Director, Safety & Compliance

Busy Bees North America is a fast-growing early childhood education organization operating 270 centers across the United States and Canada. Busy Bees aims to be the employer of choice in every market where we operate. We know that our people are critical in giving children their best start in life delivering a rich learning experience in a safe environment.

We Thrive Together - At Busy Bees North America we show up for each other. We are one team built on collaboration trust respect and support. Together we create a place where our team members feel valued and set up for success. We empower and support each other to do our best work. When our team thrives our children and families thrive.

Job Summary

The Director of Safety Compliance & Safeguarding (North America) provides strategic leadership for safeguarding child protection regulatory compliance health and safety and enterprise risk management across all operations in Canada and the United States.

Reporting to the VP of Safety & Compliance this executive leadership role is responsible for developing and driving a consistent North American framework that ensures every school centre acquisition and new development operates to the same high standards of safety compliance operational excellence and child Director leads the North American Safety Audit Team consisting of nine direct reports and is accountable for overseeing all safety audits regulatory matters and corrective action planning. The role partners closely with Operations Human Resources Legal Licensing Facilities Development and Executive Leadership to proactively identify and mitigate risk while fostering a culture of accountability transparency and continuous improvement

Safeguarding & Child Protection

Lead the organizations safeguarding framework across all North American operations.

Develop and maintain safeguarding policies standards and procedures.

Ensure consistent implementation of child protection practices supervision standards and mandatory reporting requirements across all jurisdictions.

Monitor safeguarding trends and identify systemic risks requiring organizational action.

Lead enterprise-wide corrective action planning following serious regulatory visits.

Compliance & Regulatory Oversight

Provide oversight of compliance with all provincial state federal licensing accreditation and organizational requirements.

Develop enterprise-wide compliance monitoring systems and audit programs.

Conduct operational compliance reviews and risk assessments across all locations.

Support centres during licensing inspections investigations corrective actions and regulatory reviews.

Monitor legislative and regulatory changes and implement organizational responses.

Safety Audit Management

Lead and oversee the management training calibration and performance of a team of nine field-based Auditors responsible for conducting routine audits across assigned centres.

Establish and maintain consistent audit standards tools protocols scoring methodologies and documentation practices to ensure reliable and objective assessment of safety health and compliance requirements across all centres.

Develop and maintain a centralized system for audit documentation findings corrective action plans supporting evidence and historical records to ensure accessibility data integrity and appropriate record retention.

Analyze audit results to identify recurring findings emerging risks regional and organizational trends repeat deficiencies and opportunities for systemic improvement.

Establish processes for timely escalation of critical or high-risk findings and partner with Operations and other key stakeholders to ensure appropriate corrective actions are implemented documented and sustained.

Develop and report key audit metrics and trends to leadership and cross-functional partners including audit completion risk levels recurring findings corrective action closure and overall performance trends.

Regularly evaluate and enhance the Safety Audits based on trends regulatory changes organizational growth and lessons learned to ensure the program remains effective.

Health Safety & Enterprise Risk

Lead enterprise-wide health and safety initiatives across all schools centres offices and support functions.

Develop organizational emergency preparedness crisis management and business continuity strategies.

Monitor incident trends and implement proactive risk reduction initiatives.

Oversee safety programs related to supervision transportation visitor management physical security playground safety and emergency response.

Lead enterprise risk assessments and organizational mitigation strategies.

Drive enterprise-wide consistency in safeguarding compliance documentation and operational procedures.

Bachelors degree in early childhood education Business or a related field preferred.

5 years of progressive experience in early childhood education safety compliance quality assurance operations or a related field.

Experience leading audit compliance safety or risk-management programs across multiple locations.

Strong knowledge of childcare licensing health and safety requirements incident management and regulatory compliance.

Experience leading and developing teams managing competing priorities and partnering effectively with operational leadership.

Demonstrated ability to interpret regulations identify risk analyze trends and develop corrective and preventative actions.

Unwavering commitment to child safety and safeguarding.

Strategic thinker with the ability to balance operational realities and enterprise risk.

High emotional intelligence and sound judgment.

Exceptional integrity and ethical leadership.

Calm and decisive during crises.

Collaborative leader who builds strong cross-functional partnerships.

Passion for continuous improvement accountability and operational excellence.

Demonstrated ability to lead organizational change across complex multi-jurisdictional environments.

Ability to travel frequently including overnight travel.

Ability to walk stand bend stoop and move in a variety of environments

Ability to occasionally lift or carry materials or equipment weighing up to 25 pounds.

Ability to work at a computer for extended periods of time.

Must be able to meet applicable background screening.