WorkSafeNB 2024 Annual Report - Tim Petersen, President & CEO

Tim Petersen joins us to discuss why 2024 was a defining year for WorkSafeNB and for workplace safety in New Brunswick.

Transcript

Perley Brewer   23:55
Welcome to today's podcast. My name is Pearly Brewer and I will be your host. Today's podcast guest is Tim Peterson, President and CEO of Worksafe NB. Welcome, Tim.

Petersen, Tim   24:06
Well, thank you very much Pearly for having me. I certainly look forward to sharing some of the highlights of our recently released annual report for 2024.

Perley Brewer   24:18
Yeah, we with the summer vacations, we usually take a a bit of a break in our podcast. So we missed the actual release date of it. And I know you did a provincial tour as well sharing the information from your annual report. So we certainly didn't want to miss that opportunity to.
To get you on one of our broadcasts and to talk about actually what what was in the annual report. And I I urge all our listeners, if you haven't had the opportunity, go to the Worksafe NB website and it's very easy to find a copy of the annual report.
And it's very well written. I certainly compliment you, Tim, and your staff to prepare the report. It's very easy to read, very easy to to work through various topics and. And as you're always saying, Tim, that we're all in this together. So. So when you look at the results of of health and safety in our province.
It's it's the results of everyone working together to to make our province safer. Now, when you did your release back in the summer during your release you you highlighted a number of achievements that you felt were particularly important.
Why don't you walk us to get our discussion started? Why don't you walk us through some of those?

Petersen, Tim   25:36
Sure, I'd. I'd be thrilled to walk you through some of those. There are a number of them that I would like to highlight. I think we'll start with the lowest injury frequency rate, lost time, injury frequency rate in in Canada in fact.
You know, our vision at Worksafe New Brunswick is making New Brunswick the safest place to work, but exceptionally proud of the fact that, you know, we've, we've, we've achieved that. We've achieved that vision and have been recognized not not just.
Internally recognizing it but recognized by external parties as being the safest province in the country in which to work, it's really a, you know, it's a testament to the employers and workers of the province of New Brunswick and their dedication.
To creating health and safety cultures in their workplaces, I believe it, you know, it's through that through that team effort, through partnerships, through collaboration.
But all, all with a common vision that we've achieved these historical lows in terms of lost time, injury frequency and and most importantly it means that people are returning home safely at the end of the day.
And my message to folks out there is you're doing exceptional work. Keep up the great work that you've been doing. We're making really good strides in improving health and safety in New Brunswick workplaces and and and all of you that contribute should be proud of the work that you've done.

Perley Brewer   27:26
Now curiosity question on that, who's number two and three, how's your memory?

Petersen, Tim   27:28
Yeah.
Oh my memory is I I believe that our neighbors in Prince Edward Island are second, our second lowest, and 3rd you've got me. It's a what? It's a western.

Perley Brewer   27:40
Mm-hmm.

Petersen, Tim   27:48
Province, but I'm not certain which one it is, but I believe they I I think it. I think it may be Manitoba, yeah. But but I believe yeah, I believe is number 2. So shout out to our neighbors there because.

Perley Brewer   27:51
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Manitoba maybe.
So the second the second item, go ahead.

Petersen, Tim   28:06
Dan Dan Campbell, the CEO over there and his team are doing great work with the workers and employers on the island.

Perley Brewer   28:14
So in addition to the lowest injury frequency rate, you also have the lowest average assessment rate and let's talk a little bit about that.

Petersen, Tim   28:23
Yeah, we had the lowest, lowest average rate in Atlantic Canada and second lowest rate in in Canada. So we for 2025, the average rate is $1.10 down from $1.18 in 2024 and $1.10.

Perley Brewer   28:25
Yeah.

Petersen, Tim   28:42
Lowest rate ever, lowest average rate in the history of work, safe at $1.10, and that that really is it's a byproduct of being a safer being safer. Byproduct of being a really safe province.
It means that we're having fewer accidents, our costs are coming down, our investment returns are really good and all of that contributes to to having lower rates. So we're really proud of the fact that we've.
Been able to announce the the lowest rate in our history. I think though, just to kind of our come back to a point, I I I just made the most important thing is that people are returning home safely and when people more people are returning home safely.
It means a lot of good things come out of it, and one of those is that we're able to have lower rates.

Perley Brewer   29:41
Now something else you were able to do this past year was to issue a first ever performance refund. How's it look for this year or for 2024, I should say?

