Principal Lead

**Provide expert leadership and authoritative operational safety advice and guidance.**:

- **Fixed, Full-Time Opportunity for two years.**:

- **STS Grade 7: $188,297 - $256,088 plus superannuation.**

The Department of Justice and Community Safety is seeking a **Principal Lead, Safety** to provide a critical role within Safety, Wellbeing and Compliance.

**About the Business Unit**

People, Safety, Culture and Communications' (PSCCs) core functions span the breadth of workplace cultural and people matters, including human resource policy and strategy; organisational culture and change; recruitment, redeployment, and retention; performance and development; pay, benefits and workforce reporting; occupational health and safety management; and employment regulations.

The Principal Lead Safety sits within Safety, Wellbeing and Compliance (SWC), a branch of the PSCC in the Department of Justice and Community Safety (the department). The SWC branch provides process, systems and services to support the department to meet its responsibilities under health and safety laws (Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, Dangerous Goods Act 1985 and Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013).

**About the Role**

The Principal Lead Safety will report to the Director of Safety, Wellbeing and Compliance and is accountable for the leading the Safety function across the department. By providing high level strategic advice, you will guide the development and execution of the safety strategy, ensuring alignment with departmental goals while embedding safety as a core value. This role is strategic as well as tactical. A key focus of this role is proactively coaching and mentoring leaders and employees to uplift knowledge, ownership and engagement in safety, ensuring that workplace risks, both physical and psychosocial are effectively identified and controlled.

This role requires a strategic leader with deep proven expertise in health and safety regulations within a complex, high risk environment. This role will drive significant cultural change fostering a mindset of proactive safety awareness, including psychological safety and continuous improvement to support a safety conscious agenda throughout the department.

Some of your duties will include:

- Lead high level discussions with internal and external stakeholders to improve safety performance outcomes through proactive risk management, targeted safety initiatives, and the promotion of a strong safety culture which will ultimately contribute to a reduction in workplace incidents and a measurable decrease in workers compensation claims and premium.
- Provide authoritative advice to ensure that Safety operations and programs are guided and informed by best practice standards.
- Pro-actively work collaboratively with the broader Safety, Wellbeing and Compliance team members to operationalise the departments Health, Safety and Wellbeing Strategy.

To learn more about this role before applying, please read the attached position description.

**About you**

To be successful in this role, you will have:

- Extensive industry experience in occupational health and safety management systems.
- Demonstrated experience in the identification OHS risks and developing, implementing and evaluating preventative strategies.
- Demonstrated experience in consulting with managers and staff to provide key outcomes in health and safety, change management and related workplace improvement initiatives.
- Demonstrated experience in contributing to cultural change in health, safety, and wellbeing.
- Highly developed communication skills with the ability to influence and lead.
- Significant people management experience in strategic safety leadership roles.
- Demonstrated success operationalising safety strategies in large, complex, high risk businesses.
- Composure, resilience, sound judgement and the ability to navigate organisational complexity.

**Qualifications/requirements**
- A suitably qualified person, with a degree in occupational/workplace health and safety is highly desirable.
- A full and current driver's license is required due to the need to work across different locations.

**How to Apply**

**IMPORTANT INFORMATION**:
**CHILD SAFE STATEMENT OF COMMITMENT**:
The Department of Justice and Community Safety is committed to the safety and wellbeing of children and young people. We seek to prevent harm of any kind impacting children and young people and have zero tolerance for racism, child abuse and inequality. Children and young people's rights, relationships, identity, and culture must be recognised and respected, their voices heard, and their concerns acted upon. We aim to foster a culturally safe, child safe and child friendly environment for all children and young people we have contact with, deliver services to, or are impacted by our work.