Manager, Operations and Administration, Northern Medical Services
Primary Purpose: Northern Medical Services, NMS is a large complex distributed medical program in the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan and is dedicated to excellence in patient care, teaching and learning, research, and administration. The Manager, Operations and Administration, will provide central leadership and development to Northern Medical Services, NMS.
Nature of Work: The Northern Medical Services, NMS plays a central strategic role in the College enterprise. The work of the department impacts Northern Medical Services, NMS and primary care across the Province of Saskatchewan. The manager reports to the physician lead for Northern Medical Services, NMS and the Chief Operating Officer for the College of Medicine and provides strategic advice and operational leadership to the unit. This dual reporting role is responsible for all financial and administrative operations of the unit that support the vision and mission of NMS, including IT, facilities, contracts/grants, financial and human resource management. Balancing strategic priorities requires the manager to demonstrate considerable diplomacy skills and bring best practices from national communities.
This role has external and internal facets. The incumbent aligns the strategic direction of the unit with college and university priorities in collaboration with the leadership teams in other units across the College, University, Saskatchewan Health Authority, and the Ministry of Health. The manager applies their strong strategic and business acumen to advance the department by analyzing key external and internal information and providing expertise, counsel and coordination for the development and execution of various policies and plans. The manager provides their in-depth knowledge and experience of best practice in family medicine medical education administration to advance the vision, mission and strategies of the department.
This position requires an extensive understanding of the role and strategic direction of Northern Medical Services, NMS and the College of Medicine for discretionary decision-making, staff recruitment, and staff development. The manager represents the department in interactions with a wide variety of units within the college, including undergraduate and graduate programs, information technology, research services, financial services, human resources and plays an important role in ensuring that operational and administrative concerns are represented in critical decision-making. The incumbent must exercise a high degree of initiative and judgment on a wide range of issues and build productive and supporting working relationships across the province. This position can experience peak periods of work, with the expectation to work outside regular operating hours of the university, which is balanced with professional flexibility.
Accountabilities: (Strategic planning, Operations management, policy development, communication and relationships)
Partner with the NMS physician lead to lead the strategic direction of Northern Medical Services, NMS. This will include, but is not limited to, the following:
This position has diverse and extensive accountabilities under the headings below. In broad terms they provide counsel and support to the NMS physician lead to assist in the effective implementation of the strategic operations of the unit, ensuring that the end-to-end process from proposal to implementation is supported and communicated effectively to all stakeholders. Oversee and ensure the development and successful execution of strategies for Northern Medical Services, NMS.
Operations Management
Along with, or as a representative of the NMS physician lead, represent the interests of the unit with college administration, government authorities, and key stakeholders.
In collaboration with stakeholders, identify opportunities for enhanced operational efficiency and quality, and undertake the appropriate consultation and action to act on these opportunities.
Recommend and implement change to business systems, procedures, and processes, including evaluation and improvement implementation; able to process problems into solutions and new opportunities; Identify, assess, and inform the NMS physician lead of internal and external issues that affect unit operations.
Oversee the service delivery of support and management staff ensuring the appropriate allocation of personnel to projects, and providing staff with direction on administrative policies, procedures and technical requirements, priorities and service expectations.
Oversee facilities management across unit distributed and core sites to ensure the advancement of strategic direction of site and programming growth, future site development, and advancing mission of the University as landlord as required.
Development of standard setting service support for administrative, financial, and clinical environment.
Provide support to the NMS physician lead and executive leadership to effectively allocate and utilize resources to achieve strategic goals and objectives; Develop multi-year workforce plans with a focus on supporting the short and long-term business objectives.
Provides leadership and supervision to all admin and support staff in NMS, including onboarding, orientation, educational requirements and updating skills; responsible for ensuring quality service, attention to details and meeting deadlines. Also responsible for providing feedback, disciplinary actions and dismissals. This position includes assisting with the identification, development, implementation, management and evaluation of contractual and employment arrangements within the NMS.
Support special projects as identified by the NMS physician lead or the executive leadership of college.
Communication and Relationships:
Oversee the development of an integrated communications strategy for the unit, ensuring the alignment of communications with the priorities of the college; communications are timely, informative and appropriately represent the department and its initiatives.
Complex college and provincial issues and challenging interpersonal interactions are managed with composure and diplomacy while maintaining confidentiality.
Coach and motivate staff, teams and project members to develop positive, highly engaged and high trust working relationships; lead staff to operate effectively as a team including problem solving processes and conflict resolution; create an environment where knowledge sharing, support, training tools, coaching and staff development ensure service levels meet or exceed expectations.
Contribute information and expertise and keep up to date on relevant current trends and developments with colleagues at other professional organizations and government department and agencies.
