Every successful recovery starts with access to the right care at the right time. Our priority is to make that happen by supporting injured workers with quality care and collaborating with our partners to achieve safe, sustainable return-to-work outcomes.
We strengthened our provider networks this year. A new agreement with the Alberta Medical Association protects access to essential primary and specialist health services, offering stability and consistency for clients across the province. We also expanded care options with nurse practitioners, who will serve as an additional avenue for assessment and treatment, reflecting their growing role and evolving scope of practice in Alberta’s health system. These enhancements help ensure injured workers can access the right care when they need it and provide our staff with accurate and timely clinical reporting to support their decision-making.
Sharing reliable, up-to-date information between WCB and our trusted rehabilitation partners is essential for supporting safe and successful return-to-work outcomes. To support injured workers as they enter a return-to-work program, we partnered with Millard Health, Lifemark and CBI Health to deliver CareHub. This new online reporting platform offers a smarter, faster way for claim owners to collaborate with our service providers. CareHub reduces administrative tasks and eliminates cumbersome processes for information-sharing between our teams and these service providers. With less time spent on paperwork and processes, our collaborative care teams can focus on helping workers get back to work and life.
As mental health challenges become more widely recognized, psychological injury claims are increasing. Unlike physical injuries, psychological injuries can involve different complexities, calling for unique and evolving approaches to support return to work. For that reason, we work closely with employers, service providers and our community partners to expand education and improve our tools and resources.
When employers and workers share a clear understanding of the psychological demands of a specific job, they can better align employee capabilities with job demands and improve the likelihood of successful return to work. Building on successes from the previous year, we expanded the use of our cognitive psychosocial job demands analysis tool to include secondary psychological injury claims. These are injuries that develop from a physical injury and can become a significant barrier to overall recovery.
Our teams adopted an engagement strategy focused on educating employers about the value of the cognitive psychosocial job demands analysis and how to complete it. By strengthening collaboration with employers and helping them gain an understanding of the psychological demands of a worker’s position, we achieved 15.4% utilization of the cognitive psychosocial job demands analysis tool on claims with a secondary psychological injury. Steady adoption of this tool and strong employer engagement enabled us to exceed our 2025 target of a 3% improvement. By year end, 27% more workers with an accepted secondary psychological injury returned to work.
Psychological injuries can present significant challenges for achieving an effective, sustainable return to work. By expanding education and resources, we are helping workers, employers and care providers to better understand these injuries and the importance of work in the recovery process. To support our education efforts and deliver improved support, we launched an innovative partnership with Wounded Warriors Canada (WWC). WWC is a national mental health service provider with expertise in trauma recovery and resilience training for veterans, first responders and health care workers.
Leveraging WWC’s expertise, we hosted education events for 573 psychologists, occupational therapists, WCB staff and employers. The events, led by WWC’s national clinical director, Dr. Tim Black, focused on best practices in trauma-informed therapy. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with over 99% of surveyed participants reporting a clear understanding of the critical role of work in the recovery process.
We put clients at the centre of their recovery and return to work. By offering innovative tools and responsive support, we make it easier for workers and employers to connect with the information and assistance they need, when they need it. Our commitment is clear: to ensure clients are informed, empowered and supported so they can achieve positive and meaningful outcomes.
To improve access to support for injured workers and employers, we enhanced our digital services and strengthened support in the Claims Contact Centre. Client focus groups provided insight into how workers and employers use our online services, helping us identify specific opportunities to improve navigation, clarify information and strengthen self-service tools.
Based on this feedback, we added four new features and improved 10 existing features across our mobile apps and online services, making it easier for people to find what they need and move through our processes with confidence. We also introduced virtual coach technology in the Claims Contact Centre to support our staff in accessing information more quickly so they can provide clear and timely responses to inquiries from workers and employers.
We want to help workers succeed in a changing employment landscape. Today’s labour market demands flexibility, new skills and creative solutions for those who cannot return to their pre-accident jobs. Through personalized care planning, targeted supports for older workers and partnerships with employers, we are making every effort to ensure workers have the tools and opportunities to achieve meaningful, sustainable employment.
Workers aged 50 and older often face longer recoveries and additional barriers when reintegrating into the workforce after a workplace injury. Without the right support, they can experience prolonged absence from work, financial strain, health setbacks and reduced retirement security. Recognizing these risks, we focused on tailored strategies that reflect the experience, skills and needs of mature workers. As a result, 88% of workers aged 50 and older secured either a job or a viable job lead, exceeding our target of 85%.
Over the past two years, we have consistently exceeded this goal, demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach. The strategies that have been successful with this demographic are proving equally effective with other age groups, resulting in meaningful progress for injured workers, employers and the workers’ compensation system.
