Unlocking the Power of WSIB's SafetyCheck for Informed Decision-Making

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) provides workers’ compensation insurance to companies across Ontario. It also collects detailed data regarding injuries and illnesses reported by workplaces. This information can provide insight into a company’s injury and illness experience and support data-driven decision making. 

WSIB’s SafetyCheck is an online database available to the public that shares valuable health and safety insights about registered companies in Ontario. It includes data such as lost-time injury rates, most common types of injuries and more. 

This data is freely available as part of the Ontario government’s Open Data Directive, which prioritizes transparency by allowing public access to government data.  

So how can you leverage SafetyCheck to enhance your understanding of workplace safety?

Here are three key ways: 

1. Identify a company’s health and safety performance 

SafetyCheck shows a company’s injury rate trends, allowing you to monitor performance over time. For example, you can see injury rates, allowed claims by year, leading types of injuries, claims with wage loss benefits after 12 months, and claim costs paid by WSIB. 

Analyzing this data allows a company to pinpoint problem areas. For instance, if overexertion accounts for 34% of injuries, and boxes, containers, barrels, and packages are the main source of injury, this could indicate that the company has a problem with material handling hazards. 

2. Benchmark against industry or other companies 

SafetyCheck enables comparing a company’s lost time injury rate against similar businesses or industry classifications. You can benchmark performance against the sector or another company, and can also understand the most common types of claims and body parts injured among comparators.  

For example, you can see if a company performed better or worse than its competitors. This allows making informed decisions about suppliers or contractors based on health and safety track records. 

3. Uncover a company’s profile

SafetyCheck offers workforce size details over a 6-year period, measured in full-time equivalents (FTEs). This helps determine if a company is growing, shrinking, or stagnant. It also indicates any fatalities and whether a company participates in WSIB’s Health and Safety Excellence program. 

SafetyCheck provides powerful data to guide health and safety decisions. It can be used for risk management, performance improvement, contractor selection, and more.