Manager Strategic Communications

Niagara Region; Thorold; On-site; CAD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Niagara Region is seeking a Strategic Communications Manager to provide strategic leadership for corporate communications, media relations, public engagement and executive communications across the organization. You will partner with Commissioners and senior leadership to align communications with Regional priorities and ensure timely, accurate information for residents and stakeholders.

The role involves guiding executive messaging, crisis and issues management, and coordinating communications

Qualifications

• Bachelor-level degree in communications, public relations, journalism or related discipline or equivalent experience.
• Professional accreditation in Public Relations preferred
• Extensive experience in issues management, internal communications, public affairs, media relations and public engagement
• Experience leading people in a large, complex organization and managing relationships with elected officials

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and serve as primary communications partner to senior leadership and departments.
• Develop and implement internal and external communication strategies aligned with Regional priorities.
• Oversee enterprise communications intake, prioritization and resource allocation to support corporate priorities.
• Lead complex, high‑profile, enterprise‑wide initiatives and provide executive communications support.
• Ensure communications activities comply with policies, accessibility standards and brand guidelines.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Media relations

Public engagement

Executive communications

Stakeholder relations

Written communication

Education

Post-secondary degree in communications or related discipline

Public relations accreditation

Municipal/public sector experience preferred

Job description

Reporting to the Associate Director, Strategic Communications and Public Affairs, the Strategic Communications Manager provides strategic leadership and oversight for corporate communications, media relations, public engagement, and executive communications across the organization. The Manager, Strategic Communications, is accountable for the successful delivery of communications services across the corporation. They do this by serving as strategic partners to departments, triaging and prioritizing work, leading and developing people, and directly taking carriage the organization's most sensitive or complex communications initiatives. The role leads the development and implementation of internal and external communication strategies that support Regional priorities, foster public trust, and ensure the delivery of timely, accurate, and accessible information to residents, invested parties, and employees while ensuring a consistent and coordinated corporate voice across all departments and initiatives.

Education

• Post-secondary degree in communications, public relations, journalism or related discipline or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Professional accreditation in Public Relations or other communications-based professional organization is preferred
• Eight (8) years’ professional experience in issues management, internal communications, public relations, public affairs/relations, social marketing, community consultation and media relations; experience in a public sector/municipal environment is preferred
• Minimum five (5) years’ experience in leading people in a large, complex organization is preferred.
• Demonstrated experience in managing relationships with elected officials at various levels (municipal, provincial and federal).
• In-depth knowledge of communications technologies and practices, social media, web and multi‑media approaches
• Knowledge of a full range of current communication, media relations, public involvement and public opinion research strategies, tactics, techniques, formats and platforms and how to apply them in a municipal environment.
• Demonstrated ability to lead the development of strategic communications functions including issues management, crisis management, public relations, media relations, etc.
• Excellent judgment and use of discretion astute political awareness, and ability to assess and manage matters requiring confidentiality.
• Excellent written communication skills to prepare materials for diverse audiences with a demonstrated ability to communicate strategically and in a manner that builds understanding and commitment.

Knowledge & Responsibilities

Strategic Department Partnership and Executive Advisor: Provides strategic communications leadership and serves as the primary communications partner to Commissioners, Directors and departmental leadership, ensuring communications activities are aligned with Regional priorities, enterprise objectives and organizational standards. Builds trusted working relationships across the organization while providing strategic advice, consultation and communications leadership on initiatives of varying complexity. (25% of time)

• Serves as the primary point of contact for assigned Regional departments, providing strategic communications leadership, consultation and ongoing relationship management for Commissioners, Directors and senior leaders.
• Provides strategic communications advice throughout the planning, implementation and evaluation of departmental and corporate initiatives, ensuring communications considerations are integrated early into business planning and decision-making.
• Builds strong collaborative relationships with departmental leadership to understand emerging priorities, identify communications risks and opportunities, and proactively support organizational objectives.
• Advises senior departmental leadership on communications strategies, stakeholder considerations, organizational impacts, reputational risk and appropriate communications approaches for complex initiatives.
• Ensures departmental communications activities are aligned with corporate priorities, enterprise messaging, accessibility requirements, corporate standards and best practices.
• Represents Strategic Communications on corporate committees, project teams and cross‑functional initiatives, ensuring communications expertise informs organizational decision‑making.

Internal Communications Portfolio

• Provides strategic leadership for organizational change communications, employee engagement, executive communications and internal communication planning.
• Advises senior leaders on employee communications strategies that strengthen organizational culture, transparency and engagement.
• Works directly with elected officials to ensure Regional Councillors, and Regional Chair, are prepared with effective communications materials and positioning

External Communications Portfolio

• Provides strategic leadership on public communications, reputation management, public engagement communications and issues management.
• Serves as the senior communications advisor to departments on public-facing initiatives with significant reputational or political considerations.

Enterprise Intake, Prioritization and Resource Management: Leads the enterprise communications intake, prioritization and resource allocation process, ensuring communications resources are deployed strategically to support corporate priorities while maintaining consistent service delivery across all Regional departments. (15% of time)

• Leads the intake, assessment and prioritization of communications requests, balancing departmental requirements with corporate priorities, organizational risk and available resources.
• Determines the appropriate communications response, service level and resource requirements for requests based on complexity, sensitivity, strategic importance and organizational impact.
• Assigns communications resources across the division based on skills, capacity and business need rather than departmental alignment, ensuring equitable workload distribution and effective utilization of staff expertise.
• Establishes priorities for the communications team, adjusting workloads and reallocating resources to respond to emerging issues, urgent requests and changing corporate priorities.
• Identifies opportunities for self‑service, standardized communications products and alternative service delivery models to improve efficiency and maximize strategic capacity.
• Provides direction and oversight to ensure communications projects are appropriately scoped, planned, coordinated and delivered in accordance with established priorities.
• Monitors workload, service demands and organizational trends to inform resource planning, continuous improvement and future service delivery enhancements. This includes quarterly forecasting.

