Required Compensation While on Light Duty

Catie M · July 2004

I am in the State of AZ, When we have an employee who is on restricted,limited or light duty from his regular position, what should their rate of pay be while on light duty? I am pretty sure it does not need to be their current regular rate for the position they are in. Example Employee normanlly makes 13.00 an hour, suffers a Workers Comp injury, and the examining doctor limits his ability to do certain physical functions. We have light duty work, and we pay him 6.50 to do that work. This rate is lower than our lowest paid position in the company. what should the rate be?

CindyG · July 2004

I don't know if AZ is the same as ME where I'm from, but if the injured employee loses pay going below their Average Weekly Wage established from the 52 weeks prior to the date of injury, they are entitled to lost time compensation. In ME, if the person was paid half of what they earned pre-injury, they would be paid the difference through workers comp.

Don D · July 2004

I've not ever brought an employee back with restricted duty with a wage decrease. The goal is to bring the employee back and out of 'lost time', not to penalize them for having had an accident. The little it saves the company in payroll cost won't nearly equal the bad will, damaged morale and fuzzy signaling. When word gets around that this is the practice at your company, not too many employees will be cooperating with the return program. And you do have to have their cooperation. Here, comp pays them 66 2/3% while they're out, so it would pay them more to stay at hope, given your scenario. I'm assuming you have an expectation that they will be back up to speed shortly.

smaces_twin · July 2004

We pay min. wage when they are on light duty. The comp carrier will make up the difference to meet 66 2/3 wage. Don makes good arguments to keep them at their same wage. Our feeling is that our pay structure helps get them off LD and back to full duty. We do not feel it effects them being written totally out because we have pretty good docs that rarely write people out that don't need to be out. We've kicked around changin it, but we're going with it so far.

Catie M · July 2004

I appreciate your response, I can also see Don's point too! However the point is to Get the associate back to working in their regular position performing their regular duties. If the Light duty position is not of equal Job Worth, on the compensation scale then you can compensate them the value of the position of job duties I know a few companies that do that, and our Insurance Compay suggested the practice. Why would you want to come off light duty still earning $13.00 dollars an hour for work that isn't as demanding, challenging or difficult.

We are a construction company with positions that are very physically demanding in 100 degree plus weather!

System · July 2004

Catie, I think the complacent employee you're describing is the exception. Yes, I've seen that happen too. Then you have a morale problem with other workers who feel this employee is milking the system. Your injured workers are given a case manager that oversee the worker and his/her return to work. If you give the injured worker a reduced pay, the insurance company may pay the difference (in Maryland it's 50% of the difference). This same employee will quickly calculate that he's better off to stay at home and collect the same amount of money. Overall, the others have given the best advice.

You're better off to pay him, get some production, and monitor his return to full duty.

smaces_twin · July 2004

Or the employee will calculate that he/she needs to get back to full duty. I've seen miraculous recoveries when they realize the pay. In general our doctors will not write out someone released to LD unless there has been a drastic change.

Catie M · July 2004

The last response is more to the case. AZ SCF compensates only for lost time @ the 66.667% of their pay. I came from a large Retail corporation that paid people their regular pay while on Light duty, and no-body was in a hurry to get back to their regular job and the case managers had such a huge workload I was lucky to get the same case manager all the way through the entire recovery time. Plus it seemed as if the Doctors or PA's at the locations would keep them on restricted duty forever (if the employee) insisted that they just didn't feel up to par!

Eroj · July 2004

In UT, also at a construction company, it can be amazing how quick of a recovery a person can have when shown the "light duty wage". For those lucky enough to have ALL loyal, hard-working employees, you may not be able to imagine how ugly some people can act. How they can look in the mirror is beyond me. I have a guy who sprained his wrist May 2003, reached MMI (maximum medical improvement) in July 2003, was laid off in January 2004, collected ALL of his un-employment then re-opened his workers comp wrist problem and has had a severe operation requiring total disability no-duty (don't want to overwork the OTHER wrist) since May 2004. Let's see, first MMI attempt was July 7, now it's August 3rd. Lucky me! We're paying him 66 2/3 of his wage and he hasn't even worked for us since January! I would love to ask the Labor Commission here why he could collect un-employment if his wrist wouldn't allow him to work but he's could always say he injured it filling out all those job applications.
Sometimes, handing out those carts at the door at Wal-Mart is looking REALLY good!

System · July 2004

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 07-13-04 AT 12:38PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Nobody has all loyal workers and everybody has abusers. I'm not amazed anymore when employees work harder at skirting the system than they would if they actually went to work. They get reduced wages to stay home, believing they are 'winning' somehow. Then after two years of efforts at dodging people with video cameras and taking all the percocet they can get while faking back pain, they end up with a $24K settlement for their time and effort.

