Site Operations Manager - Hotel Chocolat : Job Details

As we continue our mission to make people and nature happy through chocolate, we’re looking for a Site Operations Manager to join our Manufacturing team on a permanent basis.

You will be the driving force behind the success of our dynamic chocolate manufacturing site. This is your chance to lead with impact - ensuring the safety, engagement, and wellbeing of our team, whilst overseeing the quality and food safety of every delicious product we produce. With £16m of capