Director, Operations and Administration

Primary Purpose: The Department of Academic Family Medicine is a large complex provincially distributed medical education program in the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan and is dedicated to excellence in patient care, teaching and learning, research, and administration.  The Director, Operations and Administration will provide central leadership and development to the Department of Academic Family Medicine. 

Nature of Work: The department of academic family medicine and medical education plays a central strategic role in the College enterprise. The work of the department impacts family medicine and primary care across the Province of Saskatchewan. The director reports to the Provincial Head for Family Medicine and the Director, Operations and Finance for the College of Medicine and provides strategic advice and operational leadership to the department. The role of the director has a mandate to support undergraduate, postgraduate, enhanced skills, departmental distributed medical education programming, research unit operations, and the clinical teaching units to achieve excellence in academic standards and program and service delivery. The maintenance of this strategic balance requires the director to demonstrate considerable diplomacy skills and bring best practices from national communities.

This role has external and internal facets. The incumbent aligns the strategic direction of the department with college and university priorities in collaboration with the leadership teams in other units across the College, University, Saskatchewan Health Authority, and the Ministry of Health. The director applies their strong strategic and business acumen to advance the department by analyzing key external and internal information and providing expertise, counsel and coordination for the development and execution of various policies and plans.  The director provides their in-depth knowledge and experience of best practice in family medicine medical education administration to advance the vision, mission and strategies of the department.

This position requires an extensive understanding of the role and strategic direction of the Department of Academic Family Medicine and the College of Medicine, and of emerging issues in medical education and administration. Judgment is required for discretionary decision-making, staff recruitment, and staff development. The director represents the department in interactions with a wide variety of units within the college, including undergraduate and graduate programs, information technology, research services, financial services, human resources and plays an important role in ensuring that operational and administrative concerns are represented in critical decision-making. The incumbent must exercise a high degree of initiative and judgment on a wide range of issues and build productive and supporting working relationships across the province. This position can experience \ peak periods of work, with the expectation to work outside regular operating hours of the university, which is balanced with professional flexibility.

Accountabilities:

Partner with the provincial head to lead the strategic direction of the Department of Academic Family Medicine.  This will include, but is not limited to, the following:

This position has diverse and extensive accountabilities under the headings below. In broad terms they provide counsel and support to the provincial head to assist in the effective implementation of the strategic operations of the Department and its Committees, ensuring that the end-to-end process from proposal to implementation is supported and communicated effectively to all stakeholders. Oversee and ensure the development and successful execution of strategies to enhance the experience of medical education learners; maintain fiscally responsible leadership for operational services in the Department of Academic Family Medicine. 

Operations Management
Along with, or as a representative of the provincial head, represent the interests of the department with college administration, government authorities, and key stakeholders.

In collaboration with stakeholders, identify opportunities for enhanced operational efficiency and quality, and undertake the appropriate consultation and action to exploit these opportunities.

Recommend and implement change to business systems, procedures, and processes, including evaluation and improvement implementation; able to process problems into solutions and new opportunities; Identify, assess, and inform the provincial head of internal and external issues that affect department operations.

Oversee the service delivery of support and management staff ensuring the appropriate allocation of personnel to projects, and providing staff with direction on administrative policies, procedures and technical requirements, priorities and service expectations.

Oversee facilities management across department distributed and core sites to ensure the advancement of strategic direction of site and programming growth, future site development, and advancing mission of the University as landlord as required.

Development of standard setting service support for administrative, financial, and learner environment including maintaining current knowledge and understanding of best practice in medical education nationally

Provide support to the provincial head and executive leadership to effectively allocate and utilize resources to achieve strategic goals and objectives; Develop multi-year workforce plans with a focus on supporting the short and long-term business objectives, develop and manage a strategic communication plan ensuring clear communications to prospective students, current students, graduate programs, faculty members, the broader university and provincial community, heightening the profile of family medicine in the province

Support special projects as identified by the provincial head or the executive leadership of college.