My opinion stands that your chance for a recovered return to full duty employee is greater when case management sees them through a modified assignment and you provide their full wages.

mcmel · July 2004

As some of the above posters, we also pay minimum wage when an employee is on light-duty.

In past experiences, we've felt that the employee then works a little harder at "healing". Some of you may bash me for that comment, but I am no longer surprised at how many people will attempt to "screw" the company.

While we do everything we can to accomodate their restrictions and get them back to work, we also don't want to reward them with easier work but the same pay.

Catie M · July 2004

Since my original posting, and some input from the SCF, it is legal to pay individuals less than their regular rate of pay while on light duty. It does help with creating a sense of urgency (on the part of the employee) to get back to their regular position and regular wage.
I don't think all employees from entry level to professional level, are out to take advantage of the system. However like our (auto insurance) becuase of a few (opertunists, swindlers and generally lazy) all tend to pay the price. In order to minimize overall costs so that small and medium sized businesses can afford to stay in business, What a business should do or like to do, ends up being what a business needs to do. I hope that made sense.

Eroj · July 2004

Before we all go off on how some people should just be shipped off the planet, I'd like to volunteer the information that I worked as a certified rehabilitation counselor for a rehabilitation company. Well, when I say that you think, sports injuries, alkies, druggies etc. It mostly included workers' compensation claims, especially the "less than willing to return to work". Some of these folks were experts. I had one client who had 3 bachelor degrees courtesy of the State of California. But I also had a female police officer with twosmall children who had a twisting fracture to the lumbar region of her spine. Then her husband, also a cop, develops a terminal brain tumor! Life Stinks! as Mel Brooks said, so we all have to sigh, smile and "keep on swimming, keep on swimming" (Finding Nemo) I watch A LOT of movies.

mcmel · July 2004

I'm sorry, but I don't understand your post. It's probably due to how I'm reading it and it's late in the afternoon; are you referring to the fact that they were legitimate injuries, not legit? Just looking for clarification.

Eroj · July 2004

Sorry, I mean to say that for every worthless scam artist faking an injury, pain or discomfort, there is a legitimate injury for which no amount of money can be thrown at to repay, repair or alleviate the damage. If seemed like I had to fight tooth and nail for the legitimate ones and argue and argue about the non-legitimate ones. The insurance companies for the most part just wanted to keep throwing money at the scammers to shut them up while the legitimately injured were usually nice people who were polite, accustomed to being self-sufficient and had never taken a "hand-out" in their lives.

WT · September 2004

Can you stand one more post on this issue? We use a two pronged approach to light duty. If an employee can perform some of the job functions, but not all, then we modify the job as long as the employee can be productive for an 8 hour day. They are paid at their regular rate. While on modified duty, we do not schedule any overtime for the employee. If the employee cannot perform job duties, then we place them in a lower paid position and find work for them until such time as they recover. This approach has worked well most of the time.

Don D · September 2004

If we let people out of overtime here, it would be viewed as a reward! In the past 52 weeks, we have worked overtime every Saturday except six of them. It's a good thing if you're looking at the bottom line. But when you never get to cut your grass or sit out in the back yard with a cold beer on Saturday, I reckon you tend to forget the bottom line.

Eroj · September 2004

Thanks Don I sometimes forget that a GOOD work ethic still exists.

zen · September 2004

In the past we have allowed light duty assignments that were paid at 100% of the ee's pre-inury wage. It worked pretty well for us as far as morale, turnover, etc., and ee's returned to regular duty within a reasonable amount of time commensurate w/ their injury/disability. Pretty much we play nice - they play nice.

Our GM has suddenly decided to cease all light-duty work assignments and now requires ee's to be certified 100% able for duty (very physical work)before they can come back to work. The first person this affected went out and found a physician who would sign a release to work even though he wasn't ready physically to return. The ee couldn't afford to be off work until Disability benefits started. I'm waiting now for a major comp case to come out of this. GRRR!

WT · September 2004

I understand what Don is saying but the logic runs as follows: If you cannot do all of your duties, your fellow workers are picking them up while you heal up. Duties not done would tend to be the more strenuous duties. Why then would we work you harder or bring you in with a smaller crew on overtime when there are less people to pick up your slack. Thus modified duty is a 40 hour per week job. People do get tired of overtime but it also generates a good deal of money. I have found it to be one of those things that people complain about if they have to do it and then complain twice as much if they don't.

Required Compensation While on Light Duty

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