If Your Workers Are Hurting, Your Bottom Line Could Too

When a big ballgame is on the schedule, injured athletes often insist that they have to “play through the pain” for the sake of the team. And while many working people do the same thing on the job, others head to the sidelines when their backs ache or their heads throb--hurting their employers’ bottom lines.

A new report by the Louis Harris & Associates polling organization estimates that 14% of America’s full-time workers took sick days last year because of pains ranging from headaches to carpal tunnel syndrome. On average, they were off work three days.

That made pain one of three most common reasons for sick days. (The cold and flu category came in first, with pain rivaling caring for an ill family member for the No. 2 spot.) To cover the wages of workers on short, pain-related absences last year, employers paid out $3.3 billion, Harris found.

Still, the report’s findings--based on a national survey of 1,007 full-time workers and a separate poll of 300 employee benefits managers--pointed out that employers are doing relatively little to relieve this expensive problem. Even among companies that provide so-called wellness programs, the survey found that only 18% offer guidance on preventing aching backs or on managing other pain problems.

Also, while the Harris report focused on short-term absenteeism, it suggested that employers are lax in preventing long-term repetitive-motion injuries that lead to costly workers’ compensation claims and related expenses. The employee benefits managers included in the poll, which was paid for by Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, represented firms with at least 150 workers.

“There are some missed opportunities here,” said Robert Leitman, a Harris executive vice president who was in charge of the study. Stepped-up pain-prevention programs, he said, would probably provide “a real payback” for many employers.

One common, low-cost suggestion from the experts: Teach employees exercises for avoiding back problems.

Many of the pains reported by employees, to be sure, can’t be blamed on their jobs. In all, the survey found that 52% of employees who responded said they suffered pain unrelated to work, including in that category such ailments as headaches, along with low back, neck and menstrual pain.

By way of comparison, 15% of workers surveyed termed their pains work-related, stemming from such ailments as carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive-motion injuries.

But whatever the source of the problem, pain cuts into a company’s productivity.

“Employers need to intervene in their own self-interest, aside from the fact that it’s a humanitarian thing to do,” said J. David Haddox, an assistant medical school professor at Emory University in Atlanta and an expert in pain management.

That notion is seconded by ailing workers such as Jackie Stewart, an accounting clerk at the downtown office of the Los Angeles Community College District. After 12 years of working for the district--spending much of her time punching data into computers--pain in her back and wrist occasionally require her to take a day off.

“If it’s not horribly bad, I don’t want to miss work,” Stewart said. But at times, she explained, the pain has been intense enough that “I couldn’t even carry a purse in my hand.”

Still, Stewart considers herself fortunate in at least one respect: She is covered by a union contract that provides for ergonomic programs to avoid or reduce repetitive-motion injuries.

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Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that an employer can demand that laid-off workers promise not to sue the company in exchange for receiving severance benefits, don’t expect to see a dramatic increase in such waivers.

The reason: Most major employers have long used them, and they weren’t deterred even after the high court agreed to review the issue. In fact, a survey of nearly 3,000 employers last year by the Lee Hecht Harrison Inc. outplacement firm found that 80% of the companies either always or sometimes required dismissed workers to sign releases waiving their right to sue in most circumstances.

The Supreme Court ruling “ratified what everyone has been doing routinely,” said Frank Cronin, a Los Angeles management lawyer specializing in employment issues.

These waivers--intended to protect employers against age and sex discrimination suits, among other claims--are tantamount to “a peace settlement for the employee and an insurance policy for the employer,” Cronin said.

Still, even with the Supreme Court ruling, employers can’t push workers to sign away all of their legal rights. Under California law, for instance, injured workers generally can’t be required to waive their right to seek workers’ compensation benefits.

Times staff writer Stuart Silverstein can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7887 or by e-mail at stuart.silverstein@latimes.com