Economic shifts and an evolving labour market add complexity to return-to-work planning. Factors such as automation, gig work and an aging workforce require more flexible and adaptable approaches. To identify new approaches for successful return-to-work outcomes, we conducted an interjurisdictional scan and global research of best practices in re-employment services, policy and practice. We also hosted an interjurisdictional engagement session that included workers’ compensation boards from across Canada and service providers to exchange knowledge, identify barriers and collaborate on strategies to improve vocational outcomes for injured workers.
This work confirmed that challenges are shared across jurisdictions and industries, reinforcing the importance of early intervention and adaptability. The insights we gained identified a foundational need to review our economic loss payment policy to ensure it both maximizes injured workers’ earning potential and reflects the realities of modern employment and the diverse ways people earn a living today.
We are shaping the future of our service delivery and enhancing organizational productivity through technology and innovation. By modernizing critical systems, leveraging artificial intelligence and analytics capabilities and embracing emerging tools, we are building a foundation for smarter, faster and more connected experiences. Our vision is to lead the way in creating a digital environment that empowers staff and clients alike.
We continued to modernize the technology foundations that support our clients and staff. This year, we began charting the path forward to update the systems that manage employer accounts and claims—work that will ultimately reshape our processes and deliver a better experience for our clients. Internally, we are building a modern digital environment that is easier to use, more secure and better positioned for the future. Our transition to a modern collaboration platform is enabling teams to work together more effectively and access information more readily. We also introduced a rapid development platform for digital tools and applications, allowing us to move faster, simplify our systems and replace older technology with more reliable solutions.
Advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced analytics continue to create new opportunities to improve the service journey for our clients. In recent years, we have accelerated our capabilities in these areas, focusing on ways to help staff easily access and interpret the data and insights they need to support their decision-making. Establishing clear governance for the responsible and ethical use of these advanced technologies has been a key priority. We continue to refine our data governance, information management practices and technology platforms to ensure these technologies are applied appropriately and effectively across the organization. By deepening our expertise and strengthening the foundations for how we use these technologies, we can better support our staff in making informed decisions, which in turn makes for a better client experience.
Empowered people and an engaged workforce create exceptional client experiences. This year, we strengthened leadership and succession programs, refreshed professional development offerings and advanced initiatives that promote wellness and inclusion. By investing in the growth and resilience of our staff, we ensure they deliver the expertise and care our clients rely on.
Effective leadership and strong succession planning help us to support staff and program development, in turn enabling our people to deliver high-quality support for our clients. We refreshed core professional enrichment programs at various stages of the employee lifecycle, including a new leadership foundations program designed to drive people-first leadership behaviours across the organization. We also introduced a more development-focused and transparent approach to succession planning for director and manager roles, painting a clearer picture of leadership talent pools to proactively identify and develop the leaders we need now and in the future.
Our front-line staff are dedicated to helping injured workers and employers as they navigate life after a workplace injury. We recognize the emotional demands of supporting clients through difficult times and aim to bolster staff resilience in support of this important work. In addition to ongoing efforts that prioritize wellness and provide practical self-care tools, we delivered a training program designed to help front-line staff better identify and respond to inappropriate behaviour from clients, contractors or other external parties. As a result, 93% of staff who completed the training reported they now have the knowledge needed to deal with challenging situations.
In our efforts to help staff feel like they belong, we partnered with an external consultant to develop an Indigenous workforce strategy that emphasizes education, inclusion and the advancement of Truth and Reconciliation. The strategy includes an action plan focused on long-term goals for increasing Indigenous cultural awareness for staff. These goals will be supported through learning and development, community connections and inclusive, culturally appropriate policies.
The financial sustainability of the workers’ compensation system is central to our mandate and ensures we have the resources needed to fund current and future costs of workplace injuries and illnesses. This year, we advanced predictive modelling to better manage claim cost risks and funding volatility. By strengthening these foundations, we safeguard long-term stability and reliability for those we serve.
Accurate forecasting is essential to keeping the workers’ compensation system financially sustainable. This year, we improved how we analyze claims by combining actuarial expertise with front-line service teams and enhanced technology, giving us a clearer view of emerging trends. Our analysis confirmed that wage loss claims remain elevated and that claims related to psychological injuries are increasing, with these claims more likely to lead to long-term income replacement payments than physical injury claims. While monitoring continues into 2026, these insights are guiding timely and effective interventions to mitigate claim cost risks.
Alberta’s workers’ compensation system is strong and sustainable. At the same time, dynamic market conditions and the changing nature of claims and work continue to pose challenges to funding-level stability. We undertook a national review of best practices established by other workers’ compensation boards to identify funding policy enhancements that could be adapted for Alberta and conducted an extensive asset-liability analysis. Recommendations resulting from this work are being published for external consultation in 2026.