Return-to-work (RTW) matching
Suitable duties, matched to the real job.
When a worker is injured, the RTW coordinator has to work out what they can safely do. Etiscope already holds the measured physical demands of the tasks in each role. Return-to-work matching puts that evidence in front of the worker, their supervisor or manager and the coordinator, so they can agree suitable duties together, task by task, before the plan goes to the treating doctor.
Available today as an engagement built on your task demands library. The RTW Matchmaker module is in development.
The problem
Return-to-work decisions are made without the job's measured demands.
The duties a worker can do while they recover are agreed between the worker, the employer, and the treating practitioner. Each sees a different part of the picture, and none of them has the measured demands of the work in front of them.
The doctor doesn't know the job
A treating practitioner certifies capacity from a short consultation and the worker's description of their work. Without knowing what the tasks actually involve, the safe default is to certify no capacity, or restrictions so broad that no duties fit.
“Modified duties” is not a plan
Job descriptions say a role “occasionally lifts objects”. That gives neither the doctor nor the coordinator anything to judge a 5 kg lifting limit against, so duties are negotiated rather than matched.
Every review restarts the work
Certificates are renewed every few weeks. Each review means re-checking every task by hand, re-agreeing duties with the worker and their supervisor, and re-writing the plan.
Suitable-duties lists go stale
Where an employer keeps a list of light duties or a job dictionary, it was usually written once, by hand, and drifts from the work as equipment and layouts change.
Who's involved
Three people agree the duties. The treating doctor signs off the plan.
Runs the case
RTW coordinator
Opens the case, runs the consultation, sends the plan to the treating doctor, records the response, and schedules and reviews the return. Often a safety or HR professional doing return-to-work alongside other work.
Agrees the duties
Worker
Part of the consultation from the start, and agrees the duties are suitable before anything goes to the doctor. Carries the plan to the appointment, and isn't named in the platform.
Agrees the duties
Supervisor or manager
Takes part in the consultation. Says whether an adaptation works on the floor, whether cover is available, and whether the duties exist on the shift.
Signs off the plan
Treating practitioner
Gets a one-page suitable duties plan the three have already agreed, and approves it, changes it, or certifies differently. No login, and no video or report to work through.
How a case runs
Five stages, one loop through consultation.
The duties are agreed before the treating doctor sees them, and every later review comes back the same way. This walkthrough follows one fictional case: a line operator in a packing team with a right shoulder injury. The role has six tasks. Most of them are suitable. Two need a decision.
- 1
Case opened
Pre-injury role, injured body region, consent.
- 2
Consultation
The worker, their supervisor or manager and the coordinator agree the duties from each task's measured demands.
- 3
Plan to doctor
One agreed page, taken to the appointment or sent with consent.
- 4
Doctor's response
Signed off: on to the schedule. Otherwise, back to consultation.
- 5
Schedule and review
Duties start within the certificate. Each review returns to consultation.
Loops: a plan the doctor doesn't sign off, and every later review, go back to consultation, starting from the current plan.
Branch: a strain reported before any claim goes straight to stepping back from the tasks that aggravate it.
Underneath: the task demands library supplies the measured demands for every stage.
Stages 1–2 · Case opened, consultation
Duties agreed by the people who know the job, before the doctor.
The coordinator opens the case on the worker's pre-injury role. The platform already knows every task in that role and what each one physically involves, so the coordinator records only the injured body region, the dates, and the worker's consent. No name goes into the platform.
Then the worker, their supervisor or manager and the coordinator go through the role together. Tasks that load the injured shoulder come first, each with its measured demand and how often it's done: "Frequent, about 3 h 10 min a shift". The group watches each task's assessment video, so everyone sees what the task actually involves, and the supervisor says what's practical on the floor: whether an adaptation works, whether cover is available, and whether the duties exist on the shift.
Consultation comes first by design. The people who do and run the work know what's practical, and the treating doctor responds to a plan the worker has already agreed, not to a job description.
