Industry structure
WorkCover Queensland is committed to working with employers in all industries to improve injury outcomes for employers and their workers.
Throughout 2010 and early 2011, we held stakeholder forums with the aim of working with industry representatives to identify ways to reduce claims and their associated costs in that industry. For example, we held forums with spokespeople from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland; the Australian Industry Group; and members from the transport, construction and timber industries.
Customer Advisors also made it a priority to collect feedback from individual employers on their recent claims experiences with WorkCover Queensland and their recommendations on how we could develop our services to better meet their needs. We also employed an external consultant group to carry out an independent customer engagement survey of over 500 of our employers.
The response that we had was clear – employers wanted our claims people to better understand their business and their industry.
So we made changes.
From the first of July 2011, we officially started the first stage of a move to a new customer service model in which all of our claims management would be handled by the one region, from the initial determination of a claim, through case management/return to work and common law.
In August, we implemented the second stage of the model, where each of our regions began to manage specific industries. All of our employers are now aligned by industry to our North, South, East and West locations, and all new claims will be managed by the region responsible for the specific industry.
See our industry alignment model here.
After undertaking months of internal handovers and joint file reviews to ensure a smooth transition for our customers, we’re pleased to see positive results from this restructure. Our new industry alignment has already enabled us to begin to better understand our employers’ businesses and the roles workers perform within their particular industry.
With this more holistic approach, we hope to enhance claim management outcomes and deliver a better service to our customers. We anticipate that, in the future, the benefits of this new structure will include improved return to work outcomes and a better understanding of employer and employee needs within an industry.
The transition to industry aligned claim processing will be a gradual one, with the construction industry the focus of the first pilot. As the roll-out continues, further information will be added via the industry links below: