Director of Facilities

J.L. Richards & Associates Limited; Ottawa; On-site; CAD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Share ownership opportunities

Merit and profit bonus program

Competitive salaries

Job summary

J.L. Richards & Associates Limited is seeking a Director of Facilities to steer the corporate services team and lead the portfolio of JLR offices.

You will own the long-term workplace strategy, drive multi-site expansion, and manage facilities operations with a focus on safety, efficiency, and the employee experience. You will collaborate with IT, People & Culture, Finance, and external partners to deliver on capacity, space planning, and capital programs, ensuring our offices remain welcoming,

Qualifications

• 15+ years of facilities leadership experience across multiple sites.
• Strong track record delivering workplace capacity and office expansions.
• Knowledge of life-safety, compliance, and capital renewal.
• Vision for flexible, sustainable, hybrid workplaces.
• Ability to align stakeholders across IT, facilities, and finance.

Responsibilities

• Define the long-term strategy for JLR's workplace portfolio and offices.
• Lead office expansions, moves, renovations, and fit-outs on time and budget.
• Oversee facilities operations, maintenance, security, and workplace readiness.
• Drive energy efficiency, sustainability, and smart-building initiatives.
• Manage facilities budgets and report performance to leadership.

Skills

Facilities leadership

Workplace strategy

Expansion planning

Lease negotiations

Budget management

People leadership

Job description

We've opened a role for a talented, entrepreneurial Director of Facilities to work alongside the exceptional people in the Corporate Services team.This role is suitable for someone with:

• Seasoned, big-picture expertise in workplace and facilities leadership, typically developed through 15+ years of experience leading multi-site workplace strategies, office expansions, relocations, fit-outs, and facilities operations. You can translate organizational growth, workforce needs, and changing ways of working into practical, long-term plans for JLR's office portfolio.
• A proven record of planning and delivering workplace capacity, including optimizing existing spaces, expanding offices, opening locations in new markets, and integrating layout, furniture, technology, accessibility, and employee-experience considerations into cohesive workplace solutions.
• A strong understanding of safe, and well-managed facilities, including life-safety systems, preventive maintenance, regulatory compliance, capital renewal, lease negotiations, and fit-outs delivered on time and on budget, including when to rely on internal specialists, consultants, contractors, landlords, and service providers for detailed technical expertise.
• A clear vision for the workplace of tomorrow, including flexible and efficient space planning, furniture and technology solutions, hybrid-work requirements, sustainability, accessibility, and office environments that support collaboration, employee experience, and organizational growth.
• A talent for rallying people and partners, bringing JLR leaders, office stakeholders, IT, People & Culture, Finance, vendors, contractors, landlords, and the Facilities team together around one shared workplace strategy and consistent service standards.
• An appetite to own JLR's workplace and facilities strategy, shaping a growing network of offices while ensuring locations remain welcoming, functional, clean, safe, and responsive to the needs of our people.

You'll be joining a Platinum Club member of Canada's Best Managed Companies program; a 100% employee-owned firm that has a long-established reputation for quality. You will lead JLR's workspaces and facilities, ensuring that our office portfolio keeps pace with organizational growth and evolving ways of working. This will include creating additional capacity within existing locations, planning expansions, and establishing offices in new communities, while ensuring every JLR workplace help our people do their best work.

JLR is a creative, tight-knit, and mentorship-focused community with unique opportunities for driven people with tenacity and spirit. Our organization is made up of diverse employee owners with specialized expertise in a wide range of disciplines. Joining the JLR team means joining a dynamic group of innovative architecture, engineering, and planning professionals and support staff. If you're innovative and collaborative, thrive when presented with new challenges, and are eager to take your career in new directions, then JLR is the right environment for you.

Your Role as Director of Facilities

Let's talk about how your skills, experience, goals, and passions can find a home at JLR. As the Director of Facilities, you will set the direction for JLR's workplace portfolio and lead the people, partnerships, and day-to-day services that make our offices successful:

Workplace Strategy and Portfolio Planning

• Setting the vision and long-term strategy for JLR's workplace portfolio, including creating capacity within existing spaces, expanding existing offices, and establishing offices in new cities.
• Developing workplace solutions that integrate space planning, layout, furniture, technology, accessibility, sustainability, and employee experience.
• Managing the lease portfolio, including site selection, negotiations, renewals, and landlord relations.
• Delivering multi-year capital plans for asset renewal, building systems, and workplace upgrades.
• Working with office leaders, IT, People & Culture, Health & Safety, and Finance to align space, technology, and budget decisions with business priorities.

Office Development and Project Delivery

• Leading office expansions, new locations, moves, renovations, and fit-ups from initial needs assessment through implementation, ensuring projects achieve their intended capacity, functionality, employee-experience, schedule, and budget outcomes.
• Developing clear recommendations and business cases for workplace investments, including options, costs, capacity, timing, risks, and operational impacts.
• Building strong partnerships with landlords, property managers, contractors, and service providers, and holding them to high standards of quality and value.
• Driving energy efficiency, sustainability, and smart-building initiatives with our Environmental Sustainability Committee.

Facilities Operations and Workplace Experience

• Leading the consistent delivery of facilities services across JLR's offices, including maintenance, cleaning, security, access, workplace readiness, and employee support.
• Keeping every location safe and compliant with health and safety, building code, fire and life-safety, and accessibility requirements.
• Overseeing preventative maintenance, vendor contracts, and service-level agreements.
• Ensuring building systems, furniture, equipment, and other workplace assets are appropriately maintained, renewed, and replaced.
• Using employee feedback, service information, and workplace observations to identify opportunities to improve the functionality and experience of JLR's offices.

Leadership, Partnership, and Financial Management

• Leading, mentoring, and developing a high-performing Facilities team, with clear goals, a strong culture of ownership and service, and appropriate bench strength and succession capacity.
• Building bench strength and succession by developing the skills and scope of your team.
• Managing facilities operating and capital budgets, with data-driven reporting to senior leadership.
• Establishing meaningful measures for workplace capacity, service performance, project delivery, operating costs, employee experience, and facilities risks.
• As a member of JLR's leadership, collaborating with stakeholders to drive positive outcomes for the entire organization.

Why Join Us?

We live, work, breathe, sleep, and thrive in the communities we build. We love northern Ontario and the glorious bounty of the natural world and we're proud of our reputation and longevity in the National Capital and Kingston regions. Furthermore, we're growing our presence in southwestern Ontario and all along the Great Lakes of Ontario. As our footprint grows, so does the opportunity to shape the places where our people come together to do their best work, and that's where you come in.

We foster a friendly, welcoming, and team-oriented atmosphere that encourages innovation and collaboration. We have an established depth of technical and support resources that can efficiently and effectively deliver small and large multidisciplinary projects. We provide flexible career direction with opportunities to choose your own path and interesting and exciting assignments ranging in size and type.

• Share ownership opportunities at all levels
• Merit and profit bonus program
• Competitive salaries reviewed annually

Work-life Balance and Employee Wellness

• Immediate health and dental benefits
• RRSP/DPSP matching program
• Parental leave top-up program
• Fun Funds to plan extracurricular social events

Community Engagement and Social Responsibility

JLR welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.

At JLR, each of us contributes to inclusion and we all have a role to play. Our culture is the result of our behaviours, our personal commitment, our curiosity, how we collaborate, and the ways that we courageously share our perspectives and encourage others to do the same. In turn, our environment inspires us to try new things, speak openly, and be bold. It brings us together in ways that help us stand out. Our inclusive culture empowers all of us to connect, belong, and grow. Learn more about our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Ottawa, Kingston, Sudbury, Timmins, North Bay, Guelph, London