WSIB's strategic plan includes health, safety promotion

Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) released its 2016-18 strategic plan, which includes promoting health and safety in Ontario workplaces.
Achieving better return-to-work and recovery outcomes while administering benefits fairly, eliminating the system’s unfunded liability, delivering service excellence, quality and care through innovation, and reaching shared goals as a dedicated and collaborative team rounds out the five key themes.

“The WSIB has taken enormous strides in moving toward eliminating our Unfunded Liability and improving service to workers and employers,” said WSIB president and CEO Tom Teahen. “The WSIB can use this momentum to become even more customer service-driven and to be seen as a model for daring and innovative excellence.”

The WSIB now processes 92 per cent of claims within two weeks, up 65 per cent from 2008. The unfunded liability has decreased from $14.2 billion in 2011 to $6.8 billion in late 2015, and could be eliminated by 2022. As a result, average premium rate reductions of between 10 and 15 per cent may be possible over a five-year period, starting in 2017, said WSIB.

“The 2016-18 strategic plan will help us continue to enhance our services to Ontario’s workers and employers,” said WSIB chair Elizabeth Witmer. “We are committed to providing them with the best service possible and to becoming the leading workplace compensation board in Canada.”