Decision makers are often unaware of the enterprise wide effects of their decisions and do not always have a holistic view of the business given their primary focus on business-unit-level objectives. To improve decision making, the head of the Corporate Risk Management Services Division (CRMS) at the WSIB launched an enterprise risk analytics and decisions support (ERADS) business unit to assist senior management and business leaders with key decisions.

1. Risk-Informed
Strategic Decision
Making (WSIB)
Company Name: Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)
Industry: Government
Location: Ontario, Canada
Revenue: CDN$7.7 billion (US$6 billion)
Employees: 4,000
Overview
Decision makers are often unaware of the enterprise wide effects of their decisions
and do not always have a holistic view of the business given their primary focus on
business-unit-level objectives. To improve decision making, the head of the Corporate
Risk Management Services Division (CRMS) at the WSIB launched an enterprise risk
analytics and decisions support (ERADS) business unit to assist senior management
and business leaders with key decisions. The team identifies what parts of the
organization could be affected by a decision, conducts targeted risk assessments and
uses its holistic perspective to make unbiased recommendations as to the best course
of action.
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2. Solution Highlights
■ Decision support team: Within the CRMS function, the WSIB brought together
a small team of risk-oriented researchers and critical thinkers whose mandate is
to provide decision options’ risk profiles to the organization’s ultimate decision
makers.
■ Identification of strategically important decisions: CRMS and senior leaders set
standards for what constitutes a decision of sufficient importance to warrant
ERADS involvement.
■ Targeted risk analysis: ERADS conducts risk assessments for relevant business
units. It documents its findings, recommendations and mitigation activities for
options involving risks and provides a recommended course of action.
Challenge
Evidence shows that poor strategic decision making costs companies up to half their
potential growth rate. Heads of ERM often witness boards, senior leaders and business
unit leaders making decisions that affect multiple areas of the organization without
a holistic view of the risks involved. Even decisions that appear to pertain to a single
business unit frequently affect other areas of the business, but decision makers often
overlook those spillover risks.
This is a particularly vexing problem for ERM because it often doesn’t have a seat at
the table, but it can shed light on the risk implications of strategic decisions.
Business Context
The head of CRMS at the WSIB identified a series of major decisions from the
board or the president and CEO of the organization in which leaders would have
benefitted from an enterprise risk lens or where all the relevant risk information had
not been considered. The head of CRMS, seeking to make the function more proactive
and to add value beyond ERM’s traditional mitigation role, realized that risk staff
could provide an unbiased, enterprise wide view of the options involved in important
decisions.
© 2018 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
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3. Process Map
Figure 1: WSIB Decision Support Process
Chart showing the ERADS team’s process for screening decisions, conducting assessments and
reporting findings.
Solutions
Decision Support Team
Bring together critical thinkers who can draw out the components of decision options
that make up the “big picture.”
The head of CRMS at the WSIB created the ERADS team to help improve decision
making throughout the enterprise. Following is the ERADS team’s official mandate:
■ "To foster the development of a risk-intelligent organization and embed a sound
culture of risk management across the WSIB."
■ "To provide risk analytics support and risk-based enterprise analysis in support of
decision makers at all levels across the WSIB."
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4. ■ “To support and operationalize the WSIB’s decision making and risk management
objectives consistent with the enterprise governance framework and the corporate
risk management policy.”
The team comprises a director, a manager of decision support, a manager of data
analytics and several staff members who report to each manager. These individuals
come from relatively diverse professional backgrounds in risk, policy and economics.
Critical thinking is a key trait for decision support staff.
At the WSIB, it is important that ERADS is a standalone team; this structure insulates
the broader ERM practice from potential stigma following decision recommendations
that differ from leaders’ initial preferences. Having ERADS function as a distinct team
allows the rest of ERM to work with project teams as partners, engaging in a dialogue
about risks to particular programs or initiatives without being viewed as “naysayers.”
Implementation Advice
At the WSIB, CRMS has the capacity and a unique opportunity to staff a separate
ERADS team, allowing the rest of ERM to focus on more routine risk management
activities. For organizations where ERM does not possess this staffing capacity,
however, a designated individual or individuals within the broader ERM function can
still successfully implement the task force approach by designating individuals on
their team to identify, assess the risks of and make recommendations on strategically
important decisions.
