Health, Safety & Training Specialist

Health, Safety & Training Specialist
Job Type: Full-Time, 18 month contract
Work Location: Wallenstein, ON
Compensation: $70,000 - $80,000

At Earthscape Play, we create beautiful, innovative custom playground sculptures and structures that inspire children and adults to creatively play. By partnering with some of the most prestigious Landscape Architecture firms in the world, we bring brilliant playground concepts to life. Our award-winning design-build firm is located just outside of Elmira, Ontario, in Waterloo Region.

Together, our ambitious team designs, engineers, builds, and installs state-of-the-art timber playgrounds that become iconic and well-loved destination spaces. The work environment we've created is positive, productive, fun, and rewarding. To see our one-of-a-kind projects, visit the website that could become a part of your next portfolio: www.earthscapeplay.com.

We're looking for a Health, Safety & Training Specialist who excels at bridging compliance with culture. We need someone who understands that real safety isn't built on rigid, check-the-box rulebooks alone, it's built on engagement, trust, practical systems, and genuine care for people. This role sits within our People & Performance team and partners closely with Operations to strengthen how Earthscape Play approaches health, safety, and operational training. While maintaining regulatory compliance is an essential foundation of the role, this isn't an administrative position. We're looking for someone who loves translating complex compliance standards into practical, human-centered safety habits that naturally integrate into how Earthscape operates.

This is an 18-month contract with a project mindset. Success means leaving behind stronger systems, clearer processes, an empowered workforce, and a more intentional approach to health, safety, and operational training than existed before.

What You'll Own:

Health, Safety & Compliance

• Bridge regulatory requirements with Earthscape's positive workplace culture, ensuring safety standards feel relevant, accessible, and practical for our shop and field teams.
• Coordinate and continuously improve Earthscape's health and safety program, ensuring policies, documentation, and practices remain current and compliant.
• Support incident investigations, WSIB claims, return-to-work programs, corrective actions, and required reporting with an empathetic, problem-solving approach.
• Coordinate PPE programs, workplace inspections, safety audits, and compliance activities.
• Maintain health and safety records, certifications, training documentation, and regulatory reporting.
• Champion and coordinate Joint Health & Safety Committee activities, fostering active engagement, collaborative inspections, and meaningful follow-up actions.
• Develop meaningful safety reporting and dashboards that provide leaders with visibility into trends, training completion, incidents, corrective actions, and opportunities for improvement.

Operational Training & Learning

• Coordinate operational training and certification programs across the company, including forklift, telehandler, chainsaw, working at heights, first aid, lockout/tagout, and other required certifications.
• Own the company-wide training calendar, ensuring certifications remain current and training is proactively planned rather than reactively scheduled.
• Coordinate Earthscape Play's Train-the-Trainer program, empowering internal champions and supporting them with scheduling, documentation, and ongoing program administration.
• Help establish annual operational training cycles that support continuous learning, safety culture, and capability development.
• Build intuitive systems that improve visibility into employee certifications, training requirements, and compliance across the company.

Building Systems for Scale

• Design and implement practical systems, processes, and documentation that strengthen how Earthscape manages health, safety, and operational learning.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, standardize, and improve safety and training processes as the company grows.
• Partner with leaders to identify operational training needs and help build sustainable learning plans across teams.
• Help establish the infrastructure that allows safety and training to scale with the business.

Partnership & Continuous Improvement

• Partner closely with People & Performance, Operations, and leaders across the business to embed safety into our culture and operational capability.
• Coordinate contractor and visitor safety programs, ensuring onboarding, orientation, and site requirements are consistently managed.
• Support broader People & Performance initiatives by coordinating company-wide training and development activities where appropriate.
• Bring curiosity, initiative, and practical ideas that improve how we work—not simply maintain existing practices.
  
  

What we're looking for:

We care deeply about how you think, how you work, and how you help others succeed just as much as your technical qualifications.

• 3–5+ years of experience coordinating health, safety, and training programs within construction, custom manufacturing, trades, or similarly hands-on industrial environments.
• Strong understanding of Ontario health and safety legislation (OHSA), WSIB processes, and provincial regulatory compliance.
• Proven track record of coordinating operational training, managing certification programs, and maintaining compliance records across shop and field teams.
• Demonstrated ability to build, overhaul, or improve systems, processes, and documentation that scale with company growth.
• Strong organizational and project management skills with the ability to balance competing priorities, certification timelines, and deadlines.
• Comfortable partnering cross-functionally with Operations, People & Performance, and shop/field leaders to elevate safety practices and operational capability.
• Exceptional communication and influence—able to build genuine trust, listen well, and guide change across all levels of the business.
• Curious, proactive, and energized by finding better, more practical ways of working rather than just maintaining the status quo.
• A mindset that aligns with Earthscape: humble, collaborative, organized, and accountable.

What's in it for you?

This role offers the opportunity to work on some of the world's most innovative playground projects while helping tell the stories behind the people, ideas, and craftsmanship that bring them to life. You'll work alongside a highly skilled, committed group of people who care deeply about the work and hold a high standard for how things get done.

We believe in great compensation for great employees, and we reward our staff with a combination of:

• Profit sharing and performance bonuses
• Employee share ownership opportunities (ESOP) after 1 year of service
• Six-week sabbatical after 14,000 hours worked
• Tuition reimbursement for continuous learning
• Extended health and dental benefits
• Flex time with options to work hybrid to support work-life balance
• Company events and a casual dress code

Accommodation: We are committed to treating all people in a way that respects their dignity and independence. Should you require any accommodation during the recruitment process or otherwise, please notify us of this when you apply, and we will work with you to meet your accessibility needs.

Pre-employment checks: As part of our selection process, successful candidates may be required to consent to background checks relevant to the role, prior to receiving a job offer. These could include: work references, education and credential confirmation, employment verification, identity check, and criminal offense records.

Quick note on AI: We used AI to help us draft and structure this job posting. But when it comes to hiring? Humans only. We do not use AI to screen resumes, read cover letters, or score applicants. Because we're human-first, we prefer to read what you actually think. If you're applying or answering our application prompts, skip ChatGPT. We want your raw, unfiltered, delightfully human thoughts: typos, unique quirks, and all. Candidates who write their own answers without a robot polishing, smoothing, or "synergizing" their application will instantly move to the top of our "Yes" pile.

At Earthscape Play, we are committed to building an environment where everyone feels included, valued, and heard. Diversity, inclusion, and belonging are an important part of our everyday work, and it is our belief that they enable us to reach our goal of bringing incredible play spaces to life. We strongly encourage applications from Indigenous Peoples, racialized people, people with disabilities, people from gender and sexually diverse communities and/or people with intersectional identities.