Petersen, Tim   29:53
Yeah. So for last year and this was the first time another first for Worksafe New Brunswick, we've never issued performance refunds and and we're very specific about.
Using that terminology performance refund, I know if you look at other jurisdictions you'll see language like surplus distribution, but the reason that we are able to provide over $180 million back to employers.
Is really because the performance of the system, which is a combination of, you know, accident experience and cost and investment returns, has been better than what we expected.
So it's owing to that that we found ourselves in this position of being 156% funded and really, you know the board's target is the range of 115 to 125%. So there is the, this, this.
Additional funding that is the result of this better performance and the board made a decision to return a significant portion of that back to employers. So it ended up being $180.6 million.
That we returned back and we literally we were literally handed chucks out to the tune of $180 million, and it was a talk we talked about team effort and partnerships, the.
Distribution of the checks actually was occurring during the postal disruption last year and you know, we partnered with SNB to create spaces in their offices around the province.
Where we had our employers come in and pick up their checks. It was, it was really well done and I'd just like to publicly acknowledge and thank the folks at SNB for stepping up and helping us, helping us out with that.
At the end of the day, I guess my message to folks should be performance. Really does pay creating health and healthier, safer workplaces. It's an investment and you can expect returns on those investments.
The the biggest one is people are safe, but it also means that fewer costs and better funding and this historic performance refund back to employers. Now, if we're looking at.

Perley Brewer   32:26
Yeah.

Petersen, Tim   32:42
You know what might happen with the results for 2024? We, we finished the year in a funded position of one 152.9. So almost 153% funded. We know that our board has.
Approved a new policy with respect to funding and part of that policy is up. If we're over 150% funded that there will be performance refunds issued back to draw us down to 150.
So although they may be small, much smaller than what was issued in in 20, at the end of last year, I would expect that there there will be at least be a small portion available for that for that amount about 150.
Percent. But we'll we'll have discussions perly with the board. We're going to be meeting at the end of next month at the end of September, we'll be meeting with respect to rate setting and.
And the board will make a decision at that time about the rate for 2026. And they also make a decision with respect to any potential performance refunds. So if all goes well, I expect that I'll be announcing that at our AGM on October the 2nd.

Perley Brewer   34:08
OK. Another benefit, another area that you made progress this past year as well, increased wage loss benefits for injured workers.

Petersen, Tim   34:19
Yeah, very important. So our you know our system is all about balance and you know we talked, I've talked a lot about low assessment rates and and performance refunds back to employers.
But while doing that very proud of the fact that we've been also been able to make some significant improvements in benefit levels for injured workers in the province, the two most significant are the increase in loss of earnings from 85.
Percent to 90% and then the increase in the maximum annual earnings from 1 1/2 times the New Brunswick Industrial aggregate earnings to 1.6 in real dollars. That amounts to an increase of of somewhere in the vicinity of $5000.
To the maximum annual earnings and these are significant and important improvements without together with the board. I've worked very hard to get to get these amendments passed and I do want to thank the government.
For their support in getting these legislative changes through it's, you know, it's especially rewarding to be on the floor of the legislature with amendments that are supported unanimously.
By everyone in the room, regardless of political stripe, these benefit improvements were unanimously supported, and that that's really important and I'm thankful for that.
And I'm also thankful for the fact that we've made good on a promise, so it a lot, a lot of people wouldn't know this, but the loss of earnings for workers historically was 90%. It was changed back in 1992.
And it was reduced down to 80%. And the reason that it was reduced was because we were 76% funded and we had to raise rates for employers, but it wasn't enough to get us back to full funding. We had to reduce.
The benefits for workers at that time in 9235 years ago, a promise was made that when we achieved, you know, financial stability, that that loss of earnings would be returned back to 90%.
So although it took over three decades, we did make good on that promise and I'm very pleased that we were able to do that.

Perley Brewer   37:05
So I guess my next question would be sort of be A2 parter in a way one, what are you doing internally and and this is talked about in your end report, what are you doing internally to try and make your system more efficient? And secondly, what are you doing externally to try and keep?

Petersen, Tim   37:21
You.

Perley Brewer   37:24
Those rates as low as they can be from a point of view of reducing accidents around the province. So let's talk about the internal first.

