When you get injured on the job, it can have lasting effects on your career, health and daily life. Whether it was a sudden accident or the result of years of job strain, workplace injuries can happen to people in any industry.
These types of injuries also impact your relationships with the people closest to you. Often, stress and frustration related to your incident can lead to a communication breakdown. It may be difficult to talk about what happened, or the stressful workers’ compensation process causes strain between spouses.
5 Ways to Improve Relationships After a Workplace Injury
It’s clear workplace injuries can take a serious toll on your relationships, whether with partners, children, parents or other family members and friends. Fortunately, you can take steps to reduce the tension within your family.
It may even be possible to bring your loved ones closer together as you recover. Learn more about these five ways to embark on your healing journey with family and friends at your side for support.
1. Be Transparent
Everyone has heard the old adage that transparency is key. That’s especially true for relationships, and even more so when you’re dealing with a stressful or difficult situation like a serious injury.
Be open and honest about your workplace injury and its impact — what happened, the challenges you’re facing, how you feel, the compensation process and everything else relevant to the experience. You may be feeling a lot of complicated emotions — it will help your mental recovery if you have someone you can talk to candidly.
When you welcome them into your healing process, you’ll get both emotional and functional support. For example, your spouse will be able to help you navigate the compensation process, which can often be a lot to manage on your own.
2. Include Your Children in the Discussion
After you’ve been injured, your first thoughts might be of your children. How will you continue to take care of them? How will they respond to the new challenges your injury will likely bring to the family?
Being a working parent is already hard enough. Add a serious workplace injury, and it’s even more complicated, especially considering children are often impacted by their parent’s workplace injuries. But don’t worry — you can ease both of your worries by remaining transparent with the younger members of your family, too.
When you come home injured and things change around the house, your kids will likely have many questions. While you don’t want to frighten them, you should include them in the conversation rather than dismissing their concerns. Telling your children what has happened will build trust and reassure them that you’re still here for them.
There are a few tips you should keep in mind when talking about difficult subjects like your injury with kids:
- Tell them sooner rather than later. Kids are perceptive and they know when something is up, so it’s better to communicate clearly and quickly to assuage their fears. You can also tell children what you’re doing to recover.
- Make sure you touch on what is going to change and what will stay the same. Children rely on a routine, so disruptions can cause a lot of stress. Discussing potential changes, such as your physical abilities and future plans, lets kids know what to expect. Telling them the things that will stay the same is another comforting reassurance.
- Use age-appropriate language. For example, teenagers and older children will understand a lot more than toddlers, who may only see that mom or dad can’t play in the same way anymore.
- Welcome all reactions. Just like you, younger family members might have big and complicated feelings about what has happened or changed. Offer to talk about your emotions and provide comfort.
- Throughout your recovery, maintain a routine as much as possible. While everything may not be exactly the same, providing a structure for their daily lives can help reduce stress.
3. Take Time to Heal Properly
If you’re looking to improve your family relationships after a workplace incident, one of the best things you can do is take care of yourself — physically and mentally. Healing is of the utmost importance and lays the groundwork for everything that will happen next. If you rush your recovery, it may lead to complications, more stress and strained relationships.
On the other hand, if you take the time you need and follow your doctor’s orders, everyone will be happier and healthier. You might have any number of complicated feelings about your situation. Giving yourself the space to work through them so you can calmly and safely communicate with friends and relatives, too.
4. Be Flexible
After you get injured, it’s likely that things will be different around the house. Every situation is unique — the recovery process may be short or it might lead to permanent changes in your day-to-day life.
Whatever the circumstances, try to be flexible with changes as they arise. These differences can include changes in family dynamics as one parent takes on new responsibilities that the other can’t handle at the moment. Plans may also change as a result of workplace injuries — focusing on your recovery might mean delaying a family trip you planned for the summer.
These changes can be disappointing, especially for children. Staying open and realistic about your plans and expectations will allow you to work through rough patches together and find things to look forward to.
5. Seek the Proper Compensation
Work and money are two of the biggest stressors on any relationship. When you experience a workplace injury that affects your health and livelihood, it puts even more pressure on your family. Taking care of the financial aspect of the situation will help lessen the strain so you can focus entirely on recovery.
In 2019, the U.S. spent $171 billion on workplace injuries, a figure that includes compensation for employees. The process for getting workers’ compensation varies from place to place, with each state and industry having unique laws and regulations. In addition to emotional support, your partner or other relatives can provide administrative help as you navigate the claims process to get the money you’re owed. Compensation can relieve financial stress during your recovery.
Improving Your Relationships Following a Workplace Injury
While it’s well-known that workplace injuries put a lot of stress on your relationships, it doesn’t have to be this way. When you remain honest, flexible and committed to recovery, you and your loved ones can work together to begin the healing journey and get closer than ever.
