By Peter Moffat

My last three blog posts have delved into disability management, where I introduced and discussed a couple of concepts and key elements of a good disability management program. I’ll continue the discussion here and focus on the third concept – disability prevention.

One of the major goals of a disability management program is to help prevent disabilities from arising in the workplace. In the event of a disability, a disability management program helps to mitigate and shorten the duration of absence. With respect to disability prevention, this means eliminating or controlling risk in the work environment as much as possible to ensure that the workplace isn’t contributing to the causes or duration of disability.

Occupational Health and Safety Regulation requires that a company creates a safe work environment for its employees, and the main focus is on safety programs, accident prevention, and the reduction and removal of hazardous working conditions wherever possible. This typically addresses the most glaring workplace sources of potential absence, injury, or disability.

There are some other not so obvious initiatives you can undertake to help identify and address any significant or recurring health issue or concern in the workplace. For example, one initiative is to set up a good absence tracking program. Not only can you track the rate and frequency of absence, but you can also analyze the causes of absence and look for common trends and patterns among the employee base to determine if there is a particular position or part of the environment that is causing a significant or recurring absence.

If you’ve identified and isolated a position at the company that is the source of consistent absence, you can specifically address it through tools such as ergonomic assessments. This can help you to identify the specific issues with a work station or the working conditions and make necessary changes or adjustments.

Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three now. And, watch HRVoice.org for the final part of the series.

Peter Moffat is an associate with TRG Group Benefits. There are many phrases one might use in a biography, and one that is rarely used is the word “attack” because of the risk it carries. But, when used properly, it’s one of the words that describe Peter Moffat. Learn more.