Data shared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has revealed that about 1 million work-related injuries or illness resulting in lost work hours take place every year. If you have been a victim of a workplace injury or accident and you want to return to work after a gap of few days, weeks, months or even years, you might want to read on.
Here we have mentioned top challenges faced by people when returning to work after a workplace injury or accident. Read them to get knowledge on what to expect and devise strategies to avoid them as well.
Self Confidence Issues
The first challenge faced by people returning to work after a break is that they don’t have enough confidence in their skills, abilities or competence. Many people agree to take a low-level job or an inferior job than the one they were doing previously just because they don’t have enough self-confidence to seek a better job.
The decision to join a low-level job is often wrong because the person feels frustrated due to lower pay or designation in a few days and vents his or her frustration out by adopting bad habits like anger or tears. This could teach you that opting for a low-level job just because you have low confidence would be a bad long-term decision.
Not Knowing Your Capabilities
Another challenge faced by people when returning to work after a workplace injury or accident is the lack of knowledge of their capabilities. People often fail to realize that some skills acquired by them on the previous job can be used to do better at the new job. A few skills that are common across all job roles are negotiation skills, presentation skills, communication skills, analytical skills, problem-solving skills, and time management skills.
Make sure that you know of your capabilities before hunting for a job because if you are unaware of your skills, how can you expect the recruiter to value them while deciding your new job role or compensation.
Not Knowing What Career to Choose
Many people who are returning to work after a workplace injury or accident are confused about what career path to choose. Some fear that they won’t be able to do a job they were previously doing due to physical or mental limitations or repercussions of the workplace injury. In some cases, the fears are true and, in some cases, the fears are baseless.
Even in cases where the fears are true, people have no idea about what other career options they can explore if they can’t return to a job they were doing previously.
Education & Training Gaps
Many people also find it hard to get a suitable job after a workplace injury or accident because they fail to identify that their education or training is not adequate. This usually happens when people are joining back the workforce after a few months or years. They think that they meet the education criteria or have the training needed to do a job. But in reality, the education required or training needed for the job is a few levels high that what they think.
Dealing with Disappointment
Lastly, a big challenge faced by people when returning to work after a workplace injury is that they have to face constant disappointment when they go for interviews perform good and still don’t get a call back from the employer. This disappointment often discourages a person from looking for more jobs because he or she starts feeling like a failure.
In many cases, the person stops looking for a job after giving a few interviews, and a feeling of self-loathing might enter his or her mind. Such a person is also vulnerable to depression because his or her self-worth declines.
Final Words
Are you shocked after knowing these top challenges faced by people when returning to work after a workplace injury/accident? Or did you expect some of these challenges to be present on the list? No matter what you think, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
If you think that we have just mentioned the challenges here and haven’t mentioned their solutions, then you need not to worry. We will cover some possible solutions to these challenges in the next blog on How to deal with top challenges faced by people when returning to work after a workplace injury or accident.
0 Comments