Affiliations: Indiana University Medical Center, School of Health
and Rehabilitation Sciences, Department of Occupational Therapy, Coleman Hall
311, 1140 West Michigan Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202-5119, USA. Tel.: +1 317
278 6070; Fax: +1 317 274 2150; E-mail: tffisher@iupui.edu
Abstract: Employee health and productivity losses as a result of work-related
injury are estimated to be $1.2 trillion annually to US companies. This is
approximately 14.3% of the gross domestic product [6,8,11,35]. Workers'
compensation, medical care, and short and long-term disability are a part of
these costs. Controlling or eliminating these costs is a problem for US
employers [3,6,14,21,29]. The study discussed in this article examined the perceptions of
manufacturing employees in identifying factors that influence a return to work
after a work-related musculoskeletal injury. The classification of employees
who participated in this study were safety professionals, supervisors and
workers from the manufacturing industry in central Kentucky. The worker group
consisted of material handlers, assembly line workers and quality control
inspectors. The participants completed a developed survey instrument, the
Return to Work Perception Survey. This survey instrument examined the
perception of the participants on factors related to return to work: company
policies and procedures, job satisfaction, worker relationships and work
environment. The results indicated safety professionals and supervisors
perceptions differ from workers on the variables of job satisfaction, worker
relationships and work environment. Their perceptions did not differ on the
variable relating to company policies and procedures. In addition, the safety
professional and supervisor groups rated the items addressing job satisfaction
higher than did the worker group. The worker group did not differ from one
another on any of the factors. Implications of this study for manufacturing companies suggest (a)
identifying those issues contributing to employee job satisfaction, (b)
developing a plan for achieving increased job satisfaction and employee
recognition at the workplace among all workers, and (c) consider allowing
employees to develop new capacities and new learning, thus fostering motivation
and job satisfaction [18,20].
