Report
on Progress
THE ROAD TO 2030
Strategic Plan and Progress
Accountability.
Momentum.
Progress.
A lot has changed since 2024, the first year of our strategic plan.
See the progress on our path to 2030
and how we’re protecting Nova Scotia’s workforce.
Protect more
Protect More is WCB's 2024–2030 Strategic Plan — a vision for a Nova Scotia where people are better protected from workplace injury and illness than they are today. It sets a clear direction for how we will prevent more workplace injuries, support recovery and return to work, strengthen our financial foundation, and deliver better service for workers and employers.
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Strategic plan objectives: what we’ll do by 2030.
Change doesn't happen overnight. But in the second year of our five-year journey, we made meaningful progress. Here's a snapshot of where we stand.
With two years of strong progress behind us, we're a different organization — and we're moving forward with momentum.
Our path to 2030
Preventing injury, supporting workers in returning to work, and providing exceptional service, always — these are the pillars of our Strategic Plan. But that's only part of the story. Behind those pillars are four key principles that will apply to everything we do.
Learn more about our strategic pillars:
We will prevent workplace injury.
The face of workplace injury is changing. And by 2030, it will change even more. The days of safety meaning hard hats and work boots are gone.
Today the hazards are different. The risks are psychological, not just physical. They are often human, too: People we’re caring for, or things people say, or violent attacks.
Enabled by better data and improved technology, our approaches to workplace injury prevention will become much more targeted, grounded in the voice of those we serve. And our outcomes will continue to improve.
In all we do, we are driven by a vision for a Nova Scotia where no one dies at work, or because of their work.
Prevention
Strategic Plan Goal:
Reduce time loss workplace injuries by 17%.
By 2030:
• We will have established best-practice approaches in the prevention of psychological injury, fostering workplaces that are both physically and mentally safe.
• We will be working with much stronger, crisper, more powerful data. This is a fundamental building block that will enable new connections, customized outreach, better planning and predictive analytics. While perhaps challenging to imagine based on where we were when our journey began, it will lay the foundation for new solutions based on generative AI and other technologies yet to come.
• At the same time, we will make progress on the ground today in workplaces. Building upon our proven service model to workplaces and together with partners, we will connect differently, digitally, and in an industry-first manner. We will build leadership communities to inspire safer workplaces, and continue to grow the number of workplaces who certify their commitment to safety.
Accountability:
2030 Target: Reduce time loss injuries by 17% to 1.15 per 100 covered workers
2025 Result: 1.21 injury rate
2024 Result: 1.38 injury rate
We will support healthy, safe, timely return to work.
Every day, people get hurt on the job. From a sprain or a strain injury to a deep psychological scar, when Nova Scotians experience this type of impact on their lives, we are there to help.
And it’s our job to help, wherever we can. It’s our job to support Nova Scotians in protecting the safe, healthy, important role that work plays, in the lives of the people Nova Scotians are.
Empowered by exceptional service, we are driven to protect Nova Scotians from workplace injury’s impact through better outcomes in return to work, where work is, almost always, part of the recovery process.
Return to Work
Strategic Plan Goal:
Reduce the time lost from work due to injury by 35%, becoming one of the top three jurisdictions in Canada for this outcome.
By 2030:
We will have established an entirely new area of focus and service in psychological injury, driven by innovative approaches, new ideas, and earlier connections. We will be a leader in serving workers and employers in protecting them from the impacts of psychological injury, both as a result of trauma, and those which occur more gradually.
We will be working in a fundamentally redesigned return to work process, with the worker at the center of all activity. The new approach will lead to much better protection from the impact of workplace injury, and much-improved service.
We will be immediately informing workers how we can help, and they will know the importance of the early days of a claim. Early and frequent contact from the moment of injury forward will be the norm. Workers, and their families, will know we are here to help.
We will be experts in supporting workers and their families impacted by psychological injury and new approaches and learnings (GOS), and we will be a leader across Canada in achieving positive outcomes, through the application of innovative, best-practice approaches.
Generally, in psychological injury and all of what we do, we will ensure we have the right health services partners, governed by the right agreements, in shared service beliefs and philosophies, and most of all, effectively and efficiently managed, with the worker at the center of all considerations.
We will be looking forward, differently and in new ways, to ensure our programming and planning into the future is aligned with what that future will bring.
Accountability:
2030 Target: Reduce time lost from work due to injury by 35% – or 167 days per 100 covered workers
2025 Result: 226 time-loss days
2024 Result: 269 time-loss days
We will deliver exceptional service.