Leadership of Complex Communications Initiatives: Directly leads the communications planning and delivery for the Region's most complex, high‑profile, politically sensitive and enterprise‑wide initiatives while providing strategic oversight and direction for communications activities delivered by the team. (15% of time)

• Leads the development and implementation of communications strategies for high‑risk, complex or politically sensitive initiatives requiring senior‑level communications expertise.
• Personally provides strategic communications counsel and direct support to senior leadership on issues with significant reputational, operational or organizational implications.
• Develops communications approaches for major organizational change initiatives, corporate priorities, emergencies, crises and issues requiring coordinated enterprise responses.
• Anticipates emerging issues, assesses communications risks and develops proactive mitigation strategies to protect and enhance the Region's reputation.
• Leads the development of executive messaging, strategic communications plans and communications materials for significant corporate initiatives where senior-level expertise is required.
• Co‑ordinates communications support across multiple business areas to ensure integrated, timely and consistent communications for enterprise initiatives.
• Leads the delivery of major public engagement and research initiatives, including the delivery of large‑scale public surveys that provide core data sets for the organization

Internal Communications Portfolio

• Leads communications strategies supporting significant organizational transformation, executive communications, employee engagement initiatives and major internal change programs.
• Works closely with Human Resources to ensure relevant components of the People Strategy are appropriately actioned

External Communications Portfolio

• Leads communications strategies for high‑profile public initiatives, reputation management, issues management, crisis communications and significant public engagement activities.
• Provides strategic leadership for the Region's media relations program, including oversight of proactive and reactive media strategies, spokesperson support, media response protocols, media training and media monitoring.
• Acts as the organization's senior media relations advisor, providing strategic counsel to leadership on media issues, coordinating responses to complex media inquiries and delivering media relations and spokesperson training to senior leaders and subject matter experts.

Departmental Communications Delivery and Accountability: Ensures the consistent delivery of high-quality communications services that meet organizational objectives, achieve measurable results and provide exceptional service to Regional departments. Accountable for the performance, effectiveness and continuous improvement of communications services delivered by the team. (10% of time)

• Holds overall accountability for the successful delivery of communications services provided by the team, ensuring projects are completed on time, meet organizational objectives and reflect professional communications standards.
• Monitors communications performance, project outcomes, service levels and departmental satisfaction, implementing improvements where required.
• Evaluates communications strategies and initiatives using performance measures, analytics and stakeholder feedback to support evidence‑based decision‑making and continuous improvement.
• Ensures communications activities comply with corporate policies, accessibility standards, brand standards, legislative requirements and recognized professional practices.
• Establishes service expectations, performance measures and operational processes that support consistent, transparent and accountable communications service delivery.
• Works collaboratively with the Director and Manager counterpart to ensure consistent practices, coordinated service delivery and seamless support across the Strategic Communications Division.
• Ensures communications resources are aligned with corporate priorities and organizational needs, maintaining flexibility to respond to emerging business requirements while delivering equitable service across Regional departments.

Manages people resource planning for the division or operating unit, determining ideal organizational structures, identifying desirable role and skill mix requirements and ensuring ongoing work quality and deliverability of results. (30% of time)

• Enables results with the organization’s human capital strategy to foster employee engagement.
• Directs and provides leadership for the activities and coaching of direct reports, providing work direction, setting priorities, assigning tasks/projects, determining methods and procedures to be used, resolving problems, ensuring results are achieved, and managing staff recruitment, performance, and skill development activities
• Ensures alignment and coordination of activity and quality of output between teams under their direction
• Ensures focus is service excellence, communication/transparency, innovation, and data integrity and work flow integration.
• Ensures staff has the information and resources to make successful plans and decisions.
• Ensures all people related issues, including recruitment, grievances and labour relations issues, are aligned to HR and Corporate standards and practices.
• Helps to break down barriers to employee success, ensuring collaboration and cooperation with other teams within their division and department
• Ensures Occupational Health & Safety policies, programs and practices are implemented, and maintained. This includes workplace inspections, monitoring, accident reporting and investigations, and ensuring any observed hazards or lapses in the functioning of OH&S processes, and other OH&S concerns are responded to promptly.
• Ensures all individuals under supervision have been informed of hazards and instructed on the necessary risk control and emergency response measures;

Develops, manages, and administers annual and multi‑year Capital and Operating budgets for the operating unit ensuring support of Council’s objectives, financial transparency and accountability, monitoring budget adherence, identifying and explaining variances, and financial reporting is effectively managed in compliance with corporate financial policies. Ensure goods and services are acquired in accordance with the procurement policy. Authorize, and administer the acquisition of goods and services for the operating unit and direct reports in accordance with the procurement policy and procedures. (5% of time)

Perform other related duties and responsibilities as assigned or required.

Special Requirements

• Must maintain ability to travel in a timely manner to other offices, work locations or sites as authorized by the Corporation for business reasons.
• May be required to support emergency operations under the incident management structure, at the direction of the Emergency Operations Centre Director.
• Regional staff strive to enable the strategic priorities of council and the organization through the completion of their work. Staff carry out their work by demonstrating the corporate values.

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We confirm that we do not use AI in screening of applicants, and this position is an existing vacancy.