Petersen, Tim   37:34
Yeah, a few things internally, I guess that I would like to highlight. So we are, we're in the midst of of a major modernization. So we're I'm going to say in the in five to seven-year.
Modernization efforts and we're about we're about three years in. So we had back in 2022 established a a road map. And I think traditionally when we think about modernization, we think about systems, which certainly is part of.
Part of the modernization efforts here at Worksafe New Brunswick, but we've gone beyond that and we're really looking at all of our service delivery models to try and gain as much efficiency and economy as possible. In addition to do what we expect.
Expect to gain through our replacement of our core systems, which would be things like our claims management system and our employer assessment system along with our finance and HR systems. But we're really looking at everything end to end.
In an effort to really have the most efficient and effective services available to our stakeholders and have them available in a fashion that that you would expect in 2025, right? So you know we are gone are the days.
Of manual checks and always, you know, picking up the phone when you have a question. People now expect to be able to go online and and do a lot, do a lot of a lot of inquiries and analysis. And right now we just don't have the.
Infrastructure or systems to do that, but we will once we get through this through this modernization and as I said like it's broad and it's really a shift in in how we think and how we try to solve problems and support our fellow.
New Brunswickers, that's one of the things we're doing internally. Another focus that we've had internally is really with respect to culture at work, safe New Brunswick. We want to be I I want to be the employer of choice in the province of New Brunswick and to be.
The employer of choice, you have to have an exceptionally strong workplace culture and we have we've come a long way with respect to our culture and employee engagement. We three years ago.
You know our employee engagement scores were somewhere in the mid 40s and last year they had risen to 69% and our workplace culture that we measure had risen to 91%. So both well above industry benchmarks.
And why? Why is that? Why is having a strong culture and being the employer of choice important? It's important because we want to. We want to have people set up to deliver the best service possible to the workers and employers of the province.
And if you're part of a organization with a strong culture where there's a lot of support provided, a lot of care and compassion, a lot of empowering people to be able to make decisions all leads to, you know, more dedicated and passionate and inspired employees at work. Safe new.
And that translates to better service. I do want to take a moment to to share with people that may not know that Worksafe New Brunswick was actually recognized as one of Atlantic Canada's top employers for 2025. That's an achievement. I'm.
Especially proud of and tells me that we're doing a lot of the right things to create a really good culture here at Worksafe New Brunswick.
Now we are doing so. That's some things that we're doing internally.
Kind of looking externally, there's a lot there. There's a lot happening externally. I think I'd start with maybe just touching on our client satisfaction. So we measure client satisfaction each and every year and clients for us are the workers and employers of the.
Our employer satisfaction levels were were pretty consistent in 2024 with where they were in 2023 at about 74%. Our client, our injured worker satisfaction, actually went up by 3%.
3% maybe to some folks, doesn't sound like a big number, but when you're measuring satisfaction, an increase from 71% to 74% is really quite significant. And again, it tells me that you know, we're.
The work that we're doing is having a positive impact and part of what we're doing part of what we're focusing on is like modeling our values of accountability, collaboration and trust.
And one of the one of the most important things is, is leading with empathy. So there's been a big focus on when we're when we are, you know, dealing with workers and employers of the province and especially injured workers because.
Oftentimes they're they're in their most vulnerable state when they're coming to work safe. They've just been hurt at work. They're not receiving any pay. It's a difficult time, and we put a real focus on leading with empathy.
And being showing a lot of compassion for the people that that we're dealing with and that's been really important and I'm certain that that approach has helped to improve injured worker satisfaction in the province.
Now in, in addition to that, you know I'm I'm a huge believer in partnerships and collaboration and that's been a big focus for us. We are collaborating with with many different stakeholder groups. I don't.
Probably have enough time to go through all of it, but I would. I would. I would like to highlight a couple of them that I think are great examples of the power of partnerships and collaboration and and that's with with two very distinct groups. One is the firefighters of the province of New Brunswick.
And one is the fishing industry, so maybe I'll start with firefighters, but before I get into the work that we're doing with the firefighters, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge and thank the firefighters for the work that they've been doing over the past few weeks.
We know we've experienced, I think record temperatures and record dry conditions in the province of New Brunswick and several, several wildfires that have been.
Ignited throughout various parts of the province and and the firefighter community has, as they always do, has risen to the challenge, despite the risks associated with being out there fighting wildfires. And we at work safe New Brunswick are very thankful for their.
Effort. So I just want to give a shout out to those folks. We work very closely with the firefighters and the collaboration to date has been, you know, about a topic that.
We're going to be dealing with a lot of our health and safety conference and that's psychological injuries, and we talked about, you know, the stigma associated with psychological injuries and and the sort of people shying away from.
You know, from acknowledging that they've suffered psychological injury for fear of, you know, being kind of marginalized or or, you know, somehow, you know, that stigma that's attached with psychological injury. It's lessening. I can tell you that I know that through some of the work.
Work that we're doing with the firefighter community, with the creation of peer support groups in that community and really working with them to support them in.
You know, developing programs to to help them to help their membership deal with psychological injuries and and I know that the stigma is being reduced because whenever I go to meetings.
Or workshops with the firefighters. People will get up now and talk about, you know, they're not. They're not. They don't shy away from talking about their psychological injuries. Their peers are now encouraging them to talk about it, where, where once. Maybe.
They were feared for being viewed as weak if they talked about it, you know, now it's more so. Well, if you don't talk about it, then perhaps that's the weaker perspective. So it it's really encouraging to see that and to see the.
Support networks that they've that that they've set up. We've also engaged very heavily on a on a much different note with the fishing industry and we recently as you know.
Have fishing vessels now recognized as a place of employment under the Hockey Occupational Health and Safety Act. Historically, they hadn't been. That just happened last year. And so now we, you know, now work safe. New Brunswick has jurisdiction.
For health and safety on fishing vessels and this is another example of collaborative efforts where we're not, you know, we are we, we are the regulator in the province, but we take a collaboration first.
Approach and I can tell you that with the fishing industry, when we first started talking to them, it was kind of, you know, everyone is very kind of standoffish because they didn't really want work safe around and they weren't interested in discussions about.
Health and safety and how work safe could help them, but just through, you know, having meaningful conversations and and showing up with the perspective of perspective, of wanting to help keep fishers, fishermen and and.
And fishermen and fisherwomen safe in the waters and getting people to understand that we were there as a resource to help. We've really made great strides and very proud of the work that we've that we've done with with that industry and we continue to do that. We're providing education and.
Resources we do. Man overboard drills throughout the year in various locations across the province, and we've really seen a real increase in the collaboration and the willingness to collaborate on the part of the Fisher. So very thankful for that.
Just a couple of examples of of some of the industries that we're focusing on.

