- Lead the implementation and delivery of South East Water’s strategic safety improvement program.
- Turn safety ambition into operational reality - strengthen critical controls, lift contractor performance and hold leaders accountable for outcomes.
- Rebuild the Safety & Wellbeing function and create a culture where safety is owned, not delegate across all levels.
Head of Safety & Wellbeing
Lead enterprise-wide safety transformation within an essential services organisation.
South East Water is seeking an accomplished safety leader to lead its safety, wellbeing, critical risk, contractor safety, psychosocial risk, injury management and assurance agenda.
Reporting to the General Manager People, Safety & Governance, the Head of Safety & Wellbeing will provide strategic leadership across the organisation and work closely with the Board, Executive Leadership Team, senior leaders, employees, contractors, regulators and delivery partners.
The opportunity
The immediate priority of this role is to lead the implementation and delivery of South East Water’s existing strategic safety improvement program. You will translate its objectives into practical operating plans, measurable outcomes and sustainable improvements in leadership accountability, risk ownership and safety performance.
You will also lead the implementation, verification and assurance of effective controls for critical safety risks, ensuring controls are understood, consistently applied and delivering the intended outcomes across operational environments.
A further priority will be strengthening South East Water’s approach to contractor and delivery partner management, including prequalification, onboarding, monitoring, performance management and assurance.
Leading a small team, you will also restructure and uplift the capability, capacity and operating model of the Safety & Wellbeing function to ensure it is aligned to current and future business requirements.
Key responsibilities
- Lead the implementation and delivery of the strategic safety improvement program.
- Strengthen and embed the Safety Management System across all levels of the organisation.
- Establish visible, felt leadership and clear accountability for safety outcomes.
- Develop, implement, verify and assure effective controls for critical safety risks.
- Strengthen contractor and delivery partner safety management.
- Provide strategic advice to the Executive Leadership Team and prepare high-quality Board and executive reporting.
- Lead psychosocial risk, wellbeing, injury management and return-to-work strategies.
- Establish meaningful safety analytics, dashboards, leading indicators and performance reporting.
- Restructure and uplift the Safety & Wellbeing function.
- Build leadership capability and foster a culture of learning, risk ownership, accountability and continuous improvement.
- Maintain and continuously improve the organisation’s ISO 45001-certified Safety Management System.
About you
You will be an experienced and credible safety executive who has led safety, health and wellbeing functions within complex, operationally focused or high-risk environments.
You will bring a strong combination of strategic insight, technical expertise, executive presence and the ability to translate safety expectations into practical and sustainable business outcomes.
You will have demonstrated experience in:
- Leading enterprise-wide safety transformation and cultural change.
- Delivering safety improvement programs and embedding safety management systems.
- Developing safety operating plans, governance frameworks, assurance programs and performance measures.
- Implementing, verifying and assuring critical risk controls.
- Leading contractor and delivery partner safety across complex operational environments.
- Managing psychosocial risk, wellbeing, injury management and return-to-work programs.
- Restructuring and uplifting safety, health and wellbeing functions.
- Influencing senior leaders and building accountability across complex matrix organisations.
- Preparing Board and executive reporting for senior stakeholders.
You will hold relevant tertiary qualifications in occupational health and safety, risk management or a related discipline, supported by substantial leadership experience.
Experience within water, utilities, infrastructure, construction, energy, transport or another high-risk sector will be highly regarded, particularly where you have led safety transformation, strengthened critical risk controls, improved contractor safety and influenced operational leaders.
Why join South East Water?
This is an opportunity to shape the next phase of safety and wellbeing maturity within an organisation that delivers essential services to the community.
You will have the mandate, executive exposure and leadership platform to influence culture, strengthen critical risk management, uplift the Safety & Wellbeing function and create safer, healthier and more resilient outcomes across the enterprise.
For more information on the role, please copy and paste the link to the success profile into your browser: https://tinyurl.com/4msw9tue
For any enquiries or to submit an application for this role, please contact Anthony Grey at Davidson Recruitment on Anthony.Grey@davidsonwp.com or contact 0403 310 566.
