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Sunday 1 May 2011

How Your Business Can Handle Workers Compensation

If an employee is injured at your workplace then you may have to handle a workers compensation claim. Your workers safety should be one of the most important parts of your companies policy. Every state and territory in Australia has legislation concerning Occupational Health and Safety, and by law businesses needs to adhere to these legislations. Your company may want to seek advice from Safety Management Consulting groups to ensure that your business is taking all the necessary steps to protect the safety of your employees. As an employer there are a few things you should do in regards to workers compensation.
Report claims
It is important that as soon as there is a workplace injury and a claim made as a result that you report this claim to your insurance company as soon as possible. Your company needs to be covered financially against any claims and you need to make sure you report the incident to all the right people. The employee also needs to see that you are making steps towards resolving the issue as well, and to stop it from escalating you need to get on top of it right away.
Be involved
You need to make sure that your company stays as involved with the claims process as possible to avoid the situation getting out of control. As an employer you need to pay close attention to any open claims that are made and your goal should be trying to sort out the situation and close the claim as soon as you can. For a genuine claim you need to help your employees as much as you can. If they are badly injured and can not work for a while they are going to need financial assistance to help them with living expenses until they can return to work. You need to continue to support your staff, even if they make a claim, as you do want them returning to work as soon as they are able to. It is also your responsibility as an employer to firstly keep your employees safe at work, and if something does go wrong, make sure they get back on their feet.
Help your employees
The best way to help employees is to avoid injury in the first place. Make sure that your workplace is safe by adhering to all safety standards within your industry. There are Occupational Health and Safety professionals that can come out to your workplace and make sure that your safety procedures are up to date. They can also consult with you as to how you can improve your safety procedures, with the first step being to write an Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems document. If an injury does occur in your workplace, which it does happen even with the strictest safety standards in place, much sure that you do all you can to help your employees with their compensation claim. Approach it in a 'human' manner and be understand towards the fact they need to support themselves and their families while they are unable to work.

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