We have reimagined service at WCB Nova Scotia. We help people, every single day. We protect them from workplace injury’s impact – from supporting a physio provider to help someone stay at work following an injury, to mitigating the lifelong impact of more severe workplace injuries. In these cases, we’re there for Nova Scotians.
By 2030, we will be there, even better. We will protect more of the “whole people” Nova Scotians are through service that suits their lifestyles, their communications preferences, and their overall well-being.
We will be easier to do business with. We will engage early, and communicate often. We will be reachable, accessible, human, open and authentic. Always.
Deliver Exceptional Service
Strategic Plan Goal:
80 percent of workers and employers believe the WCB provides exceptional service.
By 2030:
• We will better measure our service, closer to when it is delivered.
• Our service experience will be built around the people we serve. They will be at the centre of what we do, and every day, we will work to help them… whatever we’re able to do, for what help looks like for them.
• We will have improved our use of technology, in all its forms, across the organization, and we will be leveraging its capacity to improve outcomes for those we serve, streamlining and simplifying interactions.
• We will have clear, understood, promises when it comes to our service - and we will deliver on those commitments, every day, in an accountable way. When you work with the WCB, you will know what to expect.
• We will reimagine the long-term benefits function, improving service to those we are supporting and their families, often over a lifetime.
Accountability:
2030 Target: 80% of workers and employers will believe WCB provides exceptional service.
2025 Result: 65%
2024 Result: 62%
Enable Employees
We will enable our employees.
Strategic Plan Goal:
By 2030, 80% of WCB employees will indicate that their leader, and their work environment, enables them to do exceptional work.
By 2030:
In 2030, our employees will be even more empowered, supported, and inspired than they are today.
They will have clear expectations, with performance management tools and processes that are grounded in our Key Performance Indicators.
They will be provided with the right tools, and the right training, from the day they begin their service with us.
They will be doing the right work, in the right roles for them, in an efficient and effective way, driven by the overall principle of exceptional service.
They will work in an environment defined by connectivity, connection and collaboration, where technology enables and informs their work – not makes it more complicated.
Accountability:
2030 Target: 80% WCB employees indicate that their leader, and their work environment, enables them to do exceptional work.
2025 Result: 76%
2024 Result: 69%
Diversity and Inclusion
We will honour diversity and inclusion, in the organization we are, and in how we do business.
Nova Scotia is a diverse, beautiful province, and people. Our service and our organization will change to better reflect that. We will recognize diversity in the communities we serve and in our own organization, becoming more inclusive in all we do.
Strategic Plan Goal:
By 2030, 50% of Nova Scotians will indicate the WCB is an inclusive organization.
By 2030:
• We will be guided by a multi-year roadmap, informed by consultation with all of our employees and those we serve.
• We will deliver service in languages that better reflect the society Nova Scotia is today.
• We will ensure our online resources and environments are accessible and inclusive to all users.
Accountability:
2030 Target: 50% of Nova Scotians will indicate the WCB is an inclusive organization.
2025 Result: 75%
2024 Result: 73%
End-to-End Efficiency
We will be defined by end-to-end efficiency.
We recognize our service to employers and workers can be less than efficient. Sometimes, we create steps where there don’t need to be steps. Wait for things we don’t need to wait for. Do things manually that could be automated. By 2030, we’ll be different. Across our business, we will be much more efficient in how we deliver service, leveraging technology and processes to do what we do today, but better.
Strategic Plan Goal:
By 2030, 80% of those we serve will agree the WCB provides efficient service.
By 2030:
We will have stronger, improved relationships with service providers to enable efficiency.
We will ensure we capitalize on technological opportunities, like straight-through processing.
We will have the right people, providing the right service, trained and able to do it well.
We will ensure that online services, and electronic connection, are offered to all of those we serve, and used wherever possible to improve connections and efficiency.
Accountability:
2030 Target: 80% of those we serve will agree the WCB provides efficient service.
2025 Result: 78%
2024 Result: 74%
Strategic Outreach and Engagement
We will proudly continue our outreach and engagement.
In 2030, the WCB will be a trusted, respected partner to more employers, labour unions, worker support organizations, and all levels of government.
Strategic Plan Goal:
By 2030, 80% of workers, employers and partners will indicate they feel engaged by and trust the WCB.
By 2030:
• We will continue finding spaces for, and supporting, the valuable voices on our Board of Directors to drive the success of our Strategic Plan.
• We will be a leader in Nova Scotia’s workplace safety community, in particular. We will continue to support leadership conversation and connection, championing the human and business value of protection from workplace injury.
