The future of the employee leave experience
Use practical approaches from employers, insurers, and service providers to reduce friction and make leave easier for employees to understand and navigate.
Astrid Elvir
Compensation Trends in Accommodation and Leave Management
The 2026 DMEC Salary Survey gives you current compensation data from 592 professionals across employer organizations, carriers, consultants, and the public sector.
2026 Americans with Disabilities Act and Return to Work Issue
What does it take to support employees when illness, injury, or changing circumstances affect their ability to work? In this issue of @Work magazine, accommodation and leave management professionals examine that question from different points in the employee journey, from staying at work during recovery to navigating accommodations and planning a successful return after leave. Fred Schott, in conversation with Dan Jolivet, Les Kertay, and Mike Lacroix, examines the role work can play during recovery and why stay-at-work programs remain underused. Rachel Shaw looks at temporary modified light duty, while Gage Koeller and Kerri Wizner analyze 10 years of claims data to track changes in return-to-work durations. Jess Dudley considers the role of empathetic leadership during return to work. Tori Weeks and Wendy Coduti examine how employers can prepare for the effects of natural disasters on employee health and work, and Kelly Woodbridge looks at how National Disability Employment Awareness Month can build a culture of disability inclusion that lasts beyond October. The issue also looks at managing accommodations for remote employees, supporting neurodivergent employees, navigating the overlap between the PWFA and ADA, and what happens when an employee can't return to the same work in the same way.
DMEC News: September-October 2026
DMEC introduces a new master class on costly accommodation and leave mistakes, new microcredential courses on military leave and Iowa leave laws, and applications for the 2027-2029 Employer Advisory Council.
Work Is Medicine
Work is more than a paycheck. For people coping with illness or injury, it also provides structure, social connection, identity, and daily purpose, key ingredients that matter enormously to recovery.
The Empathetic RTW Leader: Balancing Accommodation and Accountability
I once worked with an employee who was so fearful of losing their job that they wanted to return to work too early. Physically, they weren’t ready, and mentally, they were exhausted.
Are Return-to-Work Durations Changing Over Time?
Return-to-work (RTW) durations are a measure of how long employees need to recover from an illness, injury, or medical procedure before returning to their jobs. However, these durations reflect much more than recovery time alone.
The Smarter Return: Why Employers Are Rethinking Temporary Modified Light Duty
When an employee is injured on the job, the immediate focus naturally turns to medical care. But what happens in the days, weeks and sometimes months that follow may matter just as much as the treatment itself.
How to Support Neurodivergence: An Employer Perspective
There are many actions employers can take to support their neurodivergent employees. Gaining an understanding of both neurodiversity and neurodivergence is the first step toward learning how to support them.
The best return-to-work strategy may be preventing unnecessary leave in the first place
For years, return-to-work programs have focused on one central question: how do we help employees come back safely after an illness or injury? A growing body of evidence is pushing accommodation and leave management professionals to ask an earlier question: did the employee need to leave work completely in the first place?
