Policy
As a stakeholder driven organization, WorkSafeNB’s Board of Directors has a responsibility to build relationships with stakeholder groups and to integrate stakeholder views and opinions into its decision-making process.
Stakeholder engagement helps the Board of Directors understand what stakeholders expect of WorkSafeNB. It is a value creating activity that contributes to the planning, evaluation, and risk management process and achieving the strategic direction of WorkSafeNB. It also helps to identify emerging issues and opportunities for improving service delivery and performance.
Principles
I. The Board of Directors oversees WorkSafeNB's stakeholder engagement initiatives.
The Board of Directors believes that to understand the views of stakeholders, all Board members must actively participate in dialogue with stakeholders, listening to their concerns and hearing their opinions firsthand.
The Board of Directors is committed to creating forums to facilitate discussions with stakeholders so that they may raise important industry-related issues with Board members for inclusion in the Board’s priorities and planning process.
Board members contribute to this process by informing stakeholders of the Board’s priorities, understanding stakeholder positions on these priorities, and communicating to the Board any other industry issues not included on the Board’s agenda that may be of importance to stakeholders.
II. The Board of Directors believes that engaging stakeholders is a key component of good governance and quality decision-making.
III. The Board of Directors is committed to transparent communication with stakeholders.
The Board of Directors is committed to regular, transparent, and open communication with stakeholders, providing them with information related to WorkSafeNB’s annual results, policy/legislative priorities, its consultation agenda, its oversight of priorities, initiatives that have been resourced for the coming year, and on-going developments in occupational health and safety, and compensation.
Transparent communication leads to informed stakeholders, which, in turn, allows them to effectively contribute to engagement activities and quality decision-making.
IV. The Board of Directors has a formal process for identifying and resourcing stakeholder engagement and consultation initiatives.
The Board of Directors identifies specific issues for stakeholder engagement and consultation during the annual strategic planning and risk assessment process. The Board of Directors:
The Board of Directors may also convene and maintain standing committees to further engage stakeholders in the decision-making process.
V. The Board of Directors must balance stakeholder opinions within the parameters of its governing legislation and the strategic direction of WorkSafeNB.
The Board of Directors must ensure that all decisions are made within the parameters of its governing legislation and are aligned with the strategic direction of WorkSafeNB.
As such, in the decision-making process, the Board of Directors analyzes all available information, including divergent stakeholder positions, and makes consensus-based decisions in the best interests of WorkSafeNB by balancing legislation, strategic direction, resource requirements, and stakeholder needs.
Stakeholder – a person, group, or organization that has direct or indirect interest in an organization because it can affect or be affected by the organization’s actions, objectives, and policies. Primary WorkSafeNB stakeholders include workers, employers, service providers, WorkSafeNB employees, and the Government of New Brunswick.
Stakeholder engagement – an organization’s efforts to understand the concerns of stakeholders and involve them in the activities and decision-making processes of the organization so that mutual interests are aligned, risks reduced, and the organization’s performance advanced.