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Lead Specialist, Change Management

Ottawa, ON
CA$104,880 - CA$131,101/annual
Senior Level
full_time

About the role

Job Type:

Employee

Duration in Months(for fixed-term jobs):

12

Job Family:

Leadership, Learning, and Organizational Development

# of Open Positions:

1

Faculty/Service - Department:

Business Operations

Campus:

Main Campus

Union Affiliation:

N/A

Date Posted (YYYY/MM/DD):

2025/09/04

Applications must be received BEFORE (YYYY/MM/DD):

2025/09/15

Hours per week:

35

Salary Grade:

Non-Union Grade NM1

Salary Range:

$104,880.00 - $131,101.00About the Office of the Chief Risk Officer:

The Office of the Chief Risk Officer offers a rewarding journey where your skills and passion for risk management will play a key role in shaping the future of the University of Ottawa. Our Office oversees Operational and Enterprise Risk Management, Insurance, Internal Audit, Protection Services, Emergency Management, and Health, Safety and Environmental Management. Our team is dedicated to ensuring the resilience and continuity of our operations. With a commitment to excellence, you'll have the opportunity to contribute significantly to promoting risk culture within our institution. We strive to be a valued partner and key player in advising and supporting University leadership, faculties, and staff, helping to foster a culture of informed decision-making. Join us in building a resilient future for the University of Ottawa and become part of our collaborative and forward-thinking team.

Position Purpose :

Reporting to the Senior Manager, the incumbent leads, plans, implement and measure all activities related to change management, stakeholder engagement, communication, training and adoption that supports the projects in order to optimize administrative processes and systems at the University. Is responsible for ensuring that projects integration and implementation are achieved in conjunction with an integrated Change Management strategy. Partner with stakeholders to identify and mitigate potential risks with regards to the people side of change.

In this role, your responsibilities will include:

Change-management Strategy:

  • Develop a change-management strategy for projects and facilitate the execution of related action plans to ultimately minimize employee resistance and to maximize employee engagement and user adoption.
  • Lead the development of a stakeholder engagement strategy, providing the foundation for change adoption that is scalable for different organizational change efforts and programs.
  • Provides advice to Program Sponsors, Steering Committee members, Directors and Managers on the best methods to use to ensure optimum levels of adoption, value and user satisfaction.
  • Develop, engage, train and nurture a Change Agent Network with the objective of identifying people issues or concerns and work to develop and implement corrective actions, mitigate risks and address concerns

Communication Strategy:

  • Lead, plan, execute and implement the communication strategy for the project with the goal to increase awareness and build support for the projects.
  • Develop and deliver communication and training strategies to facilitate the adoption of the new system and business processes and facilitate ongoing communications with users and within the project team;
  • Develop and write communications materials (email, web site, reports, etc.), leveraging current internal communications tools, and establishing a mechanism to share information within the project team and users.

Performance Metrics:

  • Create and manage measurement systems to track adoption, utilization and proficiency of individuals and the organization as a whole against the defined project benefits and desired outputs to be derived from the changes and adjust project accordingly.
  • Identify on-going resistance and performance gaps, and work to develop and recommend the appropriate corrective actions.

What you will bring:

  • University degree in a field relevant to the primary responsibilities
  • Minimum seven years of experience in large-scale, multi-disciplinary project management
  • Experience and knowledge of change-management principles and methodologies
  • Proven track record in implementing organizational change management for large projects
  • Strong leadership skills
  • Experience developing and implementing effective communications strategies to support large-scale projects
  • Experience designing, developing and organizing training activities, including determining the structure, content and learning objectives
  • Knowledge of project management approaches, tools and phases of the project lifecycle
  • Exceptional verbal and written communications skills
  • Experience developing and conducting interviews, focus groups and presentations
  • Excellent active listening skills
  • Strong analytical skills and conceptual thinking
  • Strong business acumen
  • Bilingualism – French and English (spoken and written)

Key Competencies at uOttawa:
Here are the required competencies for all or our employees at uOttawa:

Planning: Organize in time a series of actions or events in order to realize an objective or a project. Plan and organize own work and priorities in regular daily activities.
Initiative: Demonstrate creativity and initiative to suggest improvements and encourage positive results. Is proactive and self-starting. Show availability and willingness to go above and beyond whenever it is possible.
Client Service Orientation: Help or serve others to meet their needs. This implies anticipating and identifying the needs of internal and external clients and finding solutions on how to meet them.
Teamwork and Cooperation: Cooperate and work well with other members of the team to reach common goal(s). Accept and give constructive feedback. Able to adjust own behaviour to reach the goals of the team.

The University of Ottawa embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We are passionate about our people and committed to employment equity. We foster a culture of respect, teamwork and inclusion, where collaboration, innovation, and creativity fuel our quest for research and teaching excellence. While all qualified persons are invited to apply, we welcome applications from qualified Indigenous persons, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, women and LGBTQIA2S+ persons. The University is committed to creating and maintaining an accessible, barrier-free work environment. The University is also committed to working with applicants with disabilities requesting accommodation during the recruitment, assessment and selection processes. Applicants with disabilities may contact hrtalentmanagement@uottawa.ca to communicate the accommodation need. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

Note: if this is a union position: The hiring process will be governed by the current collective agreement related to the union affiliation noted above; you can click here to find out more.

If this is a front-line position with responsibilities to interact with students, selected candidates must be rated at the Low Advanced proficiency level or higher for both oral comprehension and reading comprehension in their second official language. The rating is determined by a proficiency test designed by the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.

Prior to May 1, 2022, the University required all students, faculty, staff, and visitors (including contractors) to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as defined in Policy 129 – Covid-19 Vaccination. This policy was suspended effective May 1, 2022 but may be reinstated at any point in the future depending on public health guidelines and the recommendations of experts.

About University of Ottawa

Higher Education
1001-5000

À l’Université d’Ottawa, la plus grande université bilingue au monde, la population étudiante peut choisir d’étudier en français, en anglais, ou dans les deux langues. Située au cœur de la capitale du Canada, pays du G8, notre université jouit d’un accès direct aux plus grandes institutions du pays.

Ses avancées dans plusieurs disciplines attirent l’attention du monde entier, un reflet de sa passion pour la découverte et de la place qu’elle occupe parmi les 10 plus grandes universités de recherche du Canada.

The University of Ottawa is the largest bilingual university in the world, where it is possible for students to study in English, in French, or in both languages. Located in the capital of Canada, a G7 nation, we have ready access to the great institutions of our country.

Our breakthroughs in different disciplines attract global attention, reflecting our ranking among Canada’s top 10 research universities and our ongoing drive to discover.