If the employees' warnings go unheeded, a resulting disability is likely to be more troublesome and costly. Injured feelings sometimes take longer to heal than physical injury. The employee may feel wronged and damaged, and blame the employer for the injury. There is a greater likelihood the workers' compensation case will drag on because it's really a labor relations problem in disguise. The price-tag will grow higher because the disability meter is running while the problems get sorted out.
Disability can serve as an escape from administrative or disciplinary action.
Employees may consciously or unconsciously seize on disability as one more approach, one more attempt to solve their problem. Disability becomes another wheel to turn, another button to push. The number of workers' compensation claims often increases during reductions in force. In one sense that seems like an incredible over-simplification. But anybody who's worked with workers' compensation claims gets the point.