WSIB Ontario is the winner of the international 2018 IAIABC Innovation Award for their Health and Safety Index, a new tool used to measure the overall safety and health of Ontario’s workplaces.
The Health and Safety Index is an aggregate measure that includes components for prevention, worker empowerment, workplace culture, enforcement, and injuries, with worker interviews used to complete the picture where there were gaps in the data.
The first results of the Health and Safety Index released in May 2018 showed a 1.6% improvement in Ontario’s overall workplace health and safety, as well as areas where performance could be improved upon.
Noteworthy was the great effort taken in the development of the Health and Safety Index so it could be easily adopted by other jurisdictions interested in understanding better their progress in improving workplace health and safety.
Previously awarded to the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission and the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, the IAIABC Innovation Award grew out of a desire to share new initiatives and showcase jurisdictional efforts to address challenges in workers’ compensation regulation and administration.
Watch for WSIB Ontario’s Health and Safety Index to be featured in the December 2018 issue of IAIABC’s Perspectives magazine.