Perley Brewer   49:33
When you go back to firefighters, fighters, especially the firefighters, for the wildfires, are you seeing any claims from that group yet?
With with so many wildfires.

Petersen, Tim   49:45
No, I it it. Yeah, it's early days. It's early days, Pearly. But but not yet. But as you know, they're still some of those fires are still active and firefighters are still. Yeah, they're still out there. So.

Perley Brewer   49:52
Yeah.
Big time.

Petersen, Tim   50:03
I would say you know well, maybe maybe when we get together to talk about the 2025 annual report, we'll have a little bit more data on that.

Perley Brewer   50:14
Yeah. When you talk about firefighters in general, we've done a couple of podcasts relative to PTSD and psychological issues with and we're on fireman and it's been some of our largest audiences. It's it's a big concern. It's a big issue. And we can tell by the people.
That are listening. It's starting to get a lot more traction. And as you say, people are starting to feel they can talk about it and that's that's a good first step.

Petersen, Tim   50:42
Yeah, that's a huge. Yeah. That's a huge first step, 100%.

Perley Brewer   50:46
So another topic while I have you, Tim, tariffs, we we've been seeing and hearing so much in the news about tariffs and and one of the topics that's come out of this discussion is a harmonization of health and safety legislation through Cal. I guess is is one of the methods any sort of comment or update on that?

Petersen, Tim   51:06
Yeah, for sure. You know there I I guess I would start by saying there are national discussions happening currently. They have been happening for a few years actually. So it's not her national harmonization is it's not new. But certainly now given the.
The kind of climate that we're operating in, it's getting more attention, which is a good thing because I think where you know in the past, maybe there have been apparent barriers to harmonization in certain areas that, you know, with a more.
More willingness and more concerted effort. Maybe we make more progress in some of those areas. We we do currently they'll have two Pan Canadian agreements in place that have been been in place for a few years now.
Certainly predating any of this tariff talk and those Pan Canadian agreements are really aimed at the very issue of harmonizing health and safety across Canada, so I'm I'm pleased that there's been some progress made and and maybe the audience would be interested.
In hearing, you know, through these agreements so far, we've been able to harmonize on a national basis on a few items. I won't point them all out, but just a few examples. First, aid kit contents, hearing protection, PF DS.
PPE, in the form of head protection, foot protection and eye protection and first aid training are some of the areas where there's already been significant progress and national harmonization. We've New Brunswick, has participated and implemented all of those items.
Those agreements and and the groups that are working on this are continuing to look at other areas. So right now the, the active discussions are around occupational exposure limits, high visibility apparel.
And anchors for fall protection. So those are those are active discussions as you could appreciate. I'm sure you know the the biggest challenge around national harmonization is that that the OHS legislation.
Legislation and regulations vary significantly across the country, so you're bringing everyone to the table in an effort to do that. It's not. It's not always the easiest thing to do. It's not necessarily going to happen overnight.
But certainly we at work safe and and I personally see the positive things that can come out of harmonizing and we're continuing to work with with our government and our counterparts across the country to to harmonize even more.
Standards somewhere already have, or that we're already working on.

