Occupational Health & Safety Specialist - City of Vancouver

About the Role

The City of Vancouver, consistently ranked among the world’s most liveable cities, is seeking dedicated professionals to join its team. Recognized as a top employer in BC and Canada for its green initiatives, the City is committed to exceptional public service, sustainability, equity, and an outstanding quality of life for all residents. As a City of Reconciliation, we foster an innovative, inclusive, and engaging workplace where your contributions ensure equitable access to services and uphold ethical governance.

As an Occupational Health and Safety Specialist, you will serve as a vital safety professional, offering expert advice, support, and analysis across the organization. Your primary focus will be to assist business units in establishing robust risk controls and management processes that promote sustainable business practices. This critical role aims to reduce and eliminate fatalities, injuries (both physical and psychological), occupational illnesses, and property damage, significantly impacting the health and safety of staff.

Working in partnership with assigned business units or within a specific area of program expertise, you will ensure staff engagement in their OH&S statutory and corporate obligations. This commitment fosters a culture of continuous improvement, maintaining high levels of compliance throughout the organization. You will lead the implementation and coordination of safety measures, review existing practices, and actively promote initiatives that enhance the overall safety culture.

Additionally, this position plays a key role in managing construction and contractor safety. You will ensure that all work performed by internal teams and external contractors adheres to regulatory requirements and industry best practices. This includes leading the development, implementation, and coordination of contractor safety programs, assessing compliance with safety standards, and implementing proactive measures to mitigate risks in construction and contracted work environments.

What You'll Do

Your responsibilities will encompass a broad range of occupational health and safety functions, ensuring a safe and compliant workplace. Key deliverables include:

• Providing advice, direction or recommendations on Regulatory or City Program compliance and improvements to directors, managers and supervisors.
• Writing, maintaining and implementing corporate health and safety management system, policies, programs and standards to enhance continuous improvement, safety culture and compliance with legislation.
• Investigating multi-business unit safety concerns or incidents and providing reports and recommendations to managers.
• Managing and executing projects.
• Developing and delivering educational programs and materials as required.
• Conducting safety and health assessments and producing recommendations.
• Guiding and assisting with the operation of Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committees.

Specific duties and responsibilities for this role include:

• Researches, develops, implements and continuously improves health and safety programs/systems/approaches in alignment with regulatory standards and industry best practices.
• Conducts/facilitates comprehensive risk assessments to identify hazards, evaluate potential risks, and recommend appropriate preventative or corrective measures applying the hierarchy of controls.
• Conducts/facilitates safety audits and inspections of facilities, equipment, and processes to ensure compliance with safety standards and identify areas for improvement.
• Develops and implements audit and inspection protocols.
• Examines plans for buildings and equipment and make health and safety related recommendations.
• Prepares reports.
• Leads, oversees and/or participates in complex or serious incident investigations and monitor to ensure investigation processes are sound and corrective actions are completed.
• Monitors environmental and occupational hygiene quality factors such as air/noise/heat/chemical and environmental exposure and interpret or author reports with recommendations for corrective actions.
• Implements and monitors compliance with new or existing corporate or departmental safety and health programs.
• In partnership with Operations, leads OH&S regulatory and corporate program compliance.
• Collaborates with cross-functional teams to integrate health and safety considerations into project planning, design, and execution.
• Provides expert guidance and support to management and staff on health and safety matters, including training, consultation, and resource allocation.
• Facilitates the administration of City programs such as confined spaces, WHMIS, first aid and incident investigations.
• Monitors and evaluate the effectiveness of health and safety initiatives through data analysis, performance metrics, and feedback mechanisms.
• Assists in the procurement of and manage, when required, occupational safety or hygiene contractors/consultants.
• Monitors and corrects performance, relating to OH&S, of management, supervisors and unionized staff liaising with the managers. This may include participation in progressive discipline.
• When deemed necessary, halts all work being performed until a safety issue is resolved.
• Manages any Refusals of Unsafe Work per the BC OH&S Regulation and corporate procedures.
• Assesses needs and provide safety related training, liaising with Operations.
• Assesses departmental safety budgets and makes recommendations on resource allocation and spend.
• Develops and recommends action plans relating to findings and corrective actions in inspections, audits, safety committee meetings, management meetings and investigations.
• Guides departments in coordinating and leading orientations for new or transferred staff and/or contractors and consultants, as needed, which meet City standards.
• Work with operations to identify the need for new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Facilitates SOP creation and reviews for compliance and effectiveness.
• Leads or supports emergency scene management for serious work-related incidents.
• Attends Safety Committee meetings as a health and safety subject matter expert working closely with representatives to ensure meetings occur, are documented as required and meet objectives.
• Identifies, assesses, and addresses OH&S issues as they are raised with management team, staff and safety committees.
• Disseminates OH&S information to management, supervisors and staff and staff: develop corporate Safety Talk materials as needed.
• Assesses needs and coordinates delivery of health programs such as hearing testing and vaccinations.
• Monitors collection of information and entry of safety investigations.
• Liaises with WSBC staff on inspections, incident investigations and consultation.
• Keeps Supervisor or Manager apprised of emerging issues and critical incidents.
• Other duties/responsibilities as assigned.

Who We're Looking For

We are seeking a highly qualified and experienced professional with a strong background in occupational health and safety. The ideal candidate will possess a blend of formal education, practical experience, and a comprehensive skill set to excel in this advisory role.

• A University degree in Occupational Health and Safety or Occupational Hygiene plus five or more years of experience leading safety programs or an operations team in Occupational Health and Safety, or an equivalent combination of education, such as a diploma or certificate, training, and experience.
• Experience working in the public sector operations or a unionized environment.
• Possession of or working towards a professional certification in Occupational Health and Safety or Occupational Hygiene such as CRSP, CRST, ROH or ROHT. Equivalent certifications shall be considered.

Key knowledge, skills, and abilities required for this role include:

• Considerable regulatory knowledge and demonstrated practical application of occupational health and safety policies, programs and processes in a unionized operations environment.
• Ability to stay current with emerging trends, technologies, regulatory changes and industry standards in the field of occupational health and safety, and proactively adapt strategies accordingly.
• Demonstrated abilities of coaching, mentoring and performance management practices.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills including technical writing, facilitating meetings, giving presentations and the ability to influence and promote teamwork and build relationships with a broad range of stakeholders.
• Strong management and facilitation skills to plan and manage the health and safety programs and manage safety investigations.
• Strong computer skills in Microsoft Office applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Safety Data Management Systems and in SAP is considered an asset.
• Ability to manage change and assist people with adapting to change at all levels of the Organization.
• Ability to compile, draft and maintain correspondence, spreadsheets, reports, presentations and minutes.
• Ability to work well under pressure, handle multiple tasks and changing priorities with tight time frames.
• Ability to work collaboratively within a team environment.
• An aptitude to provide an outstanding experience for clients.
• Proven decision making and problem solving skills.
• Ability to perform functions of the position with minimal supervision.
• Strong multi-tasking, time-management, negotiation and communication (verbal and written) skills.
• Strong diplomacy skills with an ability to be flexible and also give and take direction well.
• Excellent documentation and time management skills.
• Strong computer literacy skills.
• Local area travel is a requirement.
• May be assigned to and /or rotated through various City operations and locations.
• May be required to work outside of regular business hours.
• Valid driver’s license (recognized in BC).