Ontario Leading Indicators Project (OLIP)

Organizational Benchmarking Report:

[Organizations Name]

Your Benchmarking Report

In 2011 or 2012, your organization took part in the Ontario Leading Indicators Project (OLIP), formerly known
as the 5,000 Firms Study. The study was conducted by the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) in partnership
with Ontarios health and safety associations (HSAs). As a project participant, we promised to provide you
with a benchmarking report comparing your organizations results to others in Ontario. This is your report.
Where do the results come from?
The results come from the Ontario Leading Indicators Project, which was launched by IWH to identify the
best organizational and management measures for use as leading indicators in occupational health and
safety. Leading indicators allow workplaces and system partners to gauge health and safety performance
before injuries and illnesses occur.
Your organization is one of over 1,700 Ontario organizations that participated in OLIP during the 2011-2012
period. Organizations from seven sectors pulp and paper, education, municipal, health care, agriculture,
manufacturing and service were recruited by their respective health and safety association to participate.
Participating HSAs included Workplace Safety & Prevention Services (WSPS), Workplace Safety North
(WSN), and Public Services Health & Safety Association (PSHSA).
We benchmarked your organizations survey scores on a range of organizational and management health &
safety measures to comparable organizations in Ontario. More detailed information on the measures and a
glossary of terms is found in the appendix.
Interpreting your results
We use a colour-coded scheme to help you better understand your results. That is, for each measure
included in this report, your organizations score is coded green, yellow or red to indicate the following.
Green: You are performing well in this area. Keep doing what you are doing and strive for excellence.
Yellow: Your work in this area may need improvement. Consider if this should be a focus area for your
organization. Review your practices and policies, and consult your HSAs website resources for information
about how to improve. If you need further guidance, consider contacting your HSA.
Red: Your work in this area likely needs attention and improvement. Consider if this should be a focus area
for your organization. Review your practices and policies, and consult the information available on your
HSAs website to help point you in the right direction. Contact your HSA for assistance.
Contact your local HSA consultant or Customer Care/Client Services for more information at:
[HSA contact information.]
What is on the horizon?
OLIP is expanding, with the help of the Infrastructure Health & Safety Association (IHSA), to include
organizations from the construction, transportation and electrical & utilities sectors. As well, the OLIP survey
will continue to be open to all interested organizations in Ontario until January 2014. Please encourage your
colleagues at other organizations to visit the IWH website to complete the survey.
For more detailed information on OLIP, and to access the survey, visit: www.iwh.on.ca/olip

HSA LOGO
OLIP example benchmarking report - Page 1 of 5

OLIP Organizational Benchmarking Report for:

[Organizations Name]
The results below show your organizations scores for each of the OLIP survey measures, based on your
answers. Your data was benchmarked against: (1) other participating organizations in your sector [for
sectors with enough participating organizations] and (2) all participating organizations in the study.
The table presents an average score for each measure. The colour coding (green, yellow or red) indicates
your rating as a per cent of the total possible score. Grey cells without a score indicate that the items in the
survey were not completed or did not apply to your organization. The same data is shown in a bar chart in
Figure 1 on the next page. For more information on these measures and how to interpret them, please refer
to the glossary and appendix.

Table 1. Your organizations average scores compared to other participating organizations.

The score range is 0 (lowest) to 4 (highest) for all measures, except the Safety Climate measure, which is
scored out of 3; and the JHSC Index for organizations with 20+ employees, which is scored out of 10.
Your
organizations
score

Your sector
[if numbers
permit]

All
participating
organizations

Organizational Policies and Practices (OPP)

Health & safety practices
Health & safety leadership
Ergonomics
Disability management/prevention
Employee engagement

2.9
3.9
1.9
3.9
2.8

3.6
4.1
3.2
3.0
3.2

3.8
3.9
2.2
3.0
3.5

Organizational Performance Metric (OPM)

3.9

3.0

3.0

Occupational Health & Safety Management System (OHSMS)

OHS policy
2.8
Worker participation
3.9
OHS training
1.5
Communication
2.9
Preventive & protective actions
3.8
Emergency response
3.7
Monitoring & review
3.2
Benchmarking
2.9
Procurement & contracting
2.9

3.0
3.6
3.0
3.6
3.5
3.8
3.4
4.0
3.6

3.0
3.2
2.9
3.6
3.5
3.9
3.4
3.7
2.9

Safety Climate (scored out of 3)

2.0

2.0

2.6

10

4.0
7.2

3.6
6.8

JHSC Index (5-19 employees)

JHSC Index (20+ employees) (scored out of 10)

OLIP example benchmarking report - Page 2 of 5

Figure 1. Your organizations average scores compared to other participating organizations.

