Manager, Immunohematology Reference Lab

About the role

The Manager, Consultation & Reference (C&R) Laboratory oversees the day-to-day operations and ensures the delivery of safe, accurate, timely, and high-quality laboratory services. Reporting to the Director, this role provides operational and technical leadership for laboratory operations, staff performance, quality and regulatory compliance, competency, customer service, resource management, and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Laboratory Operations & Quality
  • Manages daily C&R Laboratory operations, ensuring safe, accurate, timely, efficient, and compliant service delivery.
  • Safeguards appropriate staffing, scheduling, workflow, workload distribution, and operational coverage across multiple shifts.
  • Maintains compliance with applicable FDA, AABB, CLIA, OSHA, accreditation, and organizational requirements.
  • Maintains effective quality control and quality assurance practices and ensures appropriate investigation, documentation, escalation, and resolution of quality events.
  • Maintains effective relationships with hospitals, healthcare providers, internal departments, and other C&R customers.
  • Supports regulatory inspections, accreditation surveys, audits, and internal assessments and ensures findings are appropriately addressed.
• Technical & Competency Management
  • Provides technical and operational leadership to laboratory staff and ensures required qualifications, training, and competency are maintained.
  • Oversees initial and ongoing competency assessments and addresses identified skill or training gaps.
  • Partners with the Medical Director and appropriate technical leaders on complex laboratory, quality, and patient-care matters.
  • Serves as a key liaison with the Medical Director, internal departments, and external customers.
  • Communicates technical results and recommendations to hospital blood banks, physicians, and transfusion services.
• People Leadership
  • Directly supervises, coaches, and develops laboratory staff and establishes clear performance expectations, goals, and accountability.
  • Serves as a key liaison with the Medical Director and other departments to support coordinated, high-quality service delivery.
  • Supports onboarding, training, performance management, employee engagement, retention, and professional development.
  • Identifies staffing, capability, and succession needs and supports development of a strong technical workforce.
  • Promotes a culture of teamwork, accountability, professionalism, safety, and continuous learning.
• Customer & Interdepartmental Relations
  • Maintains effective relationships with hospitals, healthcare providers, internal departments, and other C&R customers.
  • Serves as a point of escalation for customer, operational, and technical issues and ensures timely resolution.
  • Communicates laboratory capabilities, service expectations, requirements, and changes to relevant stakeholders.
• Resource & Performance Management
  • Supports preparation and monitoring of the annual C&R Laboratory budget and promotes responsible use of departmental resources.
  • Provides input into staffing, equipment, supplies, technology, and other resource requirements.
  • Compiles, reviews, and reports laboratory operational and quality statistics and uses data to identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities.
  • Provides regular updates to leadership on laboratory performance, staffing, quality, customer service, and operational issues.
• Continuous Improvement & Compliance
  • Identifies and implements opportunities to improve laboratory processes, workflow, quality, turnaround time, customer service, and operational efficiency.
  • Participates in investigations, root-cause analysis, corrective and preventive actions, and other quality improvement activities.
  • Promotes a culture in which employees identify and appropriately escalate quality, safety, and compliance concerns.
  • Ensures employees understand and comply with organizational policies, laboratory procedures, safety requirements, confidentiality, EEO, and other applicable organizational standards.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Medical Laboratory Science, Clinical Laboratory Science, Biomedical Science, Biology, or a related scientific/healthcare discipline OR Advanced degree in Healthcare Administration, Business Administration, Laboratory Management, or a related discipline preferred.
• 6 – 10 years of progressively responsible laboratory experience, preferably within a blood bank, transfusion service, reference laboratory, hospital laboratory, or similarly regulated laboratory environment.
• 5 - 10 years of supervisory or management experience preferred.
• Demonstrated experience supervising laboratory personnel and managing day-to-day laboratory operations.
• Demonstrated knowledge of laboratory quality management and regulatory requirements.
• Experience with quality investigations, corrective actions, audits, inspections, or accreditation activities.
• Experience with laboratory metrics, workload management, staffing, and resource planning.
• Experience working collaboratively with medical leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Current professional certification appropriate to the laboratory discipline, specifically certification as a Specialist in Blood Banking (SBB) or international equivalent, as required by the position and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Maintains all required certifications, licenses, registrations, and continuing education requirements.