Hartford program eases return of injured workers

SIMSBURY, Conn.--Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. has created a specialized team of clinical professionals to facilitate disabled employees' safe return to work.

Through its Simsbury, Conn.-based group disability operation, Hartford also has created a return-to-work road map that provides a step-by-step guide to creating programs to transition sick or injured employees back into the workforce.

Working with the employee's physician and employer, the return-to-work coordinators concentrate on the employee's abilities--rather than physical limitations--to identify work opportunities and create a customized plan for a safe and sustained return to the workplace.

The coordinators focus on keeping short-term disabilities from becoming long-term issues that ultimately prove costly both for employees and their employers.

Meanwhile, the return-to-work road map, located online for Hartford's group disability and life insurance customers, offers an interactive calculator estimating potential savings to be gained from a return-to-work program, sample policies and procedures, job descriptions and training for supervisors and managers, and tools for tracking results and evaluating the program.