Operations Manager

html Job Description

Position Summary:

The Operations Manager will lead a team responsible for the full underground infrastructure spectrum serving a shared base of utility, telecom, and municipal clients across distinct geographic territories (Southwestern and Eastern Ontario). Given this scale and complexity, the role calls for a leader who has operated at the level of a $20M+ business — someone comfortable owning operational and financial performance across multiple crews, service lines, and sites, not just a single department or project.

The Operations Manager maintains a broad view across the company's departments, active work, and upcoming opportunities; establishes operational priorities; addresses performance or capacity concerns; and ensures larger, higher-value, or higher-risk projects receive the planning, coordination, and management oversight required for successful delivery. This role requires a practical, technically credible leader who can connect estimating, departmental execution, and project performance with company-level priorities. The Operations Manager ensures operational risks, resource requirements, and performance concerns are identified and addressed before they affect safety, customers, schedules, quality, or profitability.

Key Responsibilities

• Daily Operational Leadership:
  • Lead and coordinate the daily operations of departmental Field/Crew Supervisors.
  • Translate the General Manager's operational priorities into clear work plans, expectations, and accountabilities for Site/Crew Supervisors.
  • Maintain visibility across active projects, service work, crews, and operational commitments across both entities to ensure work is progressing as planned.
  • Balance priorities across departments and companies, and make timely decisions regarding labour, equipment, materials, scheduling, and operational support.
  • Identify operational risks, bottlenecks, and capacity concerns; direct appropriate solutions; and keep the General Manager informed of significant issues, emerging risks, and decisions requiring further approval.
  • Ensure effective coordination between field operations and administrative, estimating, dispatch, sales, finance, and shared service functions, as applicable.
• Operational Team Leadership & Accountability:
  • Provide direct leadership, direction, coaching, and performance management to Site/Crew Supervisors and Estimators across divisions.
  • Establish clear expectations for departmental performance, estimating accuracy, safety, quality, productivity, customer service, documentation, communication, and people leadership.
  • Conduct regular operational and performance reviews to assess workload, capacity, project requirements, estimating activity, results, risks, and departmental priorities.
  • Hold direct reports accountable for meeting established expectations and ensure performance concerns are addressed promptly and effectively.
  • Support leaders in resolving complex employee, customer, technical, scheduling, estimating, and operational matters.
  • Identify leadership and technical development needs and support succession planning across operational departments.
• Project Oversight and Execution:
  • Provide management oversight for larger, higher-value, higher-risk, or operationally complex projects requiring coordination beyond routine supervision — including emergency storm restoration work.
  • Ensure significant projects have appropriate execution strategies, schedules, budgets, staffing plans, procurement considerations, risk controls, and reporting requirements.
  • Establish project-performance expectations and hold operational leaders accountable for delivery against approved scope, schedule, budget, quality, safety, and customer commitments.
  • Evaluate project performance at key stages, identify significant variances or emerging risks, and direct recovery or corrective-action plans where required.
  • Coordinate cross-department and cross-company priorities and resolve higher-level resource, scheduling, customer, subcontractor, or operational conflicts affecting project delivery.
  • Provide operational direction on significant scope changes, project challenges, and customer escalations, involving the General Manager where appropriate.
  • Ensure effective project closeout, financial and operational review, and application of lessons learned to future estimating and execution.
• Operational Capacity & Workforce Planning:
  • Assess current and upcoming workload and develop short- and medium-term workforce and resource plans with Site/Crew Supervisors and the General Manager.
  • Monitor labour utilization, overtime, capacity, scheduling gaps, and productivity, and take action to improve operational effectiveness.
  • Set cross-department resource priorities and ensure operational leaders coordinate workforce, equipment, subcontractor, and scheduling requirements effectively.
  • Lead or participate in recruitment and selection for operational leadership, estimating, and field positions and ensure effective onboarding and deployment of new employees.
  • Work with Site/Crew Supervisors and HR to address attendance, performance, conduct, training, and workforce development needs.
  • Ensure operational decisions support employee competency, appropriate supervision, and sustainable workloads.
• Estimating & Pre-Execution Planning:
  • Lead the estimating function across both companies and hold Estimators accountable for timely, accurate, complete, and commercially sound estimates.
  • Establish consistent estimating, bid-review, documentation, and approval practices appropriate to each company.
  • Review significant, complex, or higher-risk opportunities to assess scope, pricing, resource requirements, execution strategy, schedule, and operational risk before submission.
  • Ensure estimating decisions reflect current labour capacity, productivity expectations, material and subcontractor requirements, and operational capabilities.
  • Ensure an effective handoff from estimating to operations, with clear communication of scope, assumptions, exclusions, budget, schedule, commitments, and identified risks.
  • Compare estimated and actual project performance and direct improvements to estimating assumptions, cost information, and future work planning.
• Safety, Quality & Compliance:
  • Champion a strong safety culture and hold Site/Crew Supervisors accountable for safe work practices, hazard control, inspections, meetings, documentation, and corrective actions.
  • Support a single, harmonized H&S management system across divisions, respecting activity-specific requirements.
  • Maintain regular field presence to verify compliance with company policies, occupational health and safety legislation, codes, procedures, and client requirements, including high-risk activities such as confined space, rock drilling, marine/barging operations, and live utility work.
  • Ensure compliance with Ontario OHSA requirements, WSIB obligations, and utility-specific contractor safety prequalification standards.
  • Ensure work is executed in accordance with approved scope, drawings, specifications, permits, technical standards, and quality expectations.
  • Review serious incidents, near misses, quality failures, deficiencies, and recurring concerns with Site/Crew Supervisors and shared service leaders.
  • Ensure corrective actions are assigned, completed, verified, and communicated appropriately.
  • Escalate material safety, quality, environmental, regulatory, or operational risks to the General Manager and appropriate shared service leader.
• Operational & Financial Performance:
  • Monitor operational performance indicators including productivity, labour utilization, overtime, schedule adherence, rework, callbacks, equipment use, and work completion across both entities.
  • Review job or departmental performance with the General Manager and provide accurate explanations of variances, risks, and corrective actions.
  • Support cost control by ensuring labour, materials, equipment, and subcontracted resources are planned and used effectively.
  • Identify preventable operational costs, recurring inefficiencies, and opportunities to improve margin and service delivery, including cost synergies such as shared procurement and equipment utilization.
  • Ensure field time, work records, purchase information, change documentation, and other operational records are completed accurately and on time.
• Customer & Stakeholder Coordination:
  • Support Site/Crew Supervisors in maintaining professional communication with customers, contractors, consultants, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
  • Help maintain and grow key relationships across service territories.
  • Respond to escalated operational or service concerns and coordinate timely, practical resolution.
  • Ensure operational commitments are realistic, communicated clearly, and delivered consistently.
  • Maintain effective communication with the General Manager regarding significant customer concerns, project risks, and operational commitments.
  • Represent the company professionally during site meetings, operational reviews, and customer discussions as required.
• Reporting & Continuous Improvement:
  • Provide regular operational reporting to the General Manager regarding workload, staffing, project and service performance, safety, quality, capacity, and material risks.
  • Use operational data and field observations to identify trends, recurring issues, and improvement opportunities.
  • Develop and implement practical improvements to scheduling, planning, communication, documentation, field processes, and resource use.
  • Promote consistency and accountability across both companies while recognizing legitimate technical and workflow differences.
  • Ensure lessons learned are communicated and incorporated into future planning and execution.

