This is a part of the Hot Topic podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Employment After Burn Injury. Sabina Brych, BS, Rehabilitation Counselor, discusses, Some Common Mistakes Employers Make.

SABINA BRYCH: It always infuriates me when a patient would say, “My employer said he wants me to come back when I’m 100 percent.” And I think that is the biggest mistake an employer can make. Um, we are talking about individuals that have been out of work for, you know, one week, two weeks, three, four weeks, sometimes more. Um, and if it’s a road construction guy or, or um, a roofer, it’s really difficult to, there’s, just go back after four weeks of being away, and do the job just the way they did before. It is a complete loss of money for the company, and for the um, and for the patient, to keep them off work for that long, just because the employer wants them to be 100 percent.

PETER ESSELMAN: I think employers in planning for a person with a burn injury to go back to work, really need to reach out and work with the person and the, and the burn team, to understand what the limitations might be, uh, with that. And uh, some employees, employers, are very good at that. But some are, are really not very good at all with that. That they, uh, have a very rigid notion of what the job is, that their light(?) duty might not be available. We can’t make accommodations. “This is a job, and the person can’t come back to that job, so we don’t want them there.” When I think they have to be a little bit more flexible and work with us to try to be more flexible, and look at What other options are there for accommodations: Light duty, modified duty, and things like that.

Visit https://msktc.org/burn and get the answers you need from experts who conduct innovative and high-quality research, provide patient care, and work to improve the health and overall quality of life for people with burn injury. That’s https://msktc.org/burn.