• Although we will continue to embrace digital technology, we will also value face-to-face conversations, as we are in the business of helping people. Human contact will be important to us, and a principle of our service.
Accountability:
2030 Target: 80% of workers, employers and partners will indicate they feel engaged by and trust the WCB.
2025 Result: 63%
2024 Result: 59%
Progressive Reform
Nova Scotia will gradually continue to reform the workers’ compensation system.
Strategic Plan Goal:
By 2030, we will have supported a transformation in Nova Scotia’s workers’ compensation legislative, policy, appeal and rate framework.
By 2030:
We believe there is great opportunity to improve the workers’ compensation system in our province.
Informed by the first review in 20 years, we will continue to improve the things we can control.
And as we deliver on this Strategic Plan, we hope to do so against an evolving backdrop of progress, where benefits improve for workers, and where rates can be reduced, in a financially sustainable way.
Accountability:
2030 Target: We will have supported a transformation in Nova Scotia’s workers’ compensation legislative, policy, appeal and rate framework.
2025 Result:
Duty to Cooperate legislation and policy took effect
Rate reduction was announced
Amendments to the Workers’ Compensation Act were announced, including restoration of CPP to 100%, 90 days to appeal a claims decision, and more
Sometimes, you don’t notice how much you value something until it’s gone. Work is one of those things.
As we deliver on this Strategic Plan, we will inspire and engage Nova Scotians, who will come to understand just how important the work we do is in protecting the incredible value of safe, healthy work.
Increased Perceived Value
Strategic Plan Goal:
By 2030, 80% of Nova Scotians will understand the value of workers’ compensation.
By 2030:
• We will have stronger, improved relationships with service providers.
• We will ensure we capitalize on technological opportunities, like straight-through processing.
• We will have the right people, providing the right service, trained and able to do it well.
• We will ensure that online services, and electronic connection, are offered to all of those we serve, and used wherever possible to improve connections and efficiency.
Accountability:
2030 Target: 80% of Nova Scotians will understand the value of workers’ compensation
2025 Result: 74%
2024 Result: 73%
In 2030, the impact of workplace injury will look different from what it does today.
All employers will be paying less for coverage.
All workers will receive improved benefits in a revamped system that has heard from Nova Scotians and listened.
We'll see better return-to-work outcomes where work is part of recovery. Whether it’s a sprain or strain injury, or a psychological injury in the workplace, workers will be supported quickly with exceptional service.
We’ll be there, to protect more Nova Scotians from its deep and lasting hurt.
2030: When we get there
Safe recovery at work
A nurse injures their shoulder while helping a patient. But they are not alone. We are there to connect them with physiotherapy. They are back at work— instead of all their usual work duties, they are helping with patient scheduling while their shoulder fully recovers. A text reminder keeps their next physio appointment on track. A simple step forward on the road back to full duty.
Supporting recovery, every step of the way
A line cook requires reattachment surgery after a workplace incident involving chopping vegetables. WCB is there throughout — coordinating health care appointments, checking in after surgery, and making sure they have the support they need. When they're ready to return, we guide both the worker and their employer on what's possible. They can't chop garlic for a few days, but they can visit local farms to explore fresh ingredients for the menu.
Recovery from psychological workplace injury
We’ll be there for the Nova Scotia paramedic who, after witnessing a traumatic event, needs time to heal, but with the right help and support, they can gradually go back to work. With our team and trusted service providers, they learn to manage their PTSD. Slowly, they reconnect with their work, starting with lighter calls and gradually returning to full duty, ready to serve their community again.
Report on Progress
THE ROAD TO 2030
Accountability.
Momentum.
Progress.
2024 was a year of change—the first year on our bold strategic path to 2030.
How did we measure up in 2024?
Progress, and positive change.
Strategic Plan Objectives: What We’ll Do By 2030.
Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it is happening. Here’s a summary of our 2024 performance as we work toward achieving the 2030 strategic plan goals. The road to 2030 is a multi-year strategy, and these are the first big steps. With this strong foundation in place, we’re well on our way to achieving our 2030 goals .
Protect More Strategic Plan 2024-2030
We’ve got an ambitious and inspiring plan to protect more Nova Scotians against more kinds of workplace injury, to protect more workers, earlier and better, and to protect more employers. It’s a detailed plan, built around 9 goals, and it lays out the path for ensuring a healthier, stronger, safer workforce in Nova Scotia.
We’re committed to sharing our story of progress and opportunity. At WCB Nova Scotia, we provide quarterly updates to the community. Check out the latest reports below:
Report to the Community
