This Safety and Occupational Health Specialist is located at the West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System, and is assigned to the Safety and Health Program of the West Palm Beach Veterans Healthcare System. Performs scheduled and focused inspections in a variety of healthcare settings independently and with multi-disciplinary team members to identify hazards and assess risks to employees, visitors or volunteers.

Duties

Provides technical assistance to managers, supervisors, and front line staff to achieve minimization of risk and promotion of safety. Duties include, but are not limited to: Analyzes survey and incident data to develop informational summaries, trend analyses and performance benchmarks. Develops spreadsheets and utilizes a variety of software to analyze and aggregate data. Observes environmental conditions and work practices. Records findings and makes recommendations to resolve deficiencies. Performs targeted audits of areas or work operations to gather performance data. Analyzes findings, compares results against appropriate standards and makes recommendations to improve performance. Presents accident prevention, construction safety, fire response, emergency procedures, hazard communication, and other training programs as assigned. Makes recommendations regarding hazard abatement, use of administrative/engineering controls or personal protective equipment, changes in operational procedures. Develops and maintains databases to facilitate identification of incident trends and hazard surveillance trends. Supervises and monitors the inspection and testing of fire detection, protection and fire alarm equipment such as smoke detectors, sprinkler systems, and notification devices. Assists in development of emergency preparedness policy, exercise design and evaluation, and staff training. VA offers a comprehensive total rewards package: HR Specialist Total Rewards Work Schedule: Monday - Friday 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Safety & Occupational Health Specialist/PD022320 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required

Requirements

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 10/13/2023. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-07. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Individual Occupational Requirements (IOR): IOR must be satisfied to be further considered for the position. Education: Undergraduate and Graduate Education: Major study -- safety or occupational health fields (safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene), or degree in other related fields that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours of study from among the following (or closely related) disciplines: safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene, occupational medicine, toxicology, public health, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biological sciences, engineering, and industrial psychology. OR, Specialized Experience: Experience in or related to safety and occupational health that provided the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position. Examples of qualifying specialized experience include: Managing safety or occupational health program elements. Developing and recommending safety and occupational health policy to higher levels of management. Applying safety and occupational health laws, regulations, principles, theories, practices, and procedures to advise on or resolve technical matters dealing with occupational safety and health requirements. Developing safety and occupational health standards, regulations, practices, and procedures to eliminate or control potential hazards. Developing or implementing programs to reduce the frequency, severity, and cost of accidents and occupational illnesses. Analyzing or evaluating new and existing jobs, processes, products, or other systems to determine the existence, severity, probability, and outcome of hazards. Designing or modifying workplaces, processes, products, or other systems to control or eliminate hazards. Inspecting or surveying workplaces, processes, products, or other systems for compliance with established safety and occupational health policies or standards and to identify potential new hazards. Training of workers, supervisors, managers, or other safety and occupational health personnel in safety or occupational health subjects. Work in occupational fields such as industrial hygienist, safety engineer, fire prevention engineer, health physicist, and occupational health nurse. You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below:GS-09 Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-07 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: Identify Occupational Safety & Health Hazards, Fire prevention and Hazardous Material and Risks. Performs targeted audits of areas or work operations to gather performance data. Analyzes findings, compares results against appropriate standards and makes recommendations to improve performance. Makes recommendations regarding hazard abatement, use of administrative/engineering controls or personal protective equipment, changes in operational procedures. Performs data collection, regulatory research, and workplace assessments for compilation of VHA required reports regarding occupational safety and health, hazardous materials, emergency preparedness, fire prevention and environmental compliance. Makes recommendations regarding hazard abatement, use of administrative/engineering controls or personal protective equipment, changes in operational procedures OR, GS-09 Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have a master's or equivalent graduate degree or 2 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.B. or J.D., if related. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work. OR, GS-09 Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience directly related to the work of the Safety & Occupation Health Specialist position and education beyond 1 year of graduate level education (the first year of graduate study is not qualifying for GS-9). Note: IN DESCRIBING YOUR EXPERIENCE, PLEASE BE CLEAR AND SPECIFIC. WE WILL NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS REGARDING YOUR EXPERIENCE. Verbiage displayed on your resume or application must contain your own words. You may refer to the specialized experience located within the vacancy announcement, to assist with describing work experiences; however, resumes or applications received that copied verbatim from the announcement will be evaluated and may be reviewed as falsifying your experience or application. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Accident InvestigationClericalCompliance InspectionDatabase AdministrationHazardous Materials Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The work involves frequent performance of surveys and onsite visitors necessitating prolonged periods of walking and standing. Research projects and program development projects will require periods of desk duty. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Education

A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.

Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-visitus-forrecog.html.

Contacts

• Address West Palm Beach VA Medical Center 7305 North Military Trail West Palm Beach, FL 33410 US
• Name: Kathryn Kaliszewski
• Phone: (610) 384-7711 X4664
• Email: [email protected]