“What Do I Do for Work Now?” | Can't Go Back to Your Old Job? How WSIB Retraining Works

A woman with an ankle brace takes notes at her desk during an online class, her foot resting on a cushion and her dog asleep nearby.

Learning that you may not go back to the job you knew can be a real loss. It may have been your trade, your routine, your people. If you are facing that, take it one step at a time. The WSIB has a set process for this, and you have a say in it.

When does the WSIB step in with retraining?

Under the WSIB's policy on return to work assessments and plans, policy 19-02-10, the WSIB carries out a return to work assessment when you and your employer cannot resolve the return to work challenges on your own. A return to work plan follows if one is needed. The policy applies to decisions made on or after 30 November 2020.

The first place the WSIB looks is your own employer. It puts other suitable work with the employer where you were hurt ahead of the wider job market.

What is a suitable occupation?

A plan is built around what the WSIB calls a suitable occupation. The policy describes it as a category of jobs suited to your transferable skills, and it has to be safe for you and available.

Transferable skills are what you carry with you: your experience, training, education and abilities. Think about everything you have done, at work and outside it.

Do I get a say?

Yes. The policy says the WSIB aims to give workers "effective and meaningful input and choice" in choosing a suitable occupation, and you are encouraged to suggest occupations yourself. Come to the conversation with ideas. A job you can picture yourself doing is far more likely to work.

What can a plan include?

The policy lists services such as:

  • English as a second language
  • literacy and basic skills
  • academic upgrading
  • vocational skills training
  • training on the job
  • job search training
  • employment placement and work trials

Generally, a plan will not run longer than three years.

How is my pay worked out?

This is the part to understand early. The WSIB pays full loss of earnings benefits during a work trial. At the end of the plan, your loss of earnings is adjusted based on what you can earn in the suitable occupation.

The policy uses entry-level wages if the plan teaches you a new skill set or field, and mid-level wages if it builds on skills you already have. That is why the choice of suitable occupation matters so much. It can shape your benefits long after the plan ends.

What if I disagree with the plan?

Act quickly. Decisions about work transition carry a 30 day limit to object, much shorter than the six months for most other WSIB decisions.

Write down why the occupation or plan does not fit: your restrictions, your health, the jobs that actually exist where you live. Then send your objection in writing before the deadline. Our article “I Think WSIB Got It Wrong!” | Disagree With a WSIB Decision? How to Appeal, Step by Step sets out the route.

Do I have to take part?

Co-operation obligations apply to you and your employer alike. Our article “I'm Not Ready to Go Back!” | Can You Refuse Modified Work on WSIB? What Happens If You Say No explains how the WSIB handles co-operation and what has to happen before any penalty.

What should I record?

  • Your restrictions. In writing from your health professional, and how they change.
  • Every job you have done. With the skills each one used. This feeds your transferable skills.
  • Occupations you would like to suggest. And why each one fits.
  • Every meeting about your plan. The date, who was there and what was decided.
  • Your progress in training. Attendance, results, and any problems your injury causes.

Why use Hurt Square?

Because the occupation the WSIB chooses can shape your benefits for years, and your input carries more weight when it is written down. Hurt Square guides give you one place to keep it.

  • Your skills and restrictions, on the record. The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide has structured space for your restrictions, modified duties, every meeting and every conversation with your employer and the WSIB.
  • The Ontario rules, in plain words. The Ontario Workplace Injury Companion Guide explains Forms 6, 7 and 8 and how to object, step by step through to the Appeals Tribunal.
  • Ready for the 30-day limit. Work transition decisions leave you far less time to object than most. With your record already together, those days go into your objection.
  • Made for hard days. 123 pages and more than 1,200 fillable fields that work on your phone, tablet or computer, in plain language. When your union representative, worker adviser or lawyer asks for something, it is already there.

Both guides, $39 until 22 November. The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide and the Ontario Workplace Injury Companion Guide, with the discount applied at checkout. Bought separately: $63.99.

Get both guides

Who can help?

The Office of the Worker Adviser, if you are not in a union. It is an independent agency of the Ontario government, and its service to non-unionized injured workers is free. Its number for English service is 1-800-435-8980. If you are in a union, start with your union representative. A community legal clinic is another free route.

Read next

National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide

If your recovery were reviewed tomorrow, what would your record say?

The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide is where your recovery gets documented, day by day. Symptoms, appointments, calls and costs, written while they are fresh. It works in every province and it stands on its own.

Both guides, $39 until 22 November. Add the Ontario Workplace Injury Companion Guide for the dates and rules that shape your recovery in Ontario, and the discount applies at checkout. Bought separately: $63.99.

Every figure in this article comes from a named source. How we check
Last verified: October 2026.
Workplace Claim Correspondence Tracker: Free Starter Edition

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Workplace Claim Correspondence Tracker: Free Starter Edition

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By entering your details, you agree to receive recovery tips and offers from Hurt Square. We use your first name and province to send you what applies where you live. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Free for your wallet: a printable card that tells you what to do first if you are hurt at work and what to write down.

Everything above is free.

If you want the whole system, it comes in two parts.

Two things decide how an injury claim goes.

What you wrote down. The National Recovery Guide is the daily record: symptoms, appointments, calls, costs, and what you can no longer do. It is the part a claim is eventually judged on.
Whether you did the right thing at the right time for where you live. Your Provincial Companion Guide carries your deadlines, your forms, your boards and your appeal routes. Ontario is not British Columbia. Generic advice sends people to the wrong form, and then to the wrong date.

Buy only the National Guide and you keep a perfect record, then miss a deadline nobody told you about.

Buy only your Provincial Guide and you know every date, with nothing written down to send.

You need both. That is why they are priced as a pair.

Bought separately: $63.99. Together: $39 until 22 November.

The discount applies automatically at checkout.

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You are not the only one

Somebody else has already had this exact week.

We closed comments on our articles, on purpose. A public comment box under a page about claims is a place where people give away details that can be used against them later, and we would rather not build that.

The Square is where that conversation belongs instead. Canadians hurt in an accident or on the job say what happened, read what happened to everyone else, and find out they were never the only one. Post under your name or not at all.

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