Summary This Safety and Occupational Health Specialist position is located within the Facilities Management Service at the Providence VA Healthcare System in Providence, Rhode Island. It is permanent and full-time at 40 hours per week. Responsibilities The purpose of the position is to perform occupational hazard and safety surveys of a medical facility; study and review inspection safety records; plan and conduct survey or inspections that identify safety hazards and violations; and analyze accident and injury reports. Duties include, but are not limited to: Advises senior-level management officials within the assigned area on the status of the safety and occupational health programs and recommends changes; Determines the extent to which mechanical and physical conditions comply with required or accepted standards, their adherence to established safety policies and procedures, and the effectiveness of the assigned program; Schedules surveys of medical facility laboratories, shops, and offices to identify and evaluate risk potential involving a wide variety of work environments and occupations; Prepares safety guides and internal instructions for low safety and normal safety risks encountered in an assigned area of responsibility; Directs investigations of accidents, analyzing precipitating factors and accident cause data in order to develop specific methods for prevention; Certifies laboratories or other work environments where local guidelines or standards require assurance that specific and predetermined safeguards or practices are present prior to work beginning; Instructs employees on a variety of safety and occupational health subjects including chemical, biological or physical safety, various laboratory safety needs, or ventilation requirements; and Performs other duties as assigned. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00am to 4:30pm Compressed/Flexible: Not available Telework: Not authorized Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Safety & Occupational Health Specialist/PD040040Notifications: Veterans' preference does not apply for internal or other current permanent Federal agency employees. Interchange Agreements with Other Merit System: Employees who occupy medical or medical-related positions and were appointed under 38 U.S.C. 4701(1) or (3) [formerly 38 U.S.C. 4104 (1) and (3)] must be serving in a full-time position without time limit and have served continuously for at least one year in this other merit system to be eligible to convert to the Title 5 System. Some exceptions to this rule may apply if you have previously acquired tenure under a Title 5 appointment. Current and former Federal employees must submit copies of their most recent SF-50, (Notice of Personnel Action). The SF-50 must identify the position title, series, grade, step, tenure and @type of service (Competitive or Excepted). In some cases, more than one SF-50 may be required to show a higher grade previously held. This position is covered by locality-based comparability pay. Requirements Conditions of Employment You must be a U.S. Citizen to apply for this job Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959 You may be required to serve a probationary period Subject to background/security investigation Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process. Acceptable form(s) of identification will be required to complete pre-employment requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents). Effective May 7, 2025, driver's licenses or state-issued dentification cards that are not REAL ID compliant cannot be utilized as an acceptable form of identification for employment. Participation in the seasonal influenza vaccination program is a requirement for all Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel (HCP) Qualifications To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 12/09/2025. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-11 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-09. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. You must qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade (GS-09) in the normal line of progression in (or related to) safety and occupational health that provided the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position. Examples of qualifying specialized experience include, but are not limited to: Applying safety and occupational health laws, regulations, principles, theories, practices, and procedures to advise on or resolve technical matters dealing with occupational safety and health requirements; Analyzing or evaluating new and existing jobs, processes, products, or other systems to determine the existence, severity, probability, and outcome of hazards; Designing or modifying workplaces, processes, products, or other systems to control or eliminate hazards; Inspecting or surveying workplaces, processes, products, or other systems for compliance with established safety and occupational health policies or standards and to identify potential new hazards; Training of workers, supervisors, managers, or other safety and occupational health personnel in safety or occupational health subjects; and/or Work in occupational fields such as industrial hygienist, safety engineer, fire prevention engineer, health physicist, and occupational health nurse. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have: a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree, or 3 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree, or LL.M., if related OR, Combination: Only graduate education in excess of the amount required for the next lower grade level may be used to qualify applicants for a GS-11. (When crediting education that requires specific course work, prorate the number of hours of related courses required as a proportion of the total education to be used.) Note: Major study must be related to safety or occupational health fields (safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene), or degree in other related fields that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours of study from among the following (or closely related) disciplines: safety, occupational health, industrial hygiene, occupational medicine, toxicology, public health, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biological sciences, engineering, and industrial psychology. Transcripts are required to use education to qualify for this position. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Communications Planning and Evaluating Safety Engineering Self Management Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The work involves the frequent performance of surveys and onsite visits to laboratory and maintenance shops necessitating prolonged periods of walking and standing. Work Environment: The specialist is frequently exposed to mechanical hazards ranging from power tools to operating machinery and chemical and biological hazards while performing medical facility surveys.For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/. Education A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education. Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: https://sites.ed.gov/international/recognition-of-foreign-qualifications/. Additional Information Receiving Service Credit or Earning Annual (Vacation) Leave: Federal Employees earn annual leave at a rate (4, 6 or 8 hours per pay period) which is based on the number of years they have served as a Federal employee. Selected applicants may qualify for credit toward annual leave accrual, based on prior work experience or military service experience. This credited service can be used in determining the rate at which they earn annual leave. Such credit must be requested and approved prior to the appointment date and is not guaranteed. This job opportunity announcement may be used to fill additional vacancies. If you are unable to apply online or need an alternate method to submit documents, please reach out to the Agency Contact listed in this Job Opportunity Announcement. Under the Fair Chance to Compete Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs prohibits requesting an applicant's criminal history prior to accepting a tentative job offer. For more information about the Act and the complaint process, visit Human Resources and Administration/Operations, Security, and Preparedness (HRA/OSP) at The Fair Chance Act.
