Reporting to the Office of the Provost and Vice-President, Academic, with close collaborations with the Department of Human Resources, the Office of the Vice-President, Research, and the General Counsel, the Director, Academic Employee and Labour Relations is responsible for managing a large and complex employee and labour relations portfolio in support of academic, graduate, research, and postdoctoral fellow employment, comprised of 3 bargaining units and approximately 1200 employees. The Director will advance the University of Lethbridge as one of Canada’s top ranked universities and nurture the academic, graduate, research and postdoctoral fellow employment experience and workplace.
MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Develops an academic employee and labour relations strategy in support of a variety of university strategic and operational plans and of evolving workforce interests, trends, and requirements. Develops and implements policies, programs, and services in support of the academic employee and labour relations strategy. Develop operational plans and roadmaps to achieve goals.
2. Serves as co-chair (with Provost or Delegate) of the Academic Staff Relations (ASR) team, which manages the Academic Staff Collective Agreement, including administration of grievance procedures and other dispute resolution procedures; negotiates agreements and settlements.
3. Participates in a coordinated labour relations council, comprised of those leading labour relations across all employee groups on campus.
4. Fosters constructive and responsive approaches and builds effective working relationships among senior administrators, managers, faculty supervisors, employees, and union representatives.
5. Provides expert advice and guidance to managers and senior administrators on collective agreements, employment manuals, labour/employment legislation, and policy interpretation, disciplinary processes, and administration.
6. Acts as the main contact for academic union representatives for day-to-day labour relations matters, including graduate, post-doctoral and academic staff (and ASR team) matters.
7. Develops metrics, analyzes information, and prepares reports for the Board of Governors, President’s Executive, Government, and Senior Administrators.
8. Designs and delivers leadership training and professional development to the university community on a wide array of academic employee and labour relations, workplace, or related issues.
9. Manages collective bargaining for the University, identifying and researching issues, leading preparations, developing mandates and strategies.
10. Serves as lead negotiator for the University in collective bargaining with graduate and postdoctoral unions; serves as a bargaining team member and resource to the academic negotiating committee.
11. Oversees implementation of new collective agreements by compiling new collective agreements, offering training and auditing compliance of processes.
12. Leads union-management committees.
13. Represents the University externally to Provincial Bargaining Coordination Office, Alberta Labour Relations Board, Human Rights Commission (among others), including third-party dispute resolution and legal proceedings. Liaises with General Counsel and external legal counsel as appropriate.
14. Manages the development, application and updating of employment manuals and other human resources governance documents and programs for research employees.
15. Manages a coordinated approach to academic employee recruitment, onboarding, compensation, etc., for each of the employee groups (academic staff, graduate, postdoctoral, and research employee).
16. Coordinate with Human Resources to ensure administrative support.
17. Works in close collaboration with the Vice-Provosts of Accessibility, Belonging, and Community and Iniskim Indigenous Relations and the Associate Vice-President HR, to ensure those principles and initiatives are integrated into strategies, policies, programs, and services for academic employees.
18. Works in close collaboration with the Associate Vice-President HR, to ensure workplace wellbeing principles and initiatives are integrated into strategies, policies, programs and services for academic employees.
19. Directs and coordinates academic employment work within HR in concert with the Associate Vice-President, HR.
20. Creates and fosters a team environment that inspires and thrives on collaboration, innovation and results.
21. Works in partnership with stakeholders to understand unique service needs for academic employees; Leads initiatives and programs to continually improve business process efficiency and effectiveness of human resources policies, programs, and services for academic employees. |