A return-to-work programme isn't a kindness the employer extends after an injury. In Ontario and BC alike, it's two separate legal duties layered on top of each other, and missing either one has a published, calculable cost.
Key takeaways
Two different duties get talked about as one thing called “return to work,” and conflating them is how a programme misses a step. There's a duty to co-operate in finding suitable work while a claim is open, and there's a separate, harder duty to re-employ the worker once they're able to return. Ontario and BC both impose versions of each, and the size thresholds and the sector carve-outs aren't identical.
WSIB's RTW Co-operation Obligations policy (OPM 19-02-08, published July 20, 2023) requires employers to co-operate throughout a worker's recovery — “initiating early contact with the worker,” “maintaining appropriate communication with the worker throughout their recovery,” “attempting to provide suitable work that is available and consistent with the worker's functional abilities,” and “giving the WSIB all relevant information concerning the worker's RTW”. It's a process obligation, and it applies whether or not the employer also owes a re-employment duty.
The worker owes a matching set of obligations — early contact, communication, assisting to identify suitable work, and participating in RTW assessments and plans. Neither side's duty depends on the employer's headcount; this is the layer that applies to a five-person trade contractor exactly as it applies to a 200-person GC.
WSIB's own return-to-work responsibilities page sets the non-construction test plainly: “you regularly employ 20 or more people” and “you have continuously employed your employee for at least one year before the date of injury or illness”. Construction employers are treated differently — the same page states they “must re-employ the person if your employee has been unable to work because of a work-related injury or illness,” regardless of company size, with no size threshold attached.
That's a meaningfully broader duty for a small trade contractor than the headline “20 or more employees” rule suggests — a six-person electrical sub in Ontario owes the re-employment duty on the same terms as a 150-person mechanical contractor, purely because both are construction employers.
The same page gives three end conditions, and the obligation ends at whichever is reached first: “two years pass from the date of your employee's injury or illness,” “one year passes since your employee is medically able to perform the essential duties of their pre-injury job,” or the employee declines the work or turns 65.
In practice, the one-year-from-medically-able clock is the one that catches employers off guard: a worker who's cleared to return eighteen months post-injury still has a live re-employment duty attached to them for a further year from that clearance date, not from the original injury date.
BC's duty to maintain employment took effect “effective January 1, 2024” and sets the same two thresholds as Ontario's non-construction rule — “regularly employ 20 or more workers” and employment of “at least one year before their injury.” If the worker can resume pre-injury work, the employer must “offer either that pre-injury work or a comparable alternative”; if not, the employer must “offer the first suitable work that becomes available,” including workplace changes short of undue hardship.
The page carries no published construction-sector exception the way Ontario's does. Don't assume BC mirrors Ontario's size-free construction rule — on the sourced text, a small BC trade contractor under 20 workers sits outside the duty-to-maintain-employment obligation in a way its Ontario counterpart would not.
Ontario's penalty structure escalates in two stages. The initial penalty applies for 14 days or until compliance resumes: a 50% reduction in wage-loss benefit costs charged to the non-cooperating employer. Continued non-compliance moves to the full penalty — 100% of wage-loss benefits plus 100% of return-to-work service costs, continuing for up to 12 months.
The worker side of the same policy carries a mirror-shaped penalty — an initial 50% cut to the worker's own wage-loss benefits, escalating to suspension or, if a training plan is affected, termination of benefits. Neither penalty is symbolic; both are calculated against real dollar figures already running on the claim.
Say a worker's average wage-loss benefit runs $900 a week. An employer that identifies suitable modified work and gets a written offer in front of the worker inside two weeks of medical clearance stops that $900-a-week accrual at week two. An employer that takes eight weeks to produce an offer — through slow internal process, not the worker's non-cooperation — has let roughly $5,400 more in wage-loss benefits accrue against the claim, on top of whatever WSIB non-cooperation exposure attaches if the delay is the employer's own.
That claims-cost figure is exactly what WSIB experience rating tracks over its six-year review window, alongside claim count and insurable earnings — a slow return-to-work process doesn't just cost the worker time off; it's a direct input to next year's rate.
That accrued cost doesn't disappear once the claim closes — it's part of the claims-cost figure that feeds your premium rate calculation over the following six years. A programme that gets modified-work offers out fast isn't just a compliance box; it's the one lever that moves the number on next year's rate notice.
No. The duty is to offer “the first suitable work that becomes available” consistent with the worker's functional abilities and, where the worker can resume their old job, “that pre-injury work or a comparable alternative” — not to create a role that doesn't otherwise exist. Accommodation short of undue hardship is required; invention isn't.
A refusal without reasonable cause is itself a co-operation failure and can trigger the worker-side penalty track — an initial 50% reduction in the worker's own wage-loss benefits, escalating on continued non-cooperation. The employer's obligation to have made a genuine, suitable offer still needs to be demonstrable first.
On the sourced WSIB text, yes — the construction re-employment duty carries no minimum headcount, unlike the non-construction 20-employee threshold. A two-person firm and a 200-person GC owe the same duty under the same end conditions.
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