OH&S Specialist - City of Vancouver, Vancouver

About the Role

The City of Vancouver, recognized as a top employer and one of Canada’s greenest, is seeking an Occupational Health and Safety Specialist to join its Workplace Safety team. This pivotal role focuses on strategy and systems, providing expert advice and support to business units to establish robust risk controls and management processes. The successful candidate will be instrumental in promoting sustainable business practices, aiming to reduce and eliminate fatalities, injuries (physical and psychological), occupational illnesses, and property damage across the organization.

Working in partnership with assigned business units or within a specific program expertise area, the Specialist ensures staff engagement in OH&S statutory and corporate obligations. This fosters a culture of continuous improvement and maintains compliance at all organizational levels. The role involves leading the implementation and coordination of safety measures, reviewing existing practices, and actively promoting a stronger safety culture.

Key deliverables for this OH&S Specialist position include:

• Providing advice, direction, or recommendations on Regulatory or City Program compliance and improvements to directors, managers, and supervisors.
• Writing, maintaining, and implementing the safety management system and its associated programs.
• Ensuring enterprise-wide integration, consistency, and continuous improvement of corporate safety programs, standards, and management system processes.
• Delivering strategic safety initiatives and projects that strengthen organizational capability and improve safety performance.
• Providing corporate tools, guidance, and resources that enable departments to effectively implement the City's Occupational Health & Safety Management System.
• Evaluating organizational safety performance and recommending evidence-based improvements to systems, programs, and governance.
• Supporting the development, integration, and optimization of OH&S technology solutions, including incident management, corrective action tracking, risk management, audit and assurance tools, and safety performance reporting systems.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

The OH&S Specialist will engage in a variety of critical tasks to uphold and enhance the City of Vancouver's occupational health and safety framework. This includes leading system integration, developing comprehensive programs, and providing expert guidance to ensure a safe working environment for all employees. Daily activities will involve:

• Leading the implementation, integration, governance, and continuous improvement of the corporate Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S) management system across diverse operational environments, ensuring alignment with regulatory requirements and industry best practices, and recognized management system frameworks such as ISO 45001.
• Establishing and maintaining system frameworks, standards, and processes to ensure consistency, scalability, and effectiveness of the OH&S management system across the organization.
• Designing, implementing, integrating, and continuously improving health and safety management systems, programs, and processes across multiple operational areas.
• Leading the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of corporate OH&S programs and frameworks, including contractor safety management, risk management, incident management, corrective action management, training and competency management, audit and assurance, and other enterprise safety initiatives.
• Developing corporate safety standards, procedures, tools, templates, and guidance materials to support consistent implementation of OH&S requirements across business units.
• Supporting the integration of OH&S management system requirements across departments by working collaboratively with operational leaders to ensure effective implementation, alignment, and sustainability of safety programs and processes.
• Providing technical expertise and recommendations on OH&S legislation, regulatory requirements, industry standards, and management system practices to support informed decision-making by Directors, Managers, Supervisors, and project teams.
• Conducting and facilitating risk assessments, management system reviews, audits, inspections, and gap analyses to evaluate system effectiveness, identify improvement opportunities, and support risk-based decision-making.
• Developing audit, assessment, and assurance methodologies, tools, and processes to evaluate the effectiveness and maturity of corporate OH&S systems and programs.
• Leading or supporting complex, high-risk, or multi-business unit incident reviews and investigations to identify systemic issues, organizational learning opportunities, and corrective actions.
• Supporting the development, implementation, and monitoring of corrective action plans arising from audits, assessments, investigations, and program reviews to improve system effectiveness.
• Monitoring and evaluating OH&S performance through data analysis, trends, key performance indicators, and reporting mechanisms to identify opportunities for improvement and support continuous improvement initiatives.
• Developing reports, dashboards, presentations, and briefing materials to communicate safety performance, risks, trends, and recommendations to stakeholders.
• Leading assigned OH&S projects and improvement initiatives, including project planning, stakeholder engagement, implementation support, and evaluation.
• Facilitating collaboration among departments, safety committees, and stakeholders to support consistent application and continual improvement of the OH&S Management System.
• Providing technical guidance and subject matter expertise to Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committees and supporting effective consultation and participation processes.
• Collaborating with operational teams to identify opportunities for new or revised safety standards, processes, and procedures while ensuring alignment with corporate requirements and legislative obligations.
• Coordinating and managing external safety consultants, contractors, or specialized resources supporting corporate OH&S initiatives, as required.
• Supporting the design, maintenance, and continuous improvement of OH&S technology-enabled processes and platforms, including incident management, corrective action tracking, risk assessment, audit management, training and competency tracking, and safety performance reporting systems.
• Maintaining current knowledge of emerging OH&S trends, technologies, regulatory changes, and industry practices to support ongoing improvement of corporate safety systems and programs.
• Performing other related duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Qualifications

Candidates for the OH&S Specialist role should possess a strong educational background and relevant experience in occupational health and safety, particularly within a public sector or unionized environment. The City of Vancouver values a commitment to continuous learning and professional development in this critical field.

• A University degree in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) with five or more years of experience leading safety programs, safety management system development, and operations teams in an OHS environment; or an equivalent combination of education, training, and experience.
• Experience working in 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.

The successful candidate will demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of OH&S principles and possess a range of interpersonal and technical skills essential for effective safety management and continuous improvement.

• Demonstrated knowledge and experience applying occupational health and safety management system principles, including frameworks such as ISO 45001, to support the development, implementation, and continuous improvement of organizational safety systems.
• 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 health and safety programs and manage safety investigations.
• Strong computer skills in Microsoft Office applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• Proficiency in Safety Data Management Systems, SAP, SharePoint, Power Automate and Power BI 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).