Toll Alignment with Workers’ Compensation Industry Initiatives

Toll are currently conducting a feasibility study around becoming a signatory to the Health Benefits of Good Work Consensus Statement, which is an initiative from the Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environment Medicine (AFOEM) of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP).  

The initiative is based on compelling Australasian and international evidence that good work is beneficial to people’s health and wellbeing and that long term work absence, work disability and unemployment generally have a negative impact on health and wellbeing.  

Signatories to the Health Benefits of Good Work Initiative are committed to actively implementing the principles articulated in the Consensus Statement to create safe and healthy workplace. Signatories to the Consensus Statement acknowledge that good work can place a central role in contributing to people’s health and wellbeing and means:

When practicable, they encourage and accommodate people to remain connected to the workplace while recovering from illness or injury, as this facilitates shorter recovery times and prevents unnecessary disability.  

They embrace the spirit of inclusive employment practices which helps to reduce the risk of unemployment, social and economic inequality and associated poor health outcomes.  

If injured or ill, they promote best practice rehabilitation and injury management for workers.  

• Where appropriate, they encourage people with chronic illness and disabilities to be accommodated in the workplace with a supportive work culture.  
• They promote the mental and physical health and well-being of people by fostering a supportive working environment and good interpersonal relationships.  
• They understand that good work promotes good health and increases productivity.  
• They advocate for safe and healthy work practices knowing this has socioeconomic benefits for both businesses and the wider community.  
• They recognise that involvement in good work can promote social cohesion and increase peoples’ sense of contribution to society.  

To find out more about the Health Benefits of Good Work Initiative, we encourage you to click the link below:

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Toll are an advocate of the Australasian Faculty and Environment Medicine (AFOEM) ‘It Pays to Care’ values and principles based approach to bringing evidence-informed practice into work injury schemes and are currently in the process of aligning their governance framework to:  

• Ensure systematic capture of psychosocial information for individual claims, with proactive management of biopsychosocial risks;
• Ensure the Toll’s culture, systems and processes don’t create unnecessary barriers to recovery; and  
• Ensure Toll’s operations are based on the values and principles of fairness, including collaboration, timeliness, trust and reciprocity, personalised and respectful communication, and empowerment of stakeholders.  

To find out more about the ‘It Pays to Care’ approach, we encourage you to click the link below:

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Safe Work Australia have developed a National Return to Work Strategy 2020-2030 with the aim of minimising the impact of work-related injury and illness to help injured workers have a timely, safe and durable return to work. The Strategy creates a framework to develop research and national policies on return to work to facilitate shared insights and guide future policies in Australia.  

10 guiding principles support the Strategy’s strategic outcomes and identify the characteristics of a positive return to work. These principles underpin and cut across the practice of all stakeholders, and govern behaviours, policies and practices at the individual, organisation and system levels.  

Toll have embedded the 10 guiding principles into the workers’ compensation and injury management function’s Service Charter and governance frameworks and maintain a lens to the five action areas and research / project outcomes in order to implement alignment where there is consensus.  

To find out more about the Safe Work Australia National Return to Work Strategy 2020-2030, please click the link below:

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In an Australian first, a Monash University-led study is partnering with people who have lived experience of a workers’ compensation claim to design better systems. Professor Alex Collie from Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine is leading the Australian Research Council-funded Workers’ Voice project in partnership with injured workers and other experts with the view to re-imagine workers’ compensation in Australia.  

Each year more than half a million Australians are injured or become ill at work. Australia has a complex and fragmented workers’ compensation policy and service delivery landscape with there being eleven main systems, one in each state and territory and three at Commonwealth level. They share common objectives of:

1. Supporting the return to work of injured workers; and
2. Delivering services and support at the least cost to society i.e. financial sustainability

Nearly one quarter of a million Australians make a workers’ compensation claim each year, with more than 100,000 of these being for more than five days off work.  

The three year study recognises that there is an opportunity to improve the management and design of workers’ compensation systems so that they can better support works who have been injured to return to work following a workplace injury, illness or disease. Whilst the survey has now closed, we encourage you to visit the website if you are interested in subscribing for regular updates and newsletters on the progress of the study.  

The Workers’ Voice research study is expected to run until 2026 with major findings to be released periodically, commencing in 2024.  

A link to the study is as follows:

Click Here