When Everything Costs a Fortune, Indexing Matters
If the price boards at the gas station were being honest right now, regular would cost an arm, mid-grade a leg, premium a second mortgage and diesel your first-born. I’d laugh harder if diesel weren’t sitting around $2.30 a litre in Alberta and closer to $2.70 across the country. A year ago it was about […]
The Rise of the AI Bureaucrat
What artificial intelligence could mean for Alberta WCB and the workers waiting for answers. The arithmetic Start with the timelines, because they explain much of what follows. In the contested WCB files I handle in Alberta, a worker can wait four to six months just to have a review assigned to a resolution specialist. Getting […]
It’s Cherry Season. WCB Picks Too.
Okanagan cherries are in season, and if you’ve been to a market in the last few weeks you’ve watched people do what people always do. They turn the box, dig past the pale ones, pull out the dark heavy ones and leave the rest behind. Nobody thinks twice about it, because that’s simply how you […]
What Does a WCB Advocate Cost? Price, Value, and the WCB Advisor Office
Who actually represents people at the Appeals Commission Figures presented at the Appeals Commission’s annual general meeting put the breakdown roughly like this: the WCB Advisor Office carries about 55 percent of appeals, private representatives about 33 percent, and the remainder — roughly one in eight — are workers and employers representing themselves. That first […]
The Best Time to Manage a WCB Claim Is Before the Injury Happens
It’s common for employers to think a WCB claim begins the day someone gets hurt. In reality, many of the factors that determine how that claim unfolds were established weeks, months, or even years earlier through the systems, expectations, and workplace culture built long before the injury happened. One of the biggest misconceptions I see […]
WCB’s Dirty Little Secret: A Tinder Strategy for Injured Workers
WCB’s Dirty Little Secret: A Tinder Strategy for Injured Workers You’ve seen the dating profiles. Six-foot-two, chiselled jawline, adventurous but sensitive, loves hiking and fine dining. Then you show up at the restaurant and spend the evening reconsidering every life choice that led you to this table. It’s called catfishing. WCB calls it vocational rehabilitation. […]
2 + 2 = 4. WCB Disagrees.
What Should Be Obvious There is a concept in law — and in basic human reasoning — that some conclusions should not require a fight. When the facts are clear, when the circumstances are unambiguous, when any fair-minded person looking at the situation would arrive at the same place without much effort, we sometimes describe […]
Phantom Costs: Why Disability Management Is Profit Management By Another Name
How WCB costs, absenteeism, and workplace injury quietly erode your bottom line — and what to do about it This article was originally published in OHS Canada. An expanded version appears below. If you’re an Alberta employer who isn’t actively managing your WCB file, your disability management program, your modified duties, and your attendance […]
When a Workplace Injury Breaks More Than a Bone
Simple disability management practices can preserve trust, loyalty, and relationships. Disability management involves a great deal of psychology. I’ll date myself here, but I grew up reading about Jack Welch and General Motors, absorbing his philosophy that winning cultures are built on positivity, on genuine teamwork, on people who feel valued enough to bring their […]
We Have to Play the Game
Why Claims Are About More Than Just Knowing the Rules Somewhere in the first conversation I have with a new client, usually after I’ve heard the basic shape of what happened to them, I’ll say something that on the wrong day, in the wrong ear, could land very badly. I’ll say: we have to play […]