Ontario Leading Indicators Project (OLIP)
What are "Leading Indicators"?
From a business perspective, leading indicators are often categorized as any forward thinking or proactive measure that could indicate future performance and economic success. For this project, leading indicators are defined as measures of a company's ongoing health and safety policies and practices, or of the workplace conditions that can lead to occupational illnesses and injuries. In total, 17 different leading indicators were measured, including organizational policies & practices (such as health and safety leadership and employee engagement), as well as measures related to occupational health & safety management systems.
During the initial phase, each participating company received an individual, evidence-based benchmarking report with a project overview and their leading indicator scores. A unique value added component to the report was that the participant's score was benchmarked against similar businesses from their sub-sector that participated in the project, and the database of participants as a whole.
WSPS' initial role
In our commitment to grow partnerships with customers, WSPS has contacted all participating firms to discuss how their individual benchmarking reports can provide their business with a competitive advantage with the focus being on how to:
- Determine a baseline assessment of leading indicators;
- Assess current strengths and improvement areas to build a stronger health and safety program;
- Identify areas of performance that may require ongoing maintenance or sustainability;
- Track leading indicators across the company as performance measures (if not already a current practice); and
- Use the data for prevention of future workplace injuries and illnesses.
Open Access
On June 6th, the Institute for Work and Health announced that the OLIP survey is now open to the public. Companies now have the opportunity to:
- Complete the survey directly on the Institute's topic pages,
- Instantly obtain their results, and
- Manually compare their score to industry benchmarks.
Although the evidence base for these leading indicators is still growing, specifically whether or not they can predict future illnesses and injuries, the OLIP survey is an excellent tool to help identify potential OHS program gaps.
How WSPS can help
Unlike the Ontario Leading Indicators Project, companies that complete the OLIP survey online will not automatically get a customized benchmarking report, nor will they receive any additional guidance to help interpret and apply the results.
WSPS is committed to growing its relationships with Ontario employers and has the expertise to interpret the benchmarking report and develop an action plan to apply the OLIP survey results.
Our health and safety expertise spans across the 17 indicators captured in the OLIP survey. WSPS also offers a variety of health and safety solutions to address all 17 indicators.
