Health & Safety Lead - South Island

Te Tākinatanga | Our Story    

Ko tā Contact e whakapono nei, ko te taiao tonu te taonga nui katoa o te ao. 

Koinei mātou e whai atu nei kia mahue atu i a mātou tētahi ao hauora ake, tēnā i te ora i kuhu ai mātou.  He pakihi whakarato hiko, ipurangi mātou, engari arā kē atu anō ā mātou taha. 

Kei te whakawhanake mātou i ā mātou mahi ake, i ngā ara hoki e whai hiko ai a Aotearoa, kei te kōkiri kia tukua te hiko tukurua, ā, kei te whakaputa i tētahi wheako matihiko mō ā mātou kiritaki kāore anō kia kitea i tēnei whenua. 

He tīma kotahi mano mātou nō ngā hau e whā, e ngākau nui ana ki ā mātou mahi, e aroha ana tētahi ki tētahi, e ako ngātahi ana, e whakapono tahi ana ki ā mātou tikanga ārahi: mā te manaaki kia toa, ka mana te katoa. 

At Contact, we believe home is the most important place in the world. It's all part of our vision to leave Aotearoa better than we found it. We’re a power, mobile, and broadband company, but we’re so much more than that. We are transforming the ways we mahi, and how Aotearoa is powered, leading the charge on renewable energy and digitising customer journeys in ways not yet seen here. A team of 1000+ from all walks of life who love what we do, look out for each other, and learn from one another every day, we’re stoked to be guided by our tikanga: we touch lives to make life better. 

Te Whiwhinga mahi | The Opportunity 

At Contact, we’re on a mission to create a better New Zealand—one where decarbonisation and wellbeing go hand in hand. Our people are at the heart of everything we do, and we’re looking for a Health & Safety Lead to champion safe, healthy, and mentally well outcomes across our South Island generation assets. 

You’ll be the connector, coach, and champion for our South Island Health & Safety Advisors—empowering them to support our front-line teams and helping us all navigate the complexities of operational work. Here’s a few things that will help you get a feel for what you’ll be driving: 

Leading and Developing the Team: Provide people leadership, coaching, and development for Health & Safety Advisors, ensuring they’re equipped to deliver on our H&S objectives. 

• Exploring Everyday Work: Encourage Advisors to spend time on work fronts, understanding how work is really done and where systems or resources need improvement. 
• Stakeholder engagement: Working with our South Island leaders to build their understanding of great H&S leadership so they can empower their teams to deliver safe work outcomes. 
• Supporting and Influencing Work Practices: Develop and lead health and safety processes for all South Island generation sites, building capability and balancing resources for safe, dependable performance. 
• Facilitating Information Flow: Enhance collaboration across all levels, breaking down boundaries and ensuring critical H&S information is shared and acted upon. 
• Predicting and Responding to Risk: Work with Advisors and operational teams to identify and proactively address areas of uncertainty and risk. 
• Fostering Learning and Improvement: Promote learning from both everyday work and unexpected events, facilitating learning teams and supporting effective H&S training and inductions. 
• Providing Expert Advice: Act as a subject matter expert, offering practical guidance to Advisors, operational leaders, and teams. 
• Championing Process Safety: Encourage a questioning attitude about what could go wrong and support Advisors in process safety awareness. 
• Supporting Renewable Growth Projects: Provide H&S support for South Island development or construction projects as needed. 
• Ensuring Compliance and Best Practice: Oversee compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act and other regulations, supporting Advisors in maintaining up-to-date knowledge of industry rules and best practices. 

Representing the South Island: Act as the interface between South Island and North Island H&S teams and the Corporate H&S function, ensuring alignment and sharing learnings. 

Ko wai koe | About You 

You’re a people leader who thrives on building trust, developing others, and making a real difference. You’re agile, adaptable, and ready to coach through ambiguity—helping teams navigate complexity with confidence. You’ll thrive in this role if you have: 

• Experience in health and safety supervision or leadership within an industrial or operational environment. 
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach, and develop a team. 
• Working knowledge of process safety and its application in operational settings. 
• High interpersonal capability—able to build trust and effective relationships at all levels. 
• Skilled facilitation, communication, and influencing abilities. 
• Commitment to continuous learning and improvement. 
• Proven leadership capability, including people's development, performance management, and cross-functional collaboration. 

This role will be South Island based and preferably be located near to one or more of our assets,  but exact location is flexible. There will be a requirement to travel between our hydro power stations. 

Ngā āhuatanga kei a mātou | What’s in it for you?

There are a bunch of perks to being a permanent Contact kaimahi. Along with great leadership, teammates, development, and growth and progression opportunities, free health insurance cover, better-than-your-average leave, access to Contact Shares, a ‘Good to be Home’ annual payment toward your home set up & wellbeing, a trail-blazing parental leave policy, bi-annual payments towards Contact Energy products, and more! 

Please note, only candidates with the right to live and work in New Zealand will be considered for this role. 

Here at Contact Energy (Te Mata Hiko), we know our strength lies in developing a sense of belonging - one that helps us attract and retain people with a broad range of perspectives and experiences.

We’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and empowered to bring their whole selves to work. Our goal is to reflect the diversity of our customers and communities to help build a better Aotearoa New Zealand.

We have a rich community of talented people that we support to thrive at Contact.

Our inclusive hiring process is designed to embrace the diversity of Aotearoa New Zealand, ensuring a wide range of perspectives are included in our decision-making and helping reduce bias along the way.

The wellbeing of our kaimahi is super important to us.

We use employee insights to offer a range of initiatives and resources to support physical, mental, financial and emotional wellbeing – including flexible working arrangements, employee network groups and a market-leading parental leave policy.

At Te Mata Hiko, we want everyone to thrive. We welcome applicants far and wide - of every age, stage, background, and pride. Join us and be part of a team that values your passion and attitude just as much as your experience and skills.

Please note, only candidates with the right to live and work in New Zealand will be considered for this role.

Research shows that while men apply to jobs where they meet 60% of the criteria, women and those in underrepresented groups tend to only apply if they tick every box. We're not about box ticking, so if you think you have what it takes but don't meet everything stated above, please still get in touch. We'd love to kōrero.

Te Mata Hiko (Contact Energy) does not accept any CVs received from recruitment agencies where a formal engagement has not been confirmed and agreed to with our Talent team. In the event that unsolicited CVs are submitted by recruitment agencies, Te Mata Hiko (Contact Energy) reserves the right to contact these candidates directly and consider them for current/future vacancies without any financial obligation to the recruitment agency in question. This will also apply to any CVs sent directly to line managers.