Perley Brewer   54:11
OK. Last question, Tim, your annual report continually talks and shows evidence of of a lot of good things happening at work safe, whether it's better benefits for the workers, whether it's lowest frequency and so on. How do you keep that momentum?
Momentum going what? What do you think you need to do as an organization to keep that momentum going forward?

Petersen, Tim   54:37
Well, I think a couple of I think a couple of things. You know we're we are work safe I think is is you know reputationally is becoming recognized as as a resource.
That can help you through partnering and collaborating. So we're going to continue. We need to continue to get that message out, continue to the work we're doing through existing partnerships, but also focusing on creating new partnerships and collaboration.
With other industries in the province, we're going to need to do that. We're spending a lot of time focusing on psychological injuries. I know that's that's been kind of a theme, but that's the reality of the that's the reality of the world that we're living in. Psychological injuries are becoming more.
Prominent where we were seeing have been seeing declining trends in other injuries. We see increasing trends and psychological injuries. So we're going to focus on that. We've actually built a team in our prevention division.
Specifically dedicated to focusing on psychological injury strategies, we've already put a lot of information out on our website. We're going to be putting out more, but more importantly, we're reaching out to employers.
To actively work with them to create psychological injury strategies that's going to be very important to continuing to keep, you know, people return to work most importantly. And as I said, a byproduct of that, it's keeping costs down.
In addition to psychological injuries, you know New Brunswick is the one jurisdiction right now that does not have any provision for any type of cumulative stress or stress related issues arising from bullying and harassment.
That is an issue that our board is going to be considering over the course of the next year that's going to be very that's going to be very important and we're continuing to focus on our modernization efforts and and.
Redesigning our service delivery models and and one of those that that we've looked at is you know how how we do our planning and how we identify at risk workplaces and what factors go into that and how can we.
You know better target workplaces, and that's going to be important. So we we we have limited resources, we want to make sure we're getting into the right workplaces. So we're going to focus on on that as well and and.
Yeah, we've got a few other, got a few other things on the go. We've we just launched the second five year review of the Workers Compensation Act. So that's going to be a big that'll be a big piece of work for us as well.

Perley Brewer   57:50
Well, look, Tim, thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to us today. By the way, we'd love to have someone from your psychological unit come. Come on there. One of our podcasts and talk to us about some of the strategies that that you're looking at and are developing to help New Brunswick workplaces.
So if you could could help us schedule that, that would be great as well. It's a hot topic. It's it's one that a lot of people are wondering, you know what is going on. We we hear the term, but what is going on and actually what can be done to help workplaces deal with these new and evolving issues?

Petersen, Tim   58:29
Yeah, 100%, we, I'd be happy to have someone want to talk about more about the strategies that we're developing. Certainly purely just reach out and we'll, we'll get that. We'll get that set up. I do before we, before we finish, I do just want to highlight.

Perley Brewer   58:33
Yeah.
Yeah.

Petersen, Tim   58:48
A couple of events that are coming up, so the annual general meeting is October, the second that's virtual, it's at 1:00 PM on October the 2nd and that again you'll be able to register through our website in addition to some of the things that we've talked about today, like I'll do a bit of a deal.
Deeper dive into some of the other areas that we focused on in 2024 and results and talk a little bit more about our kind of our pillars of people, prevention and integrity. So if you have interest in that.
And in addition to that, I mentioned that you know, we have our board rate setting meeting at the end of September. I expect to be in a position to share with everyone the what the rate assessment rate will be for 2026.
At that meeting on October the second, so I would encourage folks to put a put that in their calendar and the the 2nd event that I want to highlight is is the following week, October 8th to the 10th.
And I know we'll have some more on this on the on another podcast, but we do have our annual health and Safety Conference October 8th to the 10th and that's at the Fredericton Convention Centre. And registration for that event is live on our website at Worksafe NB.
Dot CA and as always, pearly, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to come on and share some of the great things that are happening at Worksafe and initiatives and some of the great work that's being done by the.
Workers and employers in the province of New Brunswick to build healthier and safer workplaces and contribute to our vision of making works, making New Brunswick the safest place to work.

Perley Brewer   1:00:42
Look, Tim, thank you again very much. I just want to add as a note to where listeners, you know we we do try to stay on top of what's happening in health and safety in New Brunswick. But there there's just so much happening and that sometimes no we we don't know about it. We don't hear about it.
So for our listeners, if if you become aware or if you are aware of any issue, any event, something that you would like for us to talk about on our podcast, pop US off an e-mail, we'd love to, to share your message to our listeners. Thank you very much, Tim. And for our listeners. Thank you for tuning in. We will talk.
Talk to you again next week.