Safety & Compliance Manager

At ABB, we help industries run leaner and cleaner—and every person here makes that happen. You’ll be empowered to lead, supported to grow, and proud of the impact we create together. Join us and help run what runs the world.

This position reports to:

Manufacturing Unit Manager

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Your role and responsibilities

In this role, you will have the opportunity to lead ABB's Health, Safety, Environment (HSE), Compliance, and Facilities Management programs, ensuring a safe, compliant, and high-performing workplace. You will drive a culture of operational excellence by ensuring compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, managing risk, and supporting continuous improvement across the site. Beyond HSE leadership, you will play a key role in maintaining and enhancing ABB's facilities and physical assets, ensuring they are fit for purpose, compliant, well-maintained, and provide a positive environment for employees and visitors. This includes overseeing facility improvement initiatives, asset maintenance programs, site infrastructure projects, contractor management, and workplace enhancements that support both operational effectiveness and employee experience.

Working closely with leaders across the business, you will lead HSE, compliance, facilities management, and site training activities, helping to create a safe, compliant, and high-performing workplace.

The work model for this role is: Onsite #LI-Onsite

This role is contributing to ABB's Electrification Critical Power business in Napier, New Zealand. Key stakeholders include operational leaders, manufacturing teams, facilities and site management, employees, contractors, regulatory authorities, and regional HSE stakeholders.

Together, you will help create a safe, compliant, well-maintained, and engaging workplace that enables our people and business to succeed.

You will be mainly accountable for:

• Leading health, safety, environmental, and compliance management systems while driving a proactive safety culture across all business activities.
• Coaching leaders to ensure compliance with legislation, ABB standards, policies, and internal requirements.
• Managing regulatory compliance obligations, permits, audits, inspections, and corrective actions.
• Overseeing Site & Facilities activities to ensure safe, compliant, and efficient operations.
• Leading risk assessments, maintaining risk registers, and reporting significant risks to leadership.
• Overseeing all training requirements, including HSE programs, manufacturing skills matrices, and ABB-mandated training, while coordinating delivery with the Training Coordinator.
  Managing incident reporting, investigations, corrective actions, and trend analysis to drive continuous improvement.
• Supporting environmental, quality, and ISO compliance requirements, while tracking and reporting safety and compliance KPIs to leadership and regulatory bodies.
• Driving behavioural change initiatives and ensuring HSE and compliance capabilities are aligned to best practices and business objectives.

You will join a talented and collaborative team where you can thrive while contributing to a culture of safety, integrity, continuous improvement, and operational excellence.

Qualifications for the role

• Tertiary qualification in Occupational Health & Safety, Environmental Management, Risk Management, Compliance, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in a safety, compliance, or risk management role within a manufacturing or industrial environment.
• Strong knowledge of health and safety legislation, with demonstrated experience conducting incident investigations, audits, inspections, and risk assessments.
• Working knowledge of ISO 45001, ISO 14001, and ISO 9001 management systems.
• Proven success driving behavioural and cultural change initiatives that improve safety performance and organizational capability.
• Demonstrated leadership experience, including stakeholder engagement, talent development, coaching, and performance management.
• Ability to motivate, influence, and support cross-functional teams while building strong relationships at all levels of the organization.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, written, and verbal communication skills. Experience working within a management team environment and contributing to strategic business decisions is highly regarded.

What's in it for you?

• Join ABB's Electrification Service team in Napier, delivering innovative electrical solutions to customers across New Zealand.
• Be part of a safety-first culture focused on operational excellence, customer success, and continuous improvement.
• Play a key role in shaping the site's safety, compliance, and operational performance agenda.
• Collaborate with experienced professionals while contributing to critical infrastructure and sustainable growth.
• Grow your career with a global technology leader committed to innovation, inclusion, and development.

More about us
ABB Critical Power provides energy distribution solutions for data centers, industrial and manufacturing plants, critical infrastructure and commercial buildings. The Division’s technical teams work closely with industry partners, delivering advanced solutions that support rapid growth, energy transition, and sustainability objectives. The Division’s portfolio includes industrial circuit breakers, low-voltage systems, motor starting applications, and safety devices like switches and relays. Its Power Protection unit supports the world’s largest data center companies with advanced energy-efficient UPS solutions. The Division’s ABB Ability™ Energy Manager provides a scalable, easy-to-use platform that helps organizations save energy and reduce CO2 emissions.

Building a cleaner, smarter future takes all kinds of minds: the curious, the courageous, and the creative. That's why we welcome people from all backgrounds and experiences.

Ready to make an impact?

Apply today or visit https://www.abb.com to learn more about the impact of our solutions across the globe.