Stage 2 · Task by task
Three outcomes for every task, with the evidence beside it.
The RTW Matchmaker is designed to show each task's measured demands next to what the injury, and later the certificate, allows. The group sees the measured value next to the limit, not a score, and decides each task: suitable, suitable with an adaptation, or out.
Suitable
Every relevant demand is measured or confirmed, and within what the injury allows.
Suitable with an adaptation
The part that's too much goes to someone else, or a tool or working height changes. The rest of the task stays with the worker.
Out
At least one demand is beyond what the injury allows, and no adaptation covers it. Left out of the plan for now.
In this case
Carton packing, labelling and quality checks are suitable. Palletising is out: 8–12 kg lifts, some above shoulder. Two tasks need a decision.
Unknown becomes a question
Line changeover was last assessed before the line was re-tooled, so its working heights are unknown, and unknown is never treated as fine. The platform drafts three questions for the supervisor. Their answers settle it for this case, and the task is queued for a short re-assessment.
The bands rehab providers use
Frequency limits use the familiar bands (rare, occasional, frequent, constant) and are checked across the whole planned day. Reaching away from the body adds up to about 14% of the day: occasional, inside the limit. Repetitive and sustained work is checked too, even when it's rare in total.
Inside a task
Often it's one part of a task, not the whole task.
Stretch-wrapping a pallet is mostly walking the wrapper and tucking film below shoulder height. About three times a shift, the film roll runs out and a 16 kg roll has to be lifted onto a spindle at 150–170 cm. It's rare, about two minutes a shift, but rare isn't the same as fine: that part is a heavy lift above the injured shoulder. The rest of the task isn't.
Because the assessment records the task over time, it can show where in the task the conflict sits. Watching the assessment video, the group agrees a co-worker takes the roll change. It's recorded as an adaptation on the plan, and the rest of the task stays with the worker.
A rating of the whole task, the way most job analyses are written, would have taken the task away entirely.
Stage 3 · Plan to doctor
One page the worker, their supervisor and the coordinator have agreed.
The plan opens with that agreement and the sign-off lines. It lists the duties to be undertaken, the adaptations and supports, and the duties to be avoided, under the field names of the state's return-to-work form, each with how often it's done and a plain evidence line.
Each section copies straight into the RTW form your organisation already uses. The platform supplies the suitable duties; it doesn't replace the form.
The worker takes it to the appointment, or it goes to the clinic with the worker's consent. The worker keeps a printed copy.
The full evidence trail stays on the platform, available to the insurer on request. The doctor gets the one page.
Stage 4 · Doctor's response
The treating doctor signs off the plan, or it goes back to consultation.
The doctor can approve the plan, change it, or reply with a certificate of capacity. A signed-off plan goes on to the schedule. Anything else goes back to consultation with the doctor's input, starting from the current plan rather than from scratch.
A certificate is entered in its own layout: Victoria's can / with modifications / cannot items, New South Wales's capacity boxes, or a US work status report. Each restriction keeps its original wording, it's printed that way on everything that follows, and it's checked against the plan's duties.
Where matching needs an interpretation, the platform shows it next to the original. "Reaching away from body occasionally only" is matched as occasional: no more than a third of the working day. If a restriction can't be read conservatively, the platform asks the clinic rather than guessing.
The diagnosis is never recorded. It stays on the certificate.
Stage 5 · Schedule
A graduated return, drafted for review.
With the plan signed off, the platform drafts the schedule at the certificate's limits, here 4 hours a day, 3 days a week, from the next working day. It fills the hours with the agreed duties, so the coordinator starts from a draft rather than a blank page.
The schedule can't exceed the certificate, and the platform never trades hours against duties: the certificate sets the hours. Each cycle follows the certificate it sits under.
Stage 5 · Review
Each review goes back to consultation, from the current plan.
