Successful return to work the role of fairness and workplacebased strategies

Purpose Consistent with previous research, the purpose of this paper is to propose that the presence of workplacebased returntowork strategies would reduce the duration of work disability. Moving beyond existing research, the paper further seeks to propose that these strategies would also enhance mental health and affective commitment among injured workers. In addition, the paper aims to introduce interactional justice injured workers' perceptions of the interpersonal and informational fairness of the person most responsible for their returntowork process to the returntowork context, and to hypothesize that these factors would also contribute to the explanation of these outcomes. Designmethodologyapproach Within five weeks of their injury, telephone interviews were conducted with 166 workers from the province of Ontario, Canada, who had experienced musculoskeletal losttime workplace injuries. Findings Multiple regression analyses indicate that certain workplacebased strategies were associated with days on compensation, selfreported days absent, and depressive symptoms, but not affective commitment. Further, as hypothesized, interactional justice accounted for additional variance explained in selfreported days absent, depressive symptoms, and affective commitment. Interactional justice did not explain additional variance in days on compensation. Practical implications The findings have implications for employers engaged in returntowork practices and researchers studying return to work. Both should address not only the workplacebased strategies used, but also the way in which these strategies are implemented. Originalityvalue The paper replicates previous empirical work on returntowork interventions and demonstrates the importance of the presence of workplacebased strategies in explaining the duration of work disability.