Design and build of a web-based assessment tool for Public Services Health & Safety Association (PSHSA)
Background
Public Services Health & Safety Association (PSHSA) is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development and works with Ontario’s Public and Broader Public Sector employers and workers, providing consulting, training, and resources to reduce workplace risks and prevent occupational injuries and illnesses.
PSHSA is committed to serving its market of over 10,000 firms and 1.67 million workers across the province’s health and community care, education and culture, municipal and provincial government, and public safety sectors. For more background on PSHSA and where we’re going, see our 2021-24 Strategic Plan and latest Annual Report.
Product & digital solutions team
PSHSA has a capable Product and Digital Solutions team that delivers high quality digital solutions to external public sector clients in Ontario and occasionally other provinces. However, additional support and capabilities outside the team’s current capacity are required to design and build a web-based solution for an existing risk assessment tool.
For this project, PSHSA will work in partnership with an external vendor who will contribute planning, design and development expertise as required to deliver on PSHSA’s commitment project to the Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development (MLITSD).
The Opportunity
This RFP has been prepared to seek prospective Proponents’ knowledge, skills, experience, and expertise to work with PSHSA to deliver a technology-based solution utilizing an existing psychological risk assessment. The environment should be able to host additional tools in the future.
PSHSA’s job-based psychological risk assessment is an innovative, leading-practices tool that assesses factors unique to a job which impact a worker’s psychological response. The current paper-based tool, facilitated by skilled, specialized consultants is required when specific jobs are identified as a concern and a solution is necessary at the job-level to address the concern.
The job-based (occupational) psychological risk assessment tool helps workplaces assesses risk within three main categories: Job Demands, Job Control and Job Supports. Within each category there are several sub factors that impact worker psychological response and overall worker wellbeing. For each job factor, a risk rating is assigned using a matrix-based approach and a list of suggested possible solutions are provided to the workplace to consider actioning to decrease psychological harm to the worker.
PSHSA is seeking the services of an experienced web-developer to transition the current, paper-based, facilitated occupational psychological risk assessment tool to a user-friendly and universally accessible web-based tool. Transitioning to a free web-based tool will:
- Facilitate access for small businesses and workplaces in the north or rural communities to specialized products and services that may currently be inaccessible due to cost or geography.
- Make psychological health and safety more easily accessible and user friendly.
- Increase internal capacity for workplaces to assess risk of psychological harm and action solutions to enhance workplace wellbeing.
- Strengthen a system-based approach to psychological health and safety tools and resources.
- Enhance workplace psychological health and safety and worker wellbeing across all sectors, with specific benefit to the most affected workers (public safety personnel, healthcare and community care workers and education workers)
Expectations
The successful Proponent(s) must have all the required experience, resources, facilities, equipment and trained personnel or contractors necessary to perform the work specified in this RFP.
The selected Proponent(s) is also expected to familiarize themselves and their teams with PSHSA’s business, the sectors it represents and its funder for a sound understanding of Ontario’s health and safety system and its priorities as it relates to preventing psychological harm and supporting workplace wellbeing. It is important that our partners understand the system complexities and can work effectively with us in developing content within the context of a highly regulated provincial program.
The successful proponent will provide technology expertise to design and develop an easily accessible, user-centered, web-based risk assessment tool.
The following Use Case Scenarios should be considered for the purpose of this RFP:
Use Case 1 - Assessment of Psychological Risk
The user of the web-based tool is a:
- Workplace administrator
- Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
- Registered HCP responsible for OHS in the workplace.
- Worker
- JHSC member
- Human Resources Business Partner
- PSHSA or other approved external facilitator
The user will:
- Identify of job factors leading to psychological harm
In this use case, the user accesses the web-based tool to identify and assess job factors that may lead to psychological response and ultimately – psychological harm. The user is guided through a series of job factors within each of the following domains: Job Demands, Job Control and Job Supports. For each job factor, the user is provided with a description of the job factor and how the job factor might lead to psychological response/psychological harm.
- Rate risks of job factors leading to psychological harm
Through collaborative discussion between the worker responsible for the job, the supervisor and (where relevant) the labour representative, a risk rating is assigned to the job factor. Risk is scored based on likelihood and severity of causing psychological harm.
- Identify Solutions to decrease psychological harm.
The user is provided with a series of solutions to consider using in the workplace to decrease risk of psychological harm due resulting from the job factor present. The user may select to action a suggested solution or enter a workplace-specific solution into the tool to action.
After selecting workplace and job-specific solutions appropriate to the level of risk for each job factor, the user creates an action plan to implement the solutions in the workplace. Actioning solutions is based on level of risk and other factors such as implementation difficulty and expected impact. Actions should be able to be easily assigned to stakeholders across the workplace.
User Profile
The user creates a workplace profile with the following information:
- Sector (Healthcare, Education, Government, Public Safety etc.)
- Sub-sector
- Organization size
- Username
For each job to be assessed, the following information is required.
- Department/unit/division
- Job Title/occupation
- Job Description
User Access
The user requests access to the tool through PSHSA. PSHSA must first approve user access to the tool (no cost). Proponent to present on suggested means of user access and acceptance of terms of use.
Dashboard
The user should be able to easily access ongoing assessments for each job, including percent complete for each of Identification, Risk Rating and Solutions. The user should also be able to easily navigate the dashboard to identify the level of progression of action items. The dashboard should be exportable to an excel sheet.
Accessibility
The platform must be AODA compliant, easily accessible, and navigable online using a best of breed browsers and common desktop and mobile devices. PSHSA must be able to easily manage the tool on the back end after completion of development and implementation.
Use Case 2 – Data extraction/retrieval.
The administrator is a PSHSA staff member or other approved provincial health and safety association.
The administrator can easily access, and extract data as specified. Examples of data may include:
- Number of web-hits
- Number of uses of the tool
- Number of active assessments
The following aggregate information should be accessible and sortable by Sector, Sub-sector, occupation:
- Job factors identified as moderate or high risk.
- Risk ratings for each job factor
- Solutions selected for action, including user-generated solutions.
Use Case 3 – Practice environment.
The user is a
- Workplace administrator
- Occupational Health and Safety Specialist
- Registered HCP responsible for OHS in the workplace.
- Worker
- JHSC member
- Human Resources Business Partner
- PSHSA or approved facilitator
The user can access a practice environment/staging environment without committing to creating a formal user profile. The practice area is to be accessible during training sessions for the tool to demonstrate the features and functionality of the tool and allow the user to navigate the tool prior to creating a user profile.
The selected Proponent(s) will work with a PSHSA Subject Matter Expert (SME), Information Technology specialist (IT), Instructional Designer and the Manager, Workplace Wellbeing to ensure that the tool meets the expectations required in each of the use case scenarios.
The successful Proponent(s) is also expected to make themselves available for meetings, conference calls, creative and concept presentations.
Scope of Potential Services
Consulting
The selected Proponent should be able to advise PSHSA on technology solutions, privacy and security considerations and best practices. Refer to section 4 for submission contents.
Out Of Scope
The following services are considered out of scope for the purposes of this RFP.
- Development or re-development of content within the occupational psychological risk assessment tool
