Public Engagement Advisor

Job Summary

This position is responsible for enhancing the City of Saskatoon’s public engagement framework and leading strategic public engagement activities.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Develops, maintains, evaluates, and continuously improves the effectiveness of public engagement procedures, processes, and tools.
• Supports senior leaders and project teams in the development, execution, and reporting of public engagement strategies and plans for key City initiatives.
• Develops and lead the implementation of a public engagement training program for City management and staff.
• Develops, implements, and manages a strategy to track stakeholder and rightsholder engagement, including managing concerns and mitigating issues.
• Identifies and addresses systemic barriers to public engagement.
• Administers advisory groups that reflect Saskatoon’s diverse community, as needed.
• Develops and manage a comprehensive online engagement strategy.
• Provides statistical advice and evaluation to qualitative and quantitative research, survey design, data analysis, and reporting.
• Builds relationships and partnerships with community groups and other organizations to support mutually beneficial public engagement outcomes.
• Assists in researching, developing, and implementing new processes, techniques, tools, and policies to support organizational engagement activities.
• Explores external grant opportunities for supporting improvements to the public engagement framework.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in one of the following fields: Human/Social Sciences, Education, Planning, Business or related field. A Master’s Degree would be an asset.
• Six years of related experience in a public engagement or community consultation role combined with experience in stakeholder management, project management, and strategic communications.
• Ability to obtain the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) certificate or similar training.
• Experience in a variety of public engagement functions, including designing and implementing engagement processes and programs.
• Experience helping people work together.
• Experience leading and managing change, building organizational talent, and empowering people to achieve outcomes.
• Experience in research and analytics.
• Experience with community capacity building, fostering agency support and building relationships and strategic partnerships.
• Experience writing professional reports and presenting to an audience.
• Considerable knowledge of emerging engagement techniques.
• Demonstrated ability to deal with issues management and conflict resolution in a political environment.
• Knowledge of the diversity of Saskatoon’s communities.
• Experience building relationships and working with a diverse range of people.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality while handling sensitive information.