Head of Health, Safety & Wellbeing

Who are we?
Thames Water is the UK's largest water and wastewater company. We make a daily difference to our 15 million customers by supplying 2.6 billion litres of water through 32,000 km's of pipes, to keep taps flowing and toilets flushing. We are an essential service and have operated throughout the Covid19 pandemic.

At Thames Water, every one of our actions, big and small, matters every day. Water is essential to daily life, and that means our business is always open.

What you will be doing
With a newly appointed Executive team, Thames Water has embarked on an ambitious transformation programme over the next 8 years. The key to this transformation is the delivery of capital projects to improve our current infrastructure and assets and build new ones.
Operating in 5 yearly Asset Management Periods (AMP), the remainder of AMP7 will see a significant increase in the size and scale of capital projects, with combined spending rising from GBP350m in FY2021/22, to over GBP600m in FY22/23 and more than GBP1bn in FY23/24.

This rapid scaling of construction operations and resources, often taking place alongside ongoing operations represent significant challenges to Thames Water and our supply chain partners.

This new role of Head of HSW Capital Delivery and Asset will support the Director of HSW, aligning with the wider HSW strategy and owning the senior relationships, with internal and external stakeholders.

The successful candidate will need to be flexible and be able to work at pace to build a team, prioritise and proactively support throughout the asset planning, design, and construction cycle.

Purpose of the Role

• Support the Director of Health, Safety & Wellbeing and work with other Heads of HSW on the evolution and delivery of Thames Water's HSW strategy.
• Provide HSW Leadership across Asset and Capital Delivery, including smaller projects delivered directly via operations as well larger projects delivered through the Capital Delivery team.
• Lead co–operation and collaboration amongst supply chain partners to improve standards and HSW performance.
• Be a role model for company values and behaviours.

Principal Accountabilities

• Drive continual improvement in HSW performance. Using innovative HSW solutions to positively impact safety and drive efficiency. Where necessary removing non–value–added bureaucracy.
• Ensuring that all HSW risks are appropriately managed, with consideration to
  • designing in maintainability and operability of assets, including Human Factors
  • safe construction techniques
  • general construction site safety including simultaneous ongoing operations
  • the HSW of capital delivery and asset support staff
• Providing guidance on the requirements of construction legislation and industry standards and ensuring that there are strong levels of compliance.
• Strengthen the management of investigations to ensure effective root cause analysis and effective implementation of preventative and corrective actions.
• Develop clear leading and lagging indicators for capital delivery to baseline and track HSW performance.
• Work collaboratively with other Heads of HSW to provide a seamless, consistent, supporting HSW approach across Thames Water
• Liaise and build valuable internal relationships with the Sustainability and HR teams and externally with supply chain partners and regulators.

To be successful you will have the following skills and experience:

• CMIOSH, ideally with at least 5 years post qualification experience.
• Extensive track record of working in a senior health & safety role within construction or critical national infrastructure environment. Ideally with some process safety experience.
• Demonstrable evidence of leading change and driving continuous improvement in HSW standards and performance.
• Knowledge and experience in Human Factors, Behavioural Safety and Culture Change with tangible results.
• Ability to assess situations and appropriately prioritise key information and issues.
• Clear people leadership ability and a record of improving employee engagement.
• In–depth knowledge of HSW legislation, construction best practice and its practical application.
• A proven track record of building excellent relationships with internal key stakeholders, with the ability to negotiate in a flexible and constructive way at the highest levels.
• Reputation for engendering passion, commitment, and respect amongst own team and generally within the organisation and externally.
• Reputation for building strong partnerships and relationships, internally and externally

What's in it for you?
Our competitive salary & package includes a generous bonus scheme, car allowance, an excellent contributory pension, 26 days holiday per year increasing to 30 with the length of service and a wider benefits scheme.

We're proud of the positive ways of working we have adopted during the pandemic. We want to create a more flexible and dynamic environment so all our colleagues can thrive. For our office–based roles, we are moving to a hybrid approach where we will provide options around working from our offices, our operational sites and home dependent on role/team/individual. This will be discussed during the assessment process.

Thames Water is a unique, rewarding and diverse place to work. If you join our team, you'll enjoy fast–tracked career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and unparalleled benefits. We're also proud to be an equal opportunity employer, Stonewall Diversity Champion and Disability Confident Leader and we are a Times Top 50 Employer for Women.

You can find out more in our working for us section of our website.