Health and Safety Specialist

The Health, Safety, Social and Environmental (HSSE) management unit falls under the UNOPS Shared Services Centre (SSC) Group. It is responsible for supporting the development and implementation of HSSE good practices in UNOPS projects and operations in line with UNOPS policies, UN common system standards and international best practices. As part of its duty of care, UNOPS commits to ensuring that people do not fall sick or sustain injuries when the organisation carries out its operations. In line with its Health and safety improvement plan, UNOPS is introducing a Zero tolerance approach to poor health and safety performance and is recruiting a health and safety specialist to support construction health and safety training, monitoring and compliance. The person hired will support the HSSE unit and the regional teams to ensure ownership and accountability  for health and safety in field operations. The duties of the health and safety specialist also include extensive travel to review and correct poor construction practices in countries where UNOPS has significant infrastructure operations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Costa Rica, Yemen and Nepal. This position reports to the Health, Safety and Environmental Manager for UNOPS.

Technical Advisory Support

• Assist field offices to effectively implement the UNOPS health and safety management systems;
• Review practices at UNOPS premises and construction sites around the world;
• Review risk assessments, inspections, incident investigations and other reports and offer advice to field teams to ensure that good practices are upheld; 
• Assist field teams to correct deviations from health and safety requirements including managing breaches of requirements and poor performance by personnel and contractors.

Monitoring performance and addressing incidents

• Carry out inspections and system reviews to ensure that UNOPS operations are complying with HSSE requirements;
• Carry out incident investigations;
• Follow up on actions to address non-conformities or issues raised in incident investigations, inspections and audits to ensure that the issues have been effectively addressed and lessons learned shared;
• Carry out actions to improve the effectiveness of health and safety critical controls in the organisation;
• Use trend analysis of monitoring data from field offices for the purposes of addressing poor performance;
• Carry out initiatives to support the improvement of health and safety culture in UNOPS including ensuring that actions in the organisation’s safety improvement plan are carried out.

Training and Knowledge Management

• Develop and implement training programmes to improve the capacity of UNOPS personnel, contractors and partners in implementing UNOPS health and safety requirements;
• Be the focal point for health and safety knowledge building and knowledge sharing across UNOPS operations with a focus on context-specific good practices;
• Support the Health and Safety Manager in representing UNOPS in United Nations interagency forums and external forums on health and safety;
• Support the development and implementation of other HSSE initiatives as assigned by the Health, Safety and Environmental Manager.

Education:

• An advanced university degree (Master's or equivalent) in Civil Engineering, Construction Management, Occupational Safety and Health, Environmental Health, Public Health or other relevant field is required; 
• A first-level university degree (Bachelor's or equivalent, in the fields of study mentioned above) in combination with 2 additional years of relevant experience OR a tertiary education diploma (Technical/Professional Diploma or equivalent, in the fields of study mentioned above) in combination with 4 additional years of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of hands-on experience in a production environment such as construction, mining, manufacturing, oil and gas and heavy industry is required with a Master’s university degree; 
• Experience in HS (Health and Safety) risk assessments, inspections, incident investigation, and training facilitation is required;
• Field experience in developing countries is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Full working knowledge of English.
• Knowledge of either French or Spanish is an asset.

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.
Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.