Associate Director, Organizational Development & Engagement

University of British Columbia; Vancouver; On-site; CAD 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading educational institution in Canada seeks an Associate Director for Organizational Development & Engagement. This role focuses on enhancing employee skills and performance through strategic leadership initiatives across the HR portfolio. The ideal candidate will have significant experience in coaching and change management, with proven skills in organizational effectiveness. A strong commitment to equity and inclusion, along with excellent communication abilities, is essential for fostering a supportive workplace culture.

Qualifications

• Minimum of seven to eight years of related experience in HR, OD, or change management.
• Experience working with and influencing senior executives.
• Proven ability to manage multiple projects and meet deadlines.

Responsibilities

• Lead and advocate for OD and engagement initiatives across UBC.
• Oversee delivery of high-impact OD initiatives in alignment with strategic goals.
• Provide expert guidance and manage strategic partnerships with unit leaders.

Skills

Organizational Development

Change Management

Coaching

Communication Skills

Strategic Thinking

Education

University degree in a relevant discipline

Advanced degree in Organizational Effectiveness or related field

Tools

Leadership tools and assessments

Job description

Job Information

Staff - Non Union

Job Category: M&P - Excluded M&P

Job Profile: XMP - Human Resources, Level D

Job Title: Associate Director, Organizational Development & Engagement

Department: Leadership | Talent and Organizational Development | Central Human Resources

Compensation Range: $8,305.08 - $12,952.33 CAD Monthly

The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date: December 21, 2025. Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.

Job End Date: Ongoing

Employment Equity Statement

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.

Job Summary

UBC’s Talent & Organizational Development (T&OD) unit, within the Vice‑President, Human Resources portfolio, empowers the University to achieve its strategic goals through the engagement and optimization of its most valuable asset – its people.

The role of T&OD is to design and implement successful leadership programming and professional and staff development programs; provide consulting services that support team‑related initiatives across UBC's HR community; offer targeted learning opportunities for staff; and facilitate change management, communications, and engagement initiatives across the University to enhance employee skills, performance, and overall organizational effectiveness.

T&OD’s aim is to cultivate a thriving work environment where staff members can grow and UBC can achieve its strategic goals.

The Associate Director is a leadership role supporting a broad range of people and culture initiatives across the Vice‑President, Human Resources (VPHR) portfolio and the wider UBC HR community including (but not limited to):

• Organizational Development (OD) & Consulting
• Coaching Services
• Workplace Experience and Employee Engagement
• Team Development
• Performance Enablement Systems
• Change Management
• HR Communications

Leading a strong team of professionals, this position oversees the delivery of responsive, inclusive, and high‑impact OD and engagement initiatives across the VPHR portfolio in alignment with the University’s Strategic Plan, and the unit level strategic and business plans. In close collaboration with unit leaders throughout the portfolio and the distributed HR communities, this role provides expert guidance as a leader in Organizational Development and Engagement, while overseeing strong communications support for senior HR leaders.

Organizational Status

The Associate Director reports to the Executive Director, Talent & Organizational Development, and works collaboratively with their peer, the Associate Director, Organizational Learning & Leadership Development. The role partners extensively with leaders across UBC to develop and manage strategic partnerships, and supports the Executive Director in implementing a holistic, integrated strategic plan for OD and engagement. The role provides University‑wide guidance for and/or designs and facilitates OD interventions that address coaching support and change management needs, targeted communication and employee experience programming.

The role provides direct people leadership to a team of highly skilled professionals, with several indirect reports.

Work Performed

Works collaboratively with the Organizational Learning & Leadership Development team, and other partners within the HR communities at UBC, to lead and champion a coordinated and integrated approach to OD and Engagement that harnesses opportunities throughout and across UBC campuses (Vancouver and Okanagan).

Supports the Executive Director in identifying, designing and implementing ‘best in class’ OD strategies, tools and processes that enhance the capability of departments, units, and teams to meet current and future organizational needs at UBC.

Leads engagements with various internal clients across UBC campuses to improve overall organizational effectiveness (OE).

Partners with department leaders and distributed HR professionals to build organizational capacity using practical, innovative, and planned approaches to ensure identified goals are achieved.

Facilitates and consults on organizational structure design, redesign efforts (as needed).

Builds OD strategies (inventories, assessments, resources, and supports) that can be scaled across UBC.

Provides oversight and direction of the UBC performance enablement process called GPS (Goals.Performance.Success). This involves:

• Continued implementation of GPS framework, processes, and systems across VPHR, distributed HR portfolios, and staff from various faculties.
• Targeted focus on key enhancements and new priorities that continue to drive GPS forward and ensure effective implementation across UBC.
• Analysis of performance data to identify emerging trends and areas for sustainment.
• Collaboration with the HR community and leaders to ensure performance enablement tools and systems are fair, consistent, and aligned with equity, inclusion and diversity practices.