Identification of Strategically Important Decisions
Recognize strategically critical decisions for which the team needs more background
information on risk implications.
The WSIB has categorized decision types so it can prioritize those of significant
magnitude for the organization as a whole for ERADS input. If a decision meets any
of the following criteria, ERADS steps in to support decision makers:
■ The decision is the purview of the board of directors.
■ The decision is the purview of the president or CEO.
■ The decision might result in transgressing approved risk appetite and tolerance
levels.
■ The decision affects multiple business units.
■ The decision is deemed to otherwise involve “significant risks.”
© 2018 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
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5. Targeted Risk Assessment
Identify business units the decision could affect, collecting and analyzing information
on the potential risks to each unit.
Based on existing risk appetite statements, tolerances and metrics, ERADS identifies
business units that possible decision outcomes could meaningfully affect.
In collecting and analyzing data, ERADS deploys a “task force mindset.” In other
words, the team targets specific decision outcomes and assesses the risks of each
across the enterprise, culminating in an evidence-backed recommendation of which
option to choose. The group conducts workshops, holds conversations with risk
owners and assembles other data (such as external benchmarks for emerging risks).
ERADS:
■ Validates the problem
■ Creates a logic model
■ Researches evidence on risks (One method is the use of risk assessments that
follow a traditional ERM model and are led by ERM staff who are familiar to the
participants.)
■ Evaluates alternatives
■ Recommends a specific option (see Figure 2)
Figure 2: ERADS Decision Analysis Process
Team process steps with external inputs.
© 2018 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
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6. Actionable Insight to Guide Decisions
Provide key information on identified risks to support leaders in making risk-informed
strategic decisions.
The WSIB’s ERADS group provides an explicit recommendation on what approach to
pursue. This recommendation is not always to accept the lowest-risk option. ERADS
considers a range of factors and endorses the option that evidence suggests will be
in the overall best interest of the organization. The team develops two products to
report its findings:
■ The first product is a longer document (15 to 20 pages) that fully captures the
team’s data, analysis and recommendations. This forms the basis ERADS’ position
during follow-up conversations with leaders and provides a record of the evidence
for ERADS’ recommendation. ERADS does not usually present this document to
the board or other final decision makers unless specifically requested.
■ The second product is a much shorter report (approximately 2 pages) that conveys
key findings and a recommended course of action to decision makers in an easily
digestible format (see Figure 2). The intended audience is the board or other
final decision makers, and this document is the primary output of the ERADS
team’s work for each decision process it supports. Along with assigning a low-,
medium- or high-risk rating for each option, ERADS provides mitigation steps for
risks associated with each option.
© 2018 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
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7. Figure 3: Decision Support Document
Summary findings and risk matrix illustrative of the WSIB’s decision support document.
Results
At the WSIB, the benefits of this approach are already clear after one year:
■ Within the organization, decision makers now expect that any major decision will
require this kind of targeted risk assessment.
■ The WSIB’s leadership now initiates engagement with ERADS, rather than ERADS
having to identify decisions and get permission to be involved.
■ While not every decision goes the way ERADS recommends, it is getting involved
in more strategic decision events.
■ Having a distinct ERADS team has insulated the broader ERM practice from the
negative perception of ERM as the organization’s naysayer, making project teams
more receptive to ERM input.
Recommended by the Authors
■ Enterprise Risk Assessment Tool
© 2018 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
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8. A guided diagnostic exercise for aggregating feedback from throughout the
company to identify key corporate risks and different perceptions across
segments.
■ Ignition Guide to Conducting a Risk Assessment
A step-by-step guide to creating a comprehensive view of the enterprise
risk profile, assessing and prioritizing the top enterprise risks, and identifying
improvement opportunities for your existing risk assessment process.
■ Strategic Decision Checklist
A checklist to help heads of ERM assess the risk-resilience of strategic decisions
in their organization.
About This Research
We developed this case study to describe the WSIB’s ERADS approach to providing
risk information to inform leaders’ perspective on strategic decisions. It is based on
extensive interviews with the organization’s head of CRMS as well as reviews of internal
documentation provided by the company.
© 2018 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.
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