For WorkSafeNB, compassion begins at home

Michel Cyr spends a lot of time talking to people on the worst days of their lives. As the manager of investigations for WorkSafeNB, he leads a team that conducts critical investigations of workplace accidents in New Brunswick: fatalities, life-altering injuries and catastrophic events such as bridge and building collapses.

“There isn’t a playbook telling you how to deal with these events,” says Cyr. “Sometimes the accident witness was a family member — a brother, a parent, a son or daughter who worked alongside the victim. It can be really hard.”

A long background in law enforcement — as a police officer, a border services officer and an instructor in techniques including firearms and use of force — had prepared Cyr when he joined WorkSafeNB in 2015. But when these troubling events happen, it’s what his colleagues do next that really makes a difference.

“When there’s a fatality or a traumatic case, it seems like everybody hits pause,” he says. “Everybody steps up and is willing to help in any capacity that’s needed. We’re surrounded by good people with good intentions.”

Laragh Dooley is WorkSafeNB’s vice president of people and culture. She says providing support to workers comes naturally for an organization where compassion is a core competency. “We have an advantage because we have that innate purpose,” she says. “Because meaningful work exists within the core services that we provide, our entire organization can rally around that purpose — supporting New Brunswickers during very challenging times.”

WorkSafeNB provides programs for all employees, including peer support groups, mental health benefits and psychological health and safety benefits, along with training in subjects such as crucial conversations, psychological safety and resiliency. But it’s a culture of trust built with intention and a people-first perspective that Dooley says is WorkSafeNB’s most powerful asset.

“We provide a ton of autonomy for our employees,” she says. “We encourage them to come up with solutions for the challenges that we’re facing, which has led to a lot of innovative ideas.”

That autonomy extends to policies like flexible work options and benefits, allowing employees to make choices that best serve their families. The organization has also invested in a five-pillar leadership development program to prepare employees for leadership roles. “We believe leaders have an important part to play in the culture of their team and how people feel about coming to work every day,” says Dooley.

For Cyr and his team, finding out what happened at an accident site is vital, to ensure it never happens on a work site again. But that complex job is just part of the process. The team also spends a lot of time following up with the families and workplace colleagues of victims.

“When we meet with a family, we first ask them what they need,” says Cyr. “We give them information on how to proceed with a claim and we help them through the process by collaborating between departments. We offer grief counselling to all family members. At the end of the investigation, we’re one of the only jurisdictions that sits down with the family and lets them review our investigation. We are completely transparent and honest.

“I’ve worked in many different organizations. Here we genuinely feel like senior management cares, from our president down. You feel that everyone is important in this organization, and that sets the standard for us when we go out and deal with the public. It makes us feel that everyone we deal with is important too,” he says.

This article appeared in the magazine announcing the winners of this year's Atlantic’s Top Employers competition, published March 25, 2025 in The Globe and Mail. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.