Strategy Formulation and Policy Development:
The manager is an integral contributor to the development and implementation of a strong policy framework to support unit and college objectives.
In conjunction with the NMS physician lead, develop, monitor and meet unit objectives, and translate and interpret the college and university strategic plans to develop business unit objectives and critical success factors.
Demonstrate an awareness of key drivers for decision-making in the college and attains buy-in of key stakeholders to change initiatives; remain current on factors that would impact the accountabilities of this role such as college, university, health authority or government policies and procedures; balance conflicting needs of many stakeholders in recommendations.
In collaboration, resolve key concerns and ad-hoc issues, including researching, consultation with multiple parties, making recommendations to solve and/or develop policies or practices, development of implementation plans, and performance measurement.
Financial Reporting and Budgeting:
Responsible for working with NMS finance on the strategic management of the department’s annual budgeting, and forecasting, and has accountability and responsibility for contributing to the annual comprehensive plan development.
Manages all aspects of NMS budget including preparation, submission, maintenance and reporting to college of medicine, USask, provincial and federal government funders and stakeholders. Responsible for overseeing financial statistical performance against budget targets.
Identify cost recovery and cost sharing opportunities; develop short and long-range plans to meet the unit financial obligations, forecasting trends and salary commitments; approve expenditures within the authority delegated by the NMS physician lead; Oversee the activity of the finance and administration unit.
Qualifications
Experience: Ten years of experience senior leadership role, preference will be given to experience in complex and diverse fund source organization such as a health care or post-secondary education environment, experience leading a large complex provincially distributed unit and extensive experience in developing and implementing strategic changes. An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.
Education: A graduate degree or equivalent is preferred; relevant experience will also be considered.
Skills: Ability to assess risk effectively and make appropriate decisions for successful project management; ability to act decisively and to exercise a high degree of independence, initiative, and judgment on a wide range of issues; ability to communicate and summarize complex issues and results effectively to all levels of management. Ability to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders.
Ability to interpret policies and provide information and advice to all levels within the unit and college, and to internal and external contacts of the unit.
Ability to lead, coach and mentor staff to attain goals; demonstrated ability in thinking creatively and outside the box; strong organizational skills with the demonstrated ability to navigate a large, diverse and often deadline driven workload; well developed and demonstrated skills in analysis, problem-solving and critical thinking.
Excellent oral and written communication and interpersonal skills; experience with provincial and national organizations; understanding of the unit and college mission, strategic plans, and organizational and governance structures. Knowledge of new and emerging technologies and understanding of how to leverage systems and technology in an effective process; demonstrated success implementing effective change and leadership in business process re-engineering projects.
Department: Northern Medical Services Unit
Status: Permanent
Employment Group: Exempt
Shift: Mon-Fri, 8:30am-4:30pm
Full Time Equivalent (FTE): 1.0
Salary: The salary range, based on 1.0 FTE, is $93,004.00 - 155,808.00 per annum. The starting salary will be commensurate with education and experience.
Salary Phase/Band: Phase 4
Posted Date: 7/4/2025
Closing Date: 7/25/2025 at 6:00 pm CST
Number of Openings: 1
Work Location: On Campus
The successful applicant will be required to provide the following current verification(s) where 'Yes' is indicated below. Further information is available at: https://careers.usask.ca/tips-for-applying.php
Criminal Record Check: Yes
Driver's License and Abstract Check: Not Applicable
Education/Credential Verification: Yes
Vulnerable Sector Check: Not Applicable
The University is committed to employment equity, diversity, and inclusion, and are proud to support career opportunities for Indigenous peoples to reflect the community we serve. We are dedicated to recruiting individuals who will enrich our work and learning environments. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, in accordance with Canadian immigration requirements, Canadian citizens and permanent residents will be given priority. We are committed to providing accommodations to those with a disability or medical necessity. If you require an accommodation to participate in the recruitment process, please notify us and we will work together on the accommodation request. We continue to grow our partnerships with Indigenous communities across the province, nationally, and internationally and value the unique perspective that Indigenous employees provide to strengthen these relationships. Verification of Indigenous Membership/Citizenship at the University of Saskatchewan is led and determined by the deybwewin | taapwaywin | tapwewin: Indigenous Truth policy and Standing Committee in accordance with the processes developed to enact the policy. Successful candidates that assert Indigenous membership/citizenship will be asked to complete the verification process of Indigenous membership/citizenship with documentation. The University of Saskatchewan’s main campus is situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. We pay our respects to the First Nations and Métis ancestors of this place and reaffirm our relationship with one another. Together, we are uplifting Indigenization to a place of prominence at the University of Saskatchewan. 