A review date, a new certificate, a change the worker or supervisor reports, or a planned step up in hours starts the next cycle. The group revisits the duties that were out or adapted, and the hours. The platform shows what changed: the restrictions side by side, the tasks whose result moved, and the share of the role now back with the worker.
Here the next certificate raises the lifting limit from 5 kg to 10 kg and the hours to 6 a day, 5 days a week. Lower-tier palletising can come back with an adaptation. The film roll change still can't. The schedule keeps running within the current certificate while the new plan is agreed and signed off.
Before a claim
Early intervention when a strain is first reported.
Not every injury starts with a certificate. When a worker reports a strain and hasn't seen a doctor, the health and safety manager records the body region and the tasks the worker says make it worse.
The platform marks each task in the role as step back, with changes, or continue. Any task with unknown demands is a step back until it's checked. A referral note for early treatment lists the body region and the tasks to avoid, with no diagnosis. If a certificate follows, the record becomes a full case.
What powers it
The task demands library: the measured demands of the work.
Return-to-work matching is only as good as the demand data behind it. In Etiscope that data comes from assessments of the actual work, recorded with Etiscope Capture and organised into the tasks and roles of your sites.
Etiscope Capture
Assess the task
Five inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors and optional video, around 10 minutes per assessment, in the real workplace.
Task demands
Demands, with sources
Postures, movements, loads, heights, and how often each happens in a shift, each with its source and date, approved by your library owner.
Role
Functional Demand Statement
Each role is the set of tasks a worker does, with the time each takes. Its Functional Demand Statement is built from them.
RTW matching
Plan, match, evidence
The same demand data feeds the consultation, the task-by-task match, and the evidence line on the agreed plan.
Every task on one grid. Check the whole site's tasks against a worker's restrictions to find duties outside their own role. Rare heavy events, such as a roll change three times a shift, are flagged even when they're brief.
Demands that stay current. A task's demands go out of date after 24 months, or straight away when equipment or the task changes. Out-of-date demands come back as needs confirmation, never as fine. New customers can start with quick entry and replace it with assessments over time.
Design principles
Built to be defensible, and to be trusted by the people it affects.
The platform proposes; people decide
The worker, their supervisor and the coordinator decide the duties together, and the treating practitioner signs off the plan. Nothing is applied automatically.
Unknown is never fine
Missing, out-of-date or unmeasurable evidence never passes silently. It becomes a question with an owner.
Evidence with its source
Every result shows the demand behind it (kilograms, degrees, and how often in a shift: rare, occasional, frequent or constant) and where it came from: sensors, checked video, an assessor, a specification sheet, or the supervisor.
Minimum personal data
No worker names and no diagnosis are recorded. A case has a reference; the worker's name stays on your own RTW form.
What it isn't
Focused on suitable duties.
It covers physical and musculoskeletal restrictions, and the duties and workplace adjustments that fit them.
Not claims management
It works alongside the insurer's claim process. It doesn't manage claims, payments, or liability.
Not a clinical assessment
It describes the job, not the worker. Capacity is the treating practitioner's call.
Not worker monitoring
No individual worker is scored or ranked. Outcome reporting is designed to be aggregate only.
Not AI deciding duties
The RTW Matchmaker is a deterministic platform workflow. The same restrictions and the same evidence always give the same result.
The regulatory context
Victoria's coordinators need support, not just training.
Victorian law now requires employers to train RTW coordinators and give them the facilities and assistance they need — with penalties for non-compliance. The obligations commence by 1 July 2027 at the latest.
Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Act 2025 (Vic), ss 106A and 106E. Return-to-work matching is one way to give coordinators that assistance; the Act doesn't prescribe a tool.
Availability
Available today as an engagement.
The RTW Matchmaker module is in development as part of Etiscope, shaped with occupational rehabilitation clinicians.
Until then, matching is delivered as an engagement on top of your task demands library. If your program already has a well-assessed library, talk to us about piloting the module.