SHE Specialist

Job description

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections, where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters. The PositionThe Opportunity At Roche, we believe care should start before disease takes hold. In this critical role based at our Cape Town site, you will serve as a vital technical advisor and legislative interpreter to protect our most valuable human, reputational, and operational resources. You will balance field-based hazard control with high-level knowledge transformation, synthesizing complex regulatory requirements into actionable guidance to advance employee well-being, safety, and long-term organizational stability. Your Impact - Conduct routine safety audits, facility assessments, and vendor inspections to ensure strict compliance with local occupational health and safety legislation and global directives. - Facilitate daily operational risk assessments and document standardized Workplace Health Risk Assessments (WHRA) across active production floors and laboratory zones. - Monitor and analyze safety metrics, tracking leading and lagging indicators to proactively predict risk and design continuous mitigation strategies. - Deliver engaging safety orientations, inductions, and e-courses, effectively translating technical regulatory compliance content into accessible learning for all personnel. - Support the implementation of Injury, Illness and Prevention Programs (IIPPs), emergency action setups, and specialized site first-responder protocols. - Partner closely with site management and People & Culture during root-cause incident investigations, managing data tracking, claim documentation, and return-to-work initiatives. - Maintain mandatory compliance logs, ensure safety data sheets remain current, and design highly visual safety dashboards that convey hazard levels at a glance. Who You Are You are an analytical, collaborative, and forward-thinking safety professional who uses excellent judgment to resolve complex technical challenges. You bring a natural diplomat with superior communication skills, able to navigate sensitive inquiries with tact and build trusted relationships across all organizational levels. To set yourself up for success, you bring: - Education: A Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Health and Safety, Environmental Sciences, Engineering, Industrial Hygiene, or a related scientific discipline. A postgraduate qualification is considered an advantage. - Experience: 3 to 7 years of safety experience gained within a production or manufacturing environment. Direct exposure to pharmaceutical or biotechnology manufacturing environments is highly advantageous. - Regulatory Expertise: Explicit knowledge of national health and safety legislation (such as the OSHAct), risk assessment methodologies, and safety data protocols. - Specialized Safety Knowledge: A foundational understanding of Biosafety Levels (BSL-1 through BSL-3), industrial hygiene principles (air monitoring, fume hoods, noise levels), and chemical hygiene practices. - Operational Agility: Strong digital literacy (Microsoft Office and safety databases). You are physically comfortable navigating a large campus, wearing required protective equipment, and working around specialized environments like cold rooms or laboratories. Let’s thrive together in a culture built on trust, collaboration, respect, and high performance. Who we areA healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact. Let’s build a healthier future, together. Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.