Score range is 0 (lowest) to 4 (highest) except the Safety Climate measure, which is scored out of 3.
JHSC Index scores are not shown.
Health & safety practices
Health & safety leadership
Ergonomics
Disability mgmt/prevention
Employee engagement
OPM
OHS policy

Your organization

Worker participation
OHS training

Sector comparison
[or all participating organizations]

Communication
Preventive & protective actions
Emergency response
Monitoring & review
Benchmarking
Procurement & contracting
Safety Climate (scored out of 3)
0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

Contact your local HSA consultant or Customer Care/Client Services for more information at:
[HSA contact information].
HSA LOGO
OLIP example benchmarking report - Page 3 of 5

Appendix
1. How did IWH determine our scores for each measure?
This report provides your organizations results for 17 different measures that were included in the OLIP
survey. Each measure in the survey included several items, and you were asked to assess how well your
organization was doing with respect to each of these items. Your score for each measure is an average
of your scores for all the items in that measure. For example, the safety training measure comprises five
statements and for each you were asked to assess your organizations performance by indicating how
much you agree with each statement, from strongly disagree (score of 0) to strongly agree (score of 4). If
your scores for the five statements are 3, 4, 2, 4 and 3, respectively, the organizations safety training
score will be 3 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 3 = 16 / 5 = 3.2.
2. Interpreting your scores
a. Colour coding
Your organizations average score on each measure was converted to a percentage of the total possible
score on that measure. A colour-coding system is used to indicate the percentage range in which each of
your average scores falls.
- Green indicates a score of 75 per cent or greater. This suggests you are performing well in this
area, and that you should keep doing what you are doing while striving for excellence.
- Yellow indicates a score of 50 to under 75 per cent. This indicates that your work in this area
may need improvement. Consider whether this should be a focus area for your organization. If so,
you should review your practices and policies and consult your HSA website for information about
how to improve. If you need further guidance, you should consider contacting your HSA (see the
contact information on the previous page).
- Red indicates a score of under 50 per cent. This suggests that your work in this area likely needs
attention and improvement. Consider whether this should be a focus area for your organization. If so,
you should review your practices and policies, consult information available on your HSAs website,
and contact your HSA (using the information provided on the previous page). Please note that you
may have selected 0 for some items because they did not apply to you. This would have resulted in a
lower score. To see the survey items visit the OLIP webpage at the address listed below.
- You may not have received a score for some measures. This is due to the fact that some measures
did not apply to your organization or the items in the survey were not completed.
- You should consider both the colour coding and your scores benchmarked against others
participating in the study to get a more complete picture of your performance.
b. Benchmarking with other organizations
In the table, your average scores on each measure are shown beside other organizations participating in
the study. This will help you know if your organization should improve relative to others, but you should
also consider the colour coding to get a more complete picture of your performance.
3. What is the evidence behind the measures used in the survey?
The OLIP survey was developed by researchers, with input from OHS practitioners and workplace
parties. The measures have been piloted and analyzed in other studies, and further analyzed in this
study. For more information, visit: www.iwh.on.ca/olip

OLIP example benchmarking report - Page 4 of 5

Glossary
The following definitions refer to the use of these terms in this report only.
Organizational Policies & Practices (OPP): The OPP tool represents occupational health & safety (OHS) and disability
management policies and practices critical for the prevention of injuries and the onset of disabilities in organizations.
These OPPs are most effective in high-engagement organizations and, thus, the level of engagement of the organization
with its employees needs to be measured.
Health & safety practices: Practices that an organization engages in to protect employee safety, including maintaining
safe work environments and taking corrective and proactive actions to rectify unsafe conditions (6 items).
Health & safety leadership: Upper managements commitment and participation in safety issues, which is visible in
managements involvement, commitment of organizational resources and peoples time to promote safety, and active
efforts to balance economic and OHS actions (6 items).
Ergonomics: Practices aimed at reducing ergonomic hazards through job design, redesign and procurement policies
and practices (4 items).
Disability management/prevention: Policies, procedures and practices to support early intervention post-injury and
communication and coordination of care with health-care providers for timely return to work, including education and
accommodation in and after return to work to support staying at work (7 items).
Employee engagement (people-oriented culture): The extent the organization involves employees in meaningful
decision-making, where there is trust between management and employees, and openness to share information in a
cooperative work environment (4 items).

Organizational Performance Metric (OPM): This is a brief inventory of key characteristics of an organizations OHS
performance to understand and classify an organization as a high, medium or low performer (8 items).
Occupational Health & Safety Management System (OHSMS): This measure assesses nine key elements required to
have a good occupational health & safety management system, as identified in the CSA Z1000 Standard.
OHS policy: The organization has developed OHS policies that reflect a commitment to protecting worker health &
safety and continuous improvement, and seeks to integrate the policies with other human resource (HR) activities (3
items).
Worker participation: Workers are engaged in occupational health & safety inside the organization, and the organization
incents worker participation in OHS (4 items).
OHS training: OHS training is provided to new workers, and it is ongoing and coordinated with labour (5 items).
Communication: Efforts are made to ensure OHS information is effectively communicated to workers and supervisors (3
items).
Preventive & protective actions: OHS hazard and risk assessment drive prevention plan development, and all plans are
communicated to workers (4 items).
Emergency response: The organization has an emergency preparedness plan and has practiced it to ensure all
workers are aware of their roles and responsibilities (4 items).
Monitoring & review (internal control): Accountability is built into the organization to ensure hazards and risks are
effectively controlled, prevention plans are completed and all incidents investigated (8 items).
Benchmarking: The organization seeks to understand its OHS performance compared to other similar organizations (2
items).
Procurement & contracting: OHS requirements are embedded in procurement and contracting (5 items).

Safety Climate: This measures shared employee perceptions about the safety of the work environment, including
management commitment to safety, co-worker safety behaviour, worker involvement in safety, and safety feedback (6
items).
Joint Health & Safety Committee (JHSC) Index: This short index assesses how well an organization meets the OHS
legislative requirements around JHSCs or health and safety representatives.
For more information on these measures, visit: www.iwh.on.ca/olip
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