The fact that work is actually beneficial to your health and wellbeing may sound strange, especially when you are struggling to do your job because of back pain, but it makes sense if you look at what benefits work can actually give you:
- Colleagues can give you support and help in coping with back pain and any other problem you may face. Such support may be more difficult to get if you stay at home and are dependent on people coming to you.
- Work provides you with an income for you and your family.
- Work gives you the opportunity to learn new skills and mastering new skills gives you a sense of achievement. This is important in feeling good about yourself.
- Work is part of the staying active regime that is so important when experiencing back pain
- Work helps to promote recovery and rehabilitation, not only for back pain but also for other health conditions that you may experience.
- And there may be many more benefits that you have experienced yourself...
You are not alone
These benefits are not only important to you as an employee, but also to your employer. After all a healthy and happy employee is of much more value than an unmotivated employee. It is therefore important to realise that you are not on your own when you are trying to cope with back pain at work. There is a whole list of people who want to see you at work, not only because they care about you, but also because there are a number of benefits for them in doing this. You can think of:
- Your employer:
clearly the organisation that you work for would prefer to have productive employees. They hired you in the first place because you had the skills, knowledge and experience that the organisation needed. These skills, knowledge and experience have not been lost now you have back pain so the organisation will try to accommodate your needs in order to continue to benefit from your knowledge. In the vast majority of cases the amount of resources needed to accommodate you will by far outweigh the costs of hiring and training a new employee. - Your colleagues:
we all know how difficult it is when someone at work is on holiday or on sick leave. Not only does the workload increase, you are also missing a part of the organisation’s skills, knowledge and experience. No doubt your colleagues would prefer you to continue doing at least some of your tasks than you to go on sick leave completely. - Your GP:
and other healthcare providers; your health is the main concern of your GP. He or she is there to help you to control any health problems you may have and to ensure that you can continue doing the things you would like to do. Discuss with your GP the impact your back pain has on your work, ask for guidance on what you cannot do but more importantly ask for guidance on what you can do.
Read more in the next section on how to remain at or return to work.