CREDIT: DEAGREEZ
The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario (WSIB), introduced Compass, a new program to help students out when they are dealing with workplace standards while also balancing school.

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario(WSIB), has launched its new campaign to provide students throughout the province with reliable and easily accessible resources to make the right decision on finding a work environment that’s just as safe, as it is profitable.

WSIB urges students to consider these following questions before deciding on where to work alongside their studies:

1. How heavy is your workload?

2. What’s the commute like?

3. How much of a personal/so cial life do you want?

4. What’s the compensation like?

5. Are there any benefits or employee perks?

The most important question of all to consider is whether or not you feel safe at the place of work. In order to help students answer this question, WSIB has introduced Compass, an easy to use, online health and safety tool that allows people to find and compare the health and safety statistics of businesses across the province.

Amongst students, the common concern is likely more in relation to “why should safety be one of the top concerns for students considering the sizable fees we endure, and the limited time we have to pay them”?

Aaron Lazarus, vice president of communications at the WSIB shared his thoughts about the program.

“Safety is a concern that often gets overlooked during the job selection process, but shouldn’t. We know a lot of students tack on parttime jobs to their workload during the school year, and we wanted to make sure that safety was a top consideration when choosing where to work,” Lazarus said.

Lazarus has positives to share when speaking about the WSIB and what Compass strives to do.

“Similar to school, when it comes to safety on the job, preparation is power. Compass makes it very simple for people to find and compare the health and safety records of businesses across the province, allowing them to come prepared and ask the right questions,” Lazarus said. “We know student loans and tuition fees can be a heavy burden for students, but we also know that workplace injuries or illnesses can be life-altering or even fatal. That’s why prioritizing health and safety during the job selection process is so important.”

The interests of WSIB’s campaign lie in the goal to raise awareness amongst students about ensuring the future work environment is safe, as the benefits that both students and employers will receive in effect of reducing injuries at work due to an increased, shared awareness and practice of health and safety standards are significant. Therefore, the reduction in injury occurrences in the work-place ensure productivity, control and positivity.

As students, our priorities should remain our academics. With serious injuries occurring every day in the workplace, it is essential that students utilize the available resources such as Compass to minimise the risk of injuries that could prevent us from performing at our best in our studies, and many other parts of our lives.

Through Compass, students can find all sorts of useful and decisive information like the number and types of injuries in a workplace. It also allows you to develop an understanding of how serious those previous injuries were by looking at the recorded statistics of how many people were off work past the day of an accident and how many people are still receiving benefits a year after an accident.

If you’re ever in doubt about whether the business you’re applying to is a safe and suitable match for you, organisations such as WSIB and their Compass program provide the means to compare the records of businesses before deciding which one works best for you and be prepared with questions about the health and safety practices of your potential employer.