Key Performance Indicators:

• Operational performance vs. revenue and margin targets across both entities.
• H&S performance (incident rate, near-miss reporting, zero lost-time targets) across both companies.
• Cross-referral activity generated between divisions within the portfolio.
• Equipment/fleet utilization rates.
• Client retention and satisfaction.
• On-time, on-budget project delivery.

Education & Qualifications:

• Post-secondary education in Construction Management, Operations Management, Engineering Technology, Business Administration, a skilled trade, or a related discipline is preferred; an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience may be considered.
• Minimum 10 years of progressive experience in construction, skilled trades, field services, industrial operations, or a similarly complex operational environment, including significant leadership responsibility.
• Demonstrated experience operating with P&L or budget accountability for a business or division in the $20M+ annual revenue range, ideally spanning multiple crews, sites, or service lines.
• Proven operations experience in underground utility construction, drilling, or heavy civil contracting.
• Current or previous trade qualification, license, apprenticeship training, or other directly relevant technical background is strongly preferred; the credential does not need to be current where the candidate demonstrates appropriate technical knowledge and experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading supervisors or multiple field teams across concurrent projects, service work, or operational priorities, and coordinating shared resources across business units.
• Strong understanding of workforce planning, scheduling, productivity, quality management, safety requirements, and field execution.
• Ability to interpret drawings, specifications, scopes of work, technical documents, schedules, and operational or job-cost information relevant to the assigned business.
• Strong working knowledge of Ontario OHSA requirements and utility contractor safety prequalification standards.
• Valid Ontario G-Class driver's licence and clean driver's abstract.
• Relevant safety certifications, such as Working at Heights, WHMIS, and First Aid, are required or must be obtained based on the operating environment.

Desirable:

• Existing relationships with Ontario utility providers or municipalities.
• CRSP or equivalent H&S qualification.
• Experience integrating or managing sister/affiliated companies.

Core Competencies:

• Operational Leadership: Coordinates complex daily operations across multiple sites and companies, and holds supervisors accountable for safe, efficient execution.
• Commercial Acumen: Has operated with P&L or budget accountability at $20M+ scale and understands how field-level decisions roll up to company financial performance.
• Technical Credibility: Applies relevant field and trade knowledge to evaluate risks, challenge plans, and support sound decisions.
• Planning & Prioritization: Balances competing demands and aligns labour, materials, equipment, and schedules with operational commitments.
• People Leadership: Coaches Site/Crew Supervisors, addresses performance concerns, and strengthens leadership capability.
• Project & Service Oversight: Maintains overall accountability for work performance while enabling supervisors to lead daily execution.
• Financial Awareness: Understands how operational decisions affect cost, productivity, margin, and company performance.
• Safety & Quality Leadership: Sets clear expectations, verifies compliance, and ensures corrective actions are completed.
• Problem Solving: Anticipates issues, makes timely decisions, and escalates significant risks appropriately.
• Communication: Maintains clear, professional communication with field teams, management, customers, and support functions.
• Accountability: Takes ownership of operational results and follows issues through to resolution.

Working Conditions:

• This is an operational leadership role requiring regular presence at company locations, active project sites, and field operations across Southwestern and Eastern Ontario.
• The role combines office-based planning, meetings, reporting, and analysis with frequent field visibility and site inspections.
• Travel between projects, departments, customer sites, and company locations is required.
• May be required to work extended or non-standard hours in response to operational demands, urgent service issues, project requirements, or significant incidents.
• Work may occur in active construction, utility, marine/waterfront, and outdoor environments, depending on the assigned company.

Note: The above key responsibilities are not exhaustive, and additional duties may be assigned as needed to meet the demands of the position and the organization.