Company: Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (Toronto, Ontario)
Company Description: The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board is one of the largest insurance organizations in North America, covering over 5 million people in more than 300,000 workplaces across Ontario. Their mission is to reduce the impact of workplace illness and injury on people and businesses in Ontario. They support people who have suffered a work-related injury or illness recover and safely return to work.
Nomination Category: Thought Leadership Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Thought Leadership Campaign of the Year - Government or Non-Profit
 Nomination Title: WSIB 2024-2028 Strategy Thought Leadership
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this first question: Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
June 2023
- Which will you submit for this nomination, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the nominated campaign or program, OR written answers to the questions for this category? CHOOSE ONE:
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this second question: Describe the genesis of the nominated campaign or program: the reasons it was initiated, the challenges it was created to address, the problems it was developed to solve, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
The 2024-2028 Strategic Plan is the first tangible, actionable strategic plan at this organization because it addresses the real issues confronting the WSIB – and commits to honest solutions. It is not built on superficial statements that sound nice. Instead, it concisely identifies the metrics we need to affect to achieve meaningful change, delineates realistic timelines, and galvanizes the organization around a shared vision to make the WSIB better, easier, and faster for Ontarians.
Historically, strategic documents at the WSIB were focused on stakeholder communication as opposed to providing internal clarity designed to affect meaningful change. [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] Further, the business planning and budgeting process was annual which interrupted implementation of large-scale transformational projects due to changes in direction, thwarting meaningful progress.
The WSIB’s Strategy & Planning team set out to create the first real Strategic Plan at this organization. This involved two enterprise-wide changes in 2023: the most ambitious and concrete Strategic Plan in a generation; and the WSIB's first multi-year planning & budgeting process to support its delivery, transforming the traditional 12-month ‘business planning’ process into a modern 36-month evergreen ‘corporate planning’ function designed to deliver the large scale transformational projects necessary to achieve the ambitions of the Strategic Plan.
Neither accomplishment was delivered in a vacuum; these enterprise-defining changes required collaboration across the enterprise, resulting in an innovative approach for the human-driven processes of strategic and business planning.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this third question: Describe the development of the campaign or program: the planning process, the goal setting, the subject and content development, the scheduling, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 248 words used.
The development of the Strategic Plan began in 2022 with workshops including Chiefs and Vice-Presidents from across the enterprise convened and facilitated by the Strategy & Planning team. These workshops asked hard questions about which issues were the most pressing for the WSIB to solve in the next 5 years. And more importantly – which issues were not.
Once high-level strategic directions were set, the team set up a series of workshops with directors and managers throughout the organization to define metrics and targets --this was done with subject matter experts throughout the business to ensure targets were both ambitious and achievable.
Further, workshops were set up to socialize the plan, complete with objectives, measures and targets in order to build buy-in and create common understanding between our business lines and our support areas to ensure alignment. It was critical that the organization not only align in concept to the strategic objectives, but own common language to describe those objectives.
In spring 2023, the Strategy & Planning team built a cross-enterprise specialist team to develop a multi-year planning process that would create lasting decisions to enable meaningful change. This partnership was critical because co-creating the solution allowed business areas to understand the benefits and need for these changes despite the additional planning requirements placed on the organization.
Working collaboratively, this team gave the WSIB a true multi-year corporate planning process aligned to best practices. They accomplished all of this not in months or years – but in weeks.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this fourth question: Outline the activities and concrete results of this campaign or program since the beginning of January 2022. Even if your initiative started before January 2022, limit your response to activities and results since the beginning of January 2022 only (up to 250 words):
Total 222 words used.
Strategic planning
Activities:
- 10 executive workshops, 5 board engagements, 40+ SME working sessions, 5 leadership forums to ensure alignment and ownership of the plan by leadership team
- In-person kick-off sessions with over 4000 staff across Ontario that shared the strategic plan and allowed for common understanding and alignment, excitement, and cultural change
- Quarterly executive offsites that use the Strategic Plan for monitoring organizational health
- Development of new metrics to allow us to better measure success
- Development of functional strategies aligned to achieving the outcomes defined in the Strategic Plan
Results:
- Strategic Plan being used in decision making (Executive leadership and Board of Directors)
- Increased delivery of strategic projects, remediating the historic 15% underspend while simultaneously increasing our transformational budget [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION].
Corporate Multi-Year Business Planning and Budgeting
Activities
- 20+ executive consultations to advance WSIB’s annual business planning and budgeting process to a multi-year horizon / outlook, aligning the organizational resources around the outcomes defined in the Strategic Plan
- 10 executive committee updates on process refinement and progress
Results
- First Run-the-Business Plan: an enterprise view of activities approved through the business planning process aligned to executive performance objectives to inform quarterly offsite discussions on operational performance, plan progress, and key decisions to inform Board of Directors reporting
- First ever technology-enabled planning process (previously excel based templates)
- Visibility on FTE and operational spendings
- You have the option to reference here any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 207 words used.
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