Q2 Operational Highlights

WCB, employers, service providers need to work together to support better outcomes for workers

The facts don’t paint a pretty picture.

FACT: The vast majority of workplace injuries (63% in 2023) are sprains and strains.

FACT: Workers injured on the job in Nova Scotia are on short-term benefits longer than in most other Canadian jurisdictions. A much higher proportion of those workers go on to receive long-term benefits, many for life.

FACT: Most workplace injury in Nova Scotia occurs in just a few workplaces, and most of them are in the public sector.

The good news is, we’re on a path to change those facts, together with like-minded partners in industry, labour, and government.

We are holding ourselves accountable to better outcomes. We have new service level agreements, clear individual goals and targets for WCB employees, and a revised corporate structure that allows us to serve both employers and workers, in the most cost effective and efficient way possible.

WCB Nova Scotia is focused on four key drivers of return-to-work (RTW) outcomes. They include:

1. Quicker decision making, enabled by clear and simple processes for case workers to follow and technology to reduce administrative burden.

2. Holding health services providers accountable for their treatment of workers injured on the job and RTW outcomes.

3. Ensuring physicians are aligned around the importance of RTW outcomes.

4. Holding employers responsible for accommodating workers, with a particular focus on the employers contributing to long durations.

Supporting RTW is a key component of WCB’s Protect More Strategic Plan 2024-2030. When we accomplish the goals in that plan, it will return more than a quarter million days to the workforce. That’s like 1,000 nurses, carpenters, or home care providers, working full time for an entire year.

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Getting there means an urgent approach and focus. And we cannot do it alone. Workers, employers, and health services providers all have a role to play in helping navigate the road to safe, healthy work, which is so often part of recovery itself.

Together, we can move the needle, supporting working Nova Scotians at a vulnerable time in their lives, and keeping them connected to work whenever possible. Nova Scotia needs our workers working, more than ever. And we all need to do a better job to ensure that happens.