Communication and Relationships:
Oversee the development of an integrated communications strategy for the Department, ensuring the alignment of communications with the priorities of the college; communications are timely, informative and appropriately represent the department and its initiatives.

Enhance strategic relationships with other departments within the College, University, Saskatchewan Health Authority, Ministry of Health, and other Family Medicine departments, nationally.

Develop strategies to expand family medicine resident alumni engagement; ensure communications are timely, informative and appropriately represent the department and college.

Complex college and provincial issues and challenging interpersonal interactions are managed with composure and diplomacy while maintaining confidentiality.

Oversee human resource and labour relation activities for the department. Coach and motivate staff, teams and project members to develop positive, highly engaged and high trust working relationships; lead staff to operate effectively as a team including problem solving processes and conflict resolution; create an environment where knowledge sharing, support, training tools, coaching and staff development ensure service levels meet or exceed expectations.

Contribute information and expertise and keep up to date on relevant current trends and developments with colleagues at other Canadian universities, professional organizations and government department and agencies.

Strategy Formulation and Policy Development:
Together with the provincial head and the department executive committee, is an integral contributor to the development and implementation of a strong policy framework to support department and college objectives.

In conjunction with department executive leadership, develop, monitor and meet department objectives, and translate and interpret the college and university strategic plans to develop business unit objectives and critical success factors.

Demonstrate an awareness of key drivers for decision-making in the college and attains buy-in of key stakeholders to change initiatives; remain current on factors that would impact the accountabilities of this role such as college, university, health authority or government policies and procedures; balance conflicting needs of many stakeholders in recommendations.

In collaboration with department managers, resolve key concerns and ad-hoc issues, including researching, consultation with multiple parties, making recommendations to solve and/or develop policies or practices, development of implementation plans, and performance measurement.

Financial Reporting and Budgeting:
Responsible for working with the finance manager on the strategic management of the department’s annual budgeting, and forecasting, and has accountability and responsibility for contributing to the annual comprehensive plan development.

Identify cost recovery and cost sharing opportunities; develop short and long-range plans to meet the departments financial obligations, forecasting trends and salary commitments; approve expenditures within the authority delegated by the provincial head; Oversee the activity of the finance and administration unit.

Qualifications

Experience: Ten years of experience senior leadership role, preference will be given to experience in medical education, experience leading a large complex provincially distributed department and extensive experience in developing and implementing strategic changes. An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.

Education: A graduate degree or equivalent is preferred; relevant experience will also be considered.

Skills:  Ability to assess risk effectively and make appropriate decisions for successful project management; ability to act decisively and to exercise a high degree of independence, initiative, and judgment on a wide range of issues; ability to communicate and summarize complex issues and results effectively to all levels of management. Ability to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders.

Ability to interpret policies and provide information and advice to all levels within the department and college, and to internal and external contacts of the department.

Ability to lead, coach and mentor staff to attain goals; demonstrated ability in thinking creatively and outside the box; strong organizational skills with the demonstrated ability to navigate a large, diverse and often deadline driven workload; well developed and demonstrated skills in analysis, problem-solving and critical thinking.

Excellent oral and written communication and interpersonal skills; experience with provincial and national organizations; understanding of the department and college mission, strategic plans, and organizational and governance structures. Knowledge of new and emerging technologies and understanding of how to leverage systems and technology in an effective process; demonstrated success implementing effective change and leadership in business process re-engineering projects.

Department: Family Medicine (Saskatoon)
Status: Permanent
Employment Group: Exempt
Full Time Equivalent (FTE): 1.0
Salary: The salary range, based on 1.0 FTE, is $91,180.00 - 152,753.00 per annum. The starting salary will be commensurate with education and experience.
Salary Family (if applicable):
Salary Phase/Band: Salary Band 4
Posted Date: 6/13/2024
Closing Date: 6/26/2024 at 6:00 pm CST
Number of Openings: 1
Work Location: On Campus