Building Trust Between Employers and Employees and How it Relates to WCB
Someone got injured on your worksite and thankfully they are ok. But now you must deal with the paperwork, do you know where to start? What information do you need? What deadlines are there? The Workers’ Compensation Board, or WCB, exists to protect workers and employers if an injury occurs at work.
Unfortunately, WCB tends to invoke misguided stress owing to preconceived notions about how complex submitting a claim may be. For this reason, Anthony Butkovic decided to create WCBConsulting.ca. Over the last 10 years, his company has specialized in training, advising, managing, and appealing WCB claims for employers. He strives to ensure that the employee is given what they are legally entitled to while achieving the employers’ financial goals.
Above all else, building trust between the parties and the system is the most important strategy. Anthony strongly believes that WCB has generated a bad reputation because of a lack of trust between employers and employees. If an employee feels as though they can’t trust their leadership, they will look out for themselves. This attitude can spread throughout the entire workforce and leave behind a workplace that is completely devoid of trust. Communication needs to be clear in all aspects of a WCB program. By effectively communicating, employers can lead their employees out of a bad situation and provide the best outcome for all parties.
A strong safety culture combined with trust between all parties is a good place to start when efficiently managing claims. The trust that is built within an organization will trickle down into your safety program. Anthony shared an anecdote, “I had a client that reported an incident a month late and lied about the situation. When the worker was questioned, they explained how they were scared to get in trouble. Because the frontline supervision, employee, and safety personnel were not on the same page, an incident occurred and there was no one to help properly solve the problem.” With effective leadership and a trusted system in place, a great team and safety culture can be built. Anthony urges employers to understand the process and how to express care for their employees. This will allow them to effectively manage a claim and create the feeling of belonging for their employees.
Incidents at the worksite cause stress for everyone. But it is important for everyone involved in the claim process to keep moving forward. According to Anthony, performing a post-incident debriefing with all involved parties can alleviate some of this stress. This debriefing also allows for an evaluation of the workplace to prevent the same incident from occurring again. Proper training and education are the best way to help identify present gaps in workplace procedures and incident responses. It may be difficult to change workplace procedures, but proper training and education can build a workplace culture around safety.
Never in one place for too long, Anthony is always trying to improve his business and learn from the industry he supports. Listening to the market and deeply understanding the principles of claims management has positively impacted WCBConsulting.ca’s ability to assist their clients. Anthony ensures his clients can fully understand the system. If an employer does not know how to submit or appeal a claim, this costs everyone time, money, and more importantly trust. The client must be able to show their workers that they genuinely care about their health and safety. Anthony believes that the true measure of how bad or significant an incident was, is how efficiently you respond to it.
The preconceived notions and prejudice associated with claims management have changed how people react to workplace incidents. “A lot of people come to me and have already decided that their outcome is going to be negative,” Anthony explained. WCBConsulting.ca tries to help people understand the claims process and urges clients not to jump to negative conclusions. By training and educating people, the high stress of a WCB claim can be made easy. Most people become fearful of situations because they don’t know anything about it and the outcome is left to their imagination. Anthony’s company tries to bring certainty to every situation and educate clients on what is within their control. His training courses take advantage of what technology can offer and give people the confidence to explain the situation, calm everyone down, and get them on the same page so they can move forward together.
From a WCB perspective, technology is being used differently for safety. Today, the internet can provide information about any topic in seconds. “For the longest time, you could only get the information from a post-secondary course.” Now Anthony explains that his clients are more comfortable taking courses online with industry experts, which they probably wouldn’t have gotten in touch with before the internet. Online technology allows people to explore, build upon their skills, and find new ones.
The safety industry continually evolves and so too does WCBconsulting.ca. Their focus has mainly been on prevention, but Anthony suspects their future is going to be a balance between preventing and managing incidents. More companies are knowledgeable about how WCB claims work and how managing a claim is just as important as preventing the incident from occurring. “Everyone wants change on some level and to make the industry better. The more we keep talking about it, creating a platform, and sharing information, the better it will be.” Anthony looks forward to adapting to whatever changes the safety industry may take.