Supports the development of a sustainable vision for how to evolve, embed and scale a coaching culture (including a community of UBC coaches) across the organization. This involves elements of:

• Providing direction and oversight of a sustainable coaching program that compliments other organizational program areas such as Extended Learning’s Certificate in Coaching, Staff Leadership Development programming, Maximizing Impact and Academic Leadership Development Programming, and Career Navigation Services.
• Managing a community of UBC certified coaches (~100+ people) who provide coaching sessions for staff and faculty.

Supports the Executive Director in creating the strategic direction for the UBC‑wide change and transition strategy with principles and practices that align with UBC’s overall HR people practices and principles. This involves aspects including:

• Providing leadership support to the distributed change practitioners who are involved in university‑wide high‑level change management initiatives.
• Identifying impacts, risks and inter‑dependencies with other University‑wide initiatives, and develops plans to mitigate factors that could affect successful implementation of change efforts.
• Consulting with VPHR, distributed HR portfolios, and staff from various faculties on change management framework, methodologies, and resources ‘in a box’ to provide a more consistent change and transition approach across UBC.

Is responsible for the development of strategic University‑wide workplace engagement initiatives that directly impact faculty and staff experience from the initial recruitment experience to how people create connections across the organization, to building a culture that fosters an outstanding highly engaged work environment. This involves components such as:

• Managing the implementation of the University‑wide multi‑faceted onboarding and orientation program for all levels of staff, the workplace experiences survey, and developing an effective and sustainable continuous listening strategy for UBC.

Provides supportive overarching leadership of the HR communications function to help position UBC as an employer of choice, including conceptualizing, planning, and developing strategies and plans to communicate and advance UBC’s employer story (brand) internally and externally. This involves the following elements:

• Providing strong, responsive communications support for VPHR and senior HR leaders across Central HR. This involves newsletter creation, project management of employer award submissions, communications and digital strategy for web assets (VPHR website), and key talent development deliverables.

Keeps current with knowledge and standards of professional practice with respect to change management principles and practices, quality improvement and process redesign, coaching, performance enablement, communication and engagement, and organizational development theory and practice.

Sources and recommends consultants for OD and engagement work as required. Manages consultant and vendor contracts and evaluates final products delivered by consultants. Ensures deliverables align with strategic and budget priorities.

Monitors trends, emergent thinking, best practices and analyzes benchmarking data in the field of OD including AI applications.

Collaborates within VP HR and other units across UBC to identify opportunities and support effective OD and engagement related initiatives. Leverages a variety of quantitative and qualitative tools to develop and advance additional methodologies.

Authorizes and oversees the teams who manage various program budgets within UBC policies and guidelines.

Performs other related duties as required.

Consequence of Error/Judgement

Understands the importance of relationship building, acting with openness and integrity to foster support and buy‑in from different levels of the portfolio, and across the University. Strong acumen in assessing needs and creating programs and initiatives that would provide positive impact to the University community.

Exercises sound judgement and initiative in making decisions and recommendations on the strategic direction of organizational development at UBC which will have significant impact to public perception of the University as an employer, and its ability to attract and retain employees.

Carries out operational decisions and recommendations regarding human resources practices that may have University‑wide legal, financial, contractual, reputational, and operational implications. Exposure to sensitive personnel data that may impact OD outcomes, strategic decisions, and engagement initiatives as it relates across the University.

Supervision Received

Works independently with broad objectives and autonomy under the general direction of the Executive Director, Talent & Organizational Development for the achievement of overall objectives and strategic goals.

Supervision Given

Directs the activities, manages the hiring, development, and performance of a team of professional and support staff. Provides advice and guidance to senior level Human Resources professionals. As required, provides project management to staff and contractors who are assigned to a project team for specific initiatives.

Minimum Qualifications

University degree in a relevant discipline. Minimum of seven to eight years of related experience including at least three years of experience in area of specialization, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.

Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own.

Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Preferred Qualifications

Advanced degree in Organizational Effectiveness or a related field with emphasis on business administration, OD, leadership and management development, change management, or communications.

Coaching certification accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) would be a valuable asset.

Various leadership tools/assessments and including Prosci or other equivalent change management methodology is strongly recommended.

Excellent oral, written presentation and communication skills.

Proven experience in simultaneously managing multiple projects and initiatives in areas such as human resources, OD, and change management, meeting deadlines, and resolving unexpected and or ambiguous situations.

Effective problem‑solving, conflict management, and mediation skills that help advance a healthy working environment.

Ability to think strategically, creatively, and critically, and understand the complexities within a large complex organization. Exercises good judgement when taking risks.

Demonstrates an understanding and respect for the University’s culture and environment and its employees. Proven intercultural competencies and ability to effectively communicate and interact with understanding and respect in diverse communities.

Demonstrated ability to anticipate future trends/consequences and create innovative strategies and flexible plans. Is adaptable and flexible.

Demonstrated initiative to analyze and resolve problems quickly, efficiently, and collaboratively. Ability to influence the direction of complex initiatives when not necessarily leading the initiatives.

Substantive experience working with and influencing senior executive.