- Approximately 80 percent of disabling conditions occur during an individual’s working life.
- Disability benefit recipients have less than a one percent chance of exiting the social security benefit system to enter into employment.
- This results in dependency and poverty for individuals with disabilities, unsustainable social protection costs, and increasing numbers of disability benefit recipients.
- About 25 percent of all Canadians living in poverty today ─ an estimated 1.4 million individuals ─ are people with disabilities.
- Effective Disability Management programs can make a crucial contribution to reducing poverty in Canada by promoting workplace health, preventing disabilities, and avoiding loss of employment due to a disabling condition.
Disability Management interventions are designed to:
- Reduce the likelihood that workers will acquire an impairment that could place their jobs at risk.
- Engage with workers with disabilities, before they have lost their attachment to their employer, to enhance the likelihood they will retain and return to their jobs.
- Reduce the number of workers exiting the active labour market and entering into the disability benefits system.
Early intervention is at the core of an effective Disability Management approach.
A key success factor in effective Disability Management programs is a consensus-based process based on collaboration between management and worker representatives, often enshrined in a collective agreement, and overseen by a joint management-labour committee.