that the employer absolutely has to meet, but as far as the employee, what they need, that's going to be driven by the doctor. And I think the key would be the communication between all of the parties to make sure that everybody knows like any target dates or any change or shift in those dates.

Chris Takesian:

And are there things to avoid when setting up that return to work plan overall?

Jennifer Irvin:

I think what, what we've just kind of noted was the hard dates. We don't want to say this is going to take six weeks to get here. And then it's over. I think knowing that those are soft dates, that's something that we're definitely going to want to put in there and avoid having a strict end date on any transition because our bodies are our bodies and we can't always rush them according to anybody else's schedule, maybe a doctor or an employer, or even our own schedule.

Michelle Reddinger:

So making a promise to an employer that you can't keep, that would be definitely something to avoid or to an employee where they think they're going to be back full duty in a certain amount of time.

Chris Takesian:

Yeah, it definitely seems that this type of accommodation allows for our flexibility, which, you know, when you're coming back seems, seems key for both the employer and the employee, um, making them happy. Switching over to, you know, the current environment that we're in right now due to COVID. Do you think that there are options? They know the options have changed for employers given telecommuting and other shifts and how we work?

Jennifer Irvin:

I think there's definitely room for change. Um, I think today's environment, we might be seeing it some, but whether or not we'll see it long- term is yet to be kind of yet to be seen. I mean, we're gonna unprecedented time right now and us and employers and everybody are trying to figure out what our new normal is going to look like. Seen it.

Michelle Reddinger:

Um, on my side, I've seen people that are working from home just had an example of one where I was kind of surprised they were working from home because their job was sort of a heavier job. They must have worked at, they worked it out where the person could do all, you know, everything, but those, those other duties at home, which obviously keeps them at work. And it wasn't that wasn't a need other than COVID, it wasn't a disability need as much as just keeping everybody at home and safe and still working. So I've, I've definitely seen it.

Jennifer Irvin:

What was that job, Michelle?

Michelle Reddinger:

They were a computer tech person, but they were just doing the user support part at home. And they've gotten rid of like the hands on part, but I guess if you don't have people in the office, you know, you're not gonna be going anywhere to fix anyone's computer. I look at a lot of job descriptions with what I, you know, the surface that I provide and I'm noticing I'm seeing like on their job description, it's one thing. But then in the, maybe in the claim file, it might say, you know, where they're currently working at home due to COVID. So I think we're seeing a lot more opportunities for that, which I think would help in all aspects. It helps with return to work. It's helps stay at work, helps with accommodations. I would think so we're definitely, I've seen it. And I'm just kind of excited to see how many changes from COVID stick in our world, our current, you know, our new world that we'll have. I think there's definitely some opportunities for employers to see. They may, they may see a new, new opportunities, I should say for accommodations, you know, to make accommodations after all of this.

Jennifer Irvin:

Right. And one thing I did just, I was on a training conference the other day. And one thing that they were talking about was they have proven that, that people can do their jobs at home. So if they have someone who's requesting an accommodation and this kind of gets off the transitional employment subject, but on the accommodation side, if they have somebody who has a mental disability and can't work around people or driving restrictions, they are something with the lighting. They have proven that working from home is an option in those positions. If they're doing them right now, some of those more office jobs or sedentary type jobs. So I do think going forward, an employer is going to be hard pressed to say that they can't accommodate people working from home as an accommodation since, since obviously they can do it.

Michelle Reddinger:

Yeah. And like I said, I'm curious to see what comes out. You know, there might be some silver linings out of all of them, you know, the COVID restrictions that we're going through right now, though.

Chris Takesian:

Right. It's certainly playing on our ability to be agile and to think outside the box in ways that we certainly haven't before. Going back actually, to something you, you mentioned earlier, the term"volunteer work" as a way to transition back to work, would you mind going through what that actually entails and how it can be beneficial for both the employer and the employee?

Michelle Reddinger:

Sure. Um, and Jenny may have some other experiences, but my experiences were with the workers' comp side. Um, so the employer couldn't, like I said, couldn't accommodate for whatever reason it was a heavy job or it was a completely heavy factory or heavy machine shop or what have you. And so we would go and find someone in the community that needed a volunteer and we would kind of pair the person up with them. So it could be any, it could be office work. For example, I had somebody that worked at a, it was like a community tourist center where like a bus would stop and they would hand out pamphlets and she would sell bus tickets and she did learn another skill. Like she learned to work with people, she learned in the cash register, a little bit of computer skills there. And, um, the employer paid her for the hours that she worked. So she, so she was being paid by the employer. So it helped the employer as far as their insurance side of it. So they, it was a little bit of less lost time for their comp claim. And it helped the employee by keeping them doing something every day and hopefully learning a new skill out of it. So it was, it was kind of a win win for both of them.

Jennifer Irvin:

And I had one, one time kind of on, it was on the word com side as well. The individual was a truck driver and lived in a very small rural area. So the hub where he would go to his actual employer was in a different state. So he could not go there to do the light duty. So we were able to find a volunteer job. I think it was doing something at a local historical society. So we had to get creative with that one, cause he was from a, such a small area. One thing that I'd like to add with COVID, I have spoken to somebody who Michelle and I used to work with, who did a lot of the, is currently doing actually a lot of the transitional employment and the volunteer sites. And they are, they've kind of had to change the way they're doing it because of those heavy jobs and the places being closed down. So they're looking for a lot of virtual volunteer sites where they can do the computer type work from home. Maybe sometimes they'll do mailings. Sometimes they'll do the emails, different things. So.

Chris Takesian:

Yeah, but it sounds like, you know, people are making it work and it's, it's nice on the employer side that, you know, they're still trying to help out their employees. I'm sure that that creates a really good relationship between the two of them. You know, in researching this episode, I read this myth that transitional work is really light duty that won't help the employer that much. How would you go about dispelling that kind of thinking?

Jennifer Irvin:

What we've talked about a little bit, as far as the, it helps with the overall morale at the place of employment. If you have happy workers, it changes a lot of different things from people taking time off, turnover, it helps just overall productivity. So that would be one way.

Michelle Reddinger:

Yeah. Employee engagement, which we all know is huge. I also think there's several ways. Um, one of the things that people see that, you know, if they're sick or if they're injured at work, they're not going to be forgotten about, they're not just going to be sitting at home. Hopefully there'll be an opportunity there for them. And it doesn't have to be something that the employer made up for them to do. You can actually take pieces of jobs and put them together or find something that the employer needed done that they didn't even realize they needed done and have this person do it for them.

Jennifer Irvin:

And Michelle didn't, you have an example of one employer who actually almost started a light duty program based on transitional duty?

Michelle Reddinger:

Yeah. And I don't know who the employer is. Not that I would probably say it, but, um, they, they started a light duty program and I believe it was started with just one person or something along those lines where they started, they realized, Hey, we, we need something, you know, for these people to do and refer, you know, our employees to do if they're hurt and bring them back. And so they started a recycling program within the factory that when someone was on light duty, that was the program that they worked with and, you know, it actually became beneficial to the employer and to the employees.

Chris Takesian:

And that's great. So are there any other misconceptions out there that, you know, we can kind of clear up during this podcast episode, are there things that you hear that, you know, you were like, okay, now I can take the opportunity to kind of dispel that rumor as well.

Jennifer Irvin:

I think from the employee perspective, um, they sometimes will, if they've been in a job for 20 years or so they think there's, there's nothing else I can do if I'm hurt. So I've gotten hurt. I don't have any other skills. I can't do anything, but they can, you know, there's lots of things they can do. We can look at the soft skills of the job. We can look at some of the skills that they have in their own personal life. You know, if they let's say they play computer games or something, you know, when they're not at work, they have computer skills. So that's something that they could use in a transitional type employment.

Michelle Reddinger:

Yeah. One of the things I think I encountered a lot was one of the employer myths, I guess, or I guess just more hesitation of bringing people back was that they were concerned that if they brought someone who was injured or sick back, that they may be re-injured or, you know, it just could be more of a, I guess, a risk for them. And one of the things that we try to focus on and it kind of goes back to those doctor's restrictions so that you're not going outside of those limitations and you're staying within those restrictions to decrease that risk for that person.

Chris Takesian:

So Both of your opinions, how could transitional work fit into an overall return to work or stay at work program?

Jennifer Irvin:

I think it would let the, um, it would give the employee comfort knowing that there is a program out there. So if, if they get hurt, they know that they will still have a job, they will still be able to pay their bills and put food on their table. That would be a huge plus of one.

Michelle Reddinger:

Even if there's not a formal program, per se, it's still a tool that can be used. It's more of a philosophy, I guess, as far as transitioning someone back into the workforce, you know, after they've been off of work for whatever reason. So it's not necessarily, doesn't have to be a program just remember and keep in mind that it's one of the tools that you have to use.

Chris Takesian:

All right. So with that, I just want to say, thank you both again for joining. I really appreciate both of you joining and taking the time to answer.

Jennifer Irvin:

You're welcome

Chris Takesian:

To everyone Listening. Thank you for joining us. We will continue to cover topics that help employers and their employees to this new environment. So be sure to subscribe to Lincoln absence advisor on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Disclosure:

The information contained in this podcast is for general use and is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney or your human resource professional. Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for Lincoln national corporation and its affiliates. Affiliates are separately responsible for their own financial and contractual obligations.

What is transitional work?
The right accommodation solution
Misconceptions about transitional work
How could transitional work fit into an overall return to work or stay at work program?