The Safety Technician is assigned to the Safety and Occupational Health Section of the Facilities Management Service (FMS) within the Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Center.

Duties

Inspecting: Observing environmental conditions and employee performance patterns to identify hazards, detect risks, and determine causal relationships; developing abatement recommendations for safety and occupational health hazards. Investigating: Searching for clues, studying variables, questioning witnesses, and retracing sequences to uncover the sources of reported injuries and illnesses. Recording: Assuring the validity of data collected, accurate documentation of occurrences and data summaries, and maintenance of program information. Analyzing: Examination of available data to identify possible sources of losses experienced, determining critical factors prior to occurrence, and recommendation of alternative adjustments to eliminate or minimize losses from injuries and illnesses. Reporting: Defining terminology, writing summaries, and preparing summary documentation related to safety and occupational health. Administration: Developing and maintaining multiple records and reports related to safety and occupational health compliance activities within the medical center. Provides administrative support to include development and management of correspondence and filing. The incumbent's work is also characterized by the need to develop and disseminate educational material and techniques. This requires a wide variety of continuing education and training designed to maintain current awareness of safety standards and regulations and the corresponding preventive procedures. Work Schedule: 8:00am to 4:30pm, Monday thru Friday Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Safety Technician/PD002670 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized

Requirements

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 01/22/2025. 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-07 level position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-06 level. 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. You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-06 level in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: (l) identifying, preventing, or eliminating safety hazards in work methods or environmental conditions; or (2) safety training or promotion. Such experience must have provided a practical knowledge of occupational and environmental safety hazards, survey techniques, and control and preventive methods. Such experience could be gained working as a biological technician, medical technician, engineering technician, fire prevention inspector, and environmental health worker. Other examples of specialized experience include: Conducting routine independent inspections or surveys using practical knowledge of corrective safety and occupational health measures of areas within a medical center in which exposure and type of hazard is predictable in advance to identify occupational hazards, and to determine elements giving rise to mishaps. Assists in the preparation and analysis of accident and injury reports, studying data to discover trends and mishap causes, and to develop recommendations for eliminating or controlling the hazards detected. Use of a variety of software packages to extract and analyze data and develop spreadsheets and charts to present summarized and meaningful information to management. Providing informal instruction to employees based on practical knowledge of regulations, policies, procedures, manuals, and pertinent appeal rulings by explaining the reasons and purposes for applying measures and procedures in order to minimize or abate environmental hazards. Knowledge of the use of various safety equipment to include respirators. Knowledge of general administrative practices and procedures. OR Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have one full year of graduate level education in a field directly related to the work of the position. (TRANSCRIPTS REQUIRED). OR Combination:A combination of education and experience may be used to qualify for this position as long as the computed percentage of the requirements is at least 100%. To compute the percentage of the requirements, divide your total months of experience by 12. Then divide the total number of completed graduate semester hours (or equivalent) by 18. Add the two percentages. (TRANSCRIPTS REQUIRED) You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Analytical ReasoningCommunicationCritical ThinkingSafety Engineering 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: Survey or inspection work requires regular and recurrent physical exertion such as walking, standing, bending, climbing, crouching, reaching, and lifting of a variety of moderately weighted products fabricated by employees. 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: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/.

Contacts

• Address Wilkes-Barre VA Medical Center 1111 East End Boulevard Wilkes-Barre, PA 18711 US
• Name: Shala Johnson
• Phone: (412) 822-2186
• Email: shala.johnson@va.gov