2 CPD Points
IDSS 2025: Workers' Voice: Reimagining workers' compensation through participatory computational modelling with injured workers
Aims: To describe the conceptual and methodological approach to the Workers Voice project: A national research project aimed at identifying and rigorously testing solutions to design and administrative challenges in workers’ compensation identified by injured workers. To describe the development, testing and validation of the computational social system models used in the Workers Voice project, including a system dynamics model and an agent-based model of a ‘generic’ Australian workers’ compensation system. To describe the high priority solutions identified by injured Australian workers to scheme design and operation, including in the areas of: i) collection and use of medical evidence; ii) communication between stakeholders during a claim; and iii) the financial impacts of claiming on the worker. Background: Australia’s no-fault workers’ compensation systems offer wage replacement, medical treatment, and rehabilitation for injured or ill workers who have submitted accepted compensation claims. Historically, Australian workers have been passive recipients rather than active participants in the design and operation of workers’ compensation systems, leading to a misalignment between their experiences and preferences and system rule, processes and practices. Many research studies provide a strong evidence base that interactions with workers’ compensation systems can lead to, or exacerbate psychological distress of workers. Many workers perceive the administrative processes involved in distributing these systems to be opaque, intricate, and difficult to navigate. In turn this can both stifle recovery, slow return to work and increase costs of claim. Incorporating user-driven perspectives within the design and operation of compensation systems may serve a dual function in both i) increasing the satisfaction of workers with their claims experience and reducing the likelihood they will experience iatrogenic system related stress; and ii) improve the overall effeciency and functionality of the system. The Workers’ Voice project, funded by the Australian Research Council and led from Monash University, is a novel program of research dedicated to identifying challenges to workers recovery, and generating solutions to those challenges, driven by those with direct experience of the Australian workers’ compensation systems. The project seeks to maximise the benefits of user-driven improvements while simultaneously foreseeing potential complications of system adjustments. The project incorporates qualitative and quantitative data collection, with computational social systems modelling techniques, to develop and test solutions identified as high priority by injured workers. Methods: The initial stages of the project (2024 to mid 2025) occurred in two concurrent phases. Phase 1 involved a multi-method approach of collecting insights from injured workers and their key informants (family members, friends, supporters) via surveys, text and graphical submissions, in-depth interviews, and co-design workshops. This program of work was developed to gather detailed insights on how workers were impacted through navigating compensation systems, what specific challenges they faced in doing so, and what solutions they proposed to address these challenges. In 2024 and 2025, direct and continuous involvement from injured workers and their support networks was solicited via a quantitative survery of 553 injured workers, in-depth interviews with 35 workers and their supporters / key informants. In Phase 2, two computational models were developed to represent ‘current state’ workers’ compensation system in Australia. These include a system dynamics model and an agent based model (ABMs). ABMs enable the construction of computational representations of real social systems and phenomena. ABMs can be used to represent sophisticated and often complex systems that are too difficult to understand using traditional statistical or mathematical models. The are particularly useful for investigating complex systems that are made up of many actors, relationships, processes and levels. Hence, they are usefully applied to the area of workers compensation systems. System Dynamics (SD) Models are different to ABMs in that they do not easily differentiate between individuals (e.g., individual workers), but instead will clearly identify the stages that groups of individuals may pass through in a system (e.g., people with this type of injury take path A, people with that type of injury take path B). SD models tend to create a view of the world that is described in terms of ‘stocks’ and ‘flows’, but like volumes of water running through and between reservoirs or tanks. Results: The presentation will provide a summary of key findings from the first stage of the projec,t and next steps involved in testing solutions identified by injured workers. Over 550 Australian workers and key representatives of their support networks have so far participated in primary data collection through various means, mostly through survey submissions and in-depth interviews. Key areas of improvement (with potential solutions) identified concerned the collection and use of medical evidence, insurer communications, clarity of information, financial impacts, development of a mental health focused claim model, support pathways for system exit and return to work, and strengthening of regulation for insurers and other providers. Key actors and events within compensation systems that can generative negative or positive experiences and outcomes for workers were identifed as insurance claims managers and employers/supervisors, as well as the time waiting for initial claim adjudication. Findings from analysis of survey responses and thematic analysis of interview transcripts will be presented. Model development involved multiple iterative steps of collaboration between the modelling team and experts – in particular, Lived Experience Advisors and compensation scheme experts. The process began with the construction of a comprehensive document which would later form the basis for the SD model. The document contained a description of each stage of the workers’ compensation process including pre-claim submission, liability determination, service provision, disputes, return to work, and scheme exit. This document was reviewed and modified by subject matter experts. The ABM was built using information gathered from a series of expert interviews, qualitative interviews, and scheme-specific and publicly available data. Validation of both ABM and SD models occurred through i) incoprorating substantial existing data into models (eg, from analysis of public workers compensation statistics and prior purblished research evidence), 2) comparison of model outcomes with existing or historical scenarios, and 3) expert input. Simulated model outcomes utilising workshopped solutions will be illustrated through modelled user journeys detailing injured worker satisfaction and work capacity, and system sustainability. Conclusions: This presentation will illuminate how user-centred data can inform development of current and reimagined compensation systems in a simulated model environment. This innovative research project is ongoing, and now entering the phase of testing user-generated solutions in the validated virtual system models.
Samineh Sanatkar
18 November 2025
