NATIONAL 'RETURN TO WORK' CONFERENCE 2010

I attended National Return To Work (RTW) Program organised by SOCSO at Sunway Piramid Convention Centre on 26 and 27 July 2010. About 1000 participants attended the Conference from the whole Malaysia. The conference was declared open by Minister of Human Resource Malaysia, YB Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam. 7 lectures were presented during the conference by international and local speakers. On the first day, Mr. Hans-Horst Konkolewsky, the Secretary General of International Social Security Association (ISSA) presented the first lecture entitled: Dynamic Social Security - Investing in People.

Early RTW is a program initiated by SOCSO in their effort to implement 'Prevention Before Rehabilitation Before Compensation' strategy in handling a complex workplace injury faced by the workforce in Malaysia. In order to Return To Work early, the injured workers need to attend Rehabilitation. For those who contributes to SOCSO they can claim the cost of Rehabilitation from SOCSO. The National Rehabilitation Centre located in Melaka, spearheaded by SOCSO will be ready by the end of the year.

This big step taken by SOCSO is a new era of Dynamic Social Security System in Malaysia which stressed more on Prevention and Rehabilitation rather than just paying Compensation. The success of this effort is also depending on the 'open and receptive mind' of the Human Resource(HR) Practitioner to adopt 'Disability Management' in their HR policies. This RTW program needs full support from the organisation as well as the worker. In order to make RTW program a successful national project, all of us have to learn to unlearn the 'traditional model of social security role' concept embedded in our mind.