Principal Program Officer Communications And

About us

As a department our purpose is to help the community to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from the impact of fire and emergency events.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) is the primary provider of fire, rescue and emergency management programs and services throughout Queensland. The department encompasses the Fire and Rescue Service, disaster management services, the Rural Fire Service and the State Emergency Service, and also supports other volunteer groups providing emergency response to Queenslanders.

QFES is one department with many services, many capabilities and many partners.

Purpose of the role

The Volunteer Services unit is a volunteer-focused team with the specific purpose of sourcing and coordinating opportunities for best practice in recruitment and retention, financial support, and communications and engagement, to transform SES volunteerism into an adaptive, modern volunteer workforce.

Reporting to the Executive Manager, you will be responsible for contributing to the resilience of Queensland communities and agencies by taking the lead role in managing and providing expert advice for the successful development, implementation and maintenance of community engagement programs. You will lead internal and external communications, social media, campaigns and marketing on behalf of SES.

Key requirements

Mandatory requirements
- Minimum C Class Driver's Licence

Highly desirable requirements
- Experience with and/or understanding of working with volunteer groups and partner agencies,
- Understanding of and experience with the IAP2 spectrum of public participation or similar.
- Qualifications and/or experience in communications in a large geographically dispersed organisation.

Special requirements
- The incumbent will be appointed as a staff member of the SES and the hours of duty applicable to this role are pursuant to the Queensland Public Service Officers and Other Employees Award - State 2015: specifically, the spread of ordinary hours for SES staff are 0600 to 2200, Monday to Sunday.
- It is expected the incumbent will participate in an out-of-hours on-call roster during emergency operations. This may require work outside of normal hours (e.g. night shift), including weekends, working extended hours and may include travel to rural and remote communities, intrastate or interstate travel as necessary and/or deployment activities to other parts of the state.

Your key accountabilities

Your part in the ongoing success of our department, in supporting key frontline services will see you responsible for a variety of work, including, but not limited to:

- Develop comprehensive community engagement programs, initiatives, and associated resources to support changing community and environmental needs and monitor their effectiveness in achieving planned outcomes.
- Manage the interface between the state and the regions to ensure community engagement approaches are aligned with state and regional priorities, and that messaging, and delivery are consistent.
- Lead, plan and implement high-level, wide reaching integrated and internal and external communications strategies.
- Supervise the production of social media information, internal and external online and printed publications, and marketing and promotional materials.
- Prepare and review high-level correspondence, reports, briefing notes, and submissions relating to communication and engagement issues and opportunities in accordance with departmental requirements and governance.
- Represent the department on committees, meetings, forums and working groups to ensure best practice in planning, development, review and implementation of community engagement policy and procedures.
- Develop and maintain effective working relationships with internal and external stakeholders to assist with the development and implementation of operational policy and business rules based on continual improvement of service.
- Lead and manage the capability and functions of the team through effective program and financial planning and management, providing guidance and support, and managing human resource functions and development of staff through performance, planning, training, and review.

Capabilities

To determine your suitability for the role, you will be assessed on the following Leadership Competencies for Queensland behavioural profiles that link to the "key accountabilities" for this role:
Leadership Competency Stream - Team Leader (leading others)

Vision
- Stimulates ideas and innovation
- Leads change in complex environments

Results
- Builds enduring relationships
- Drives accountability and outcomes

Accountability
- Fosters healthy and inclusive workplaces
- Demonstrates sound governance

Once you join us we will want you to exemplify the QFES shared values of:

- Respect
- Integrity
- Trust
- Courage
- LoyaltyThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License.