When the Workers' Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) recently sought to identify outcome predictors from workers' compensation injuries, they got a bit of a surprise. Aside from the obvious-and expected-factors such as injury type and injury severity, another strong predictive factor emerged: low trust in the work relationship. Workers who responded "Yes" to the question "I was concerned I would be fired or laid off" were twice as likely not to have returned to work at the time of the survey. This finding raises some interesting questions with important implications for managing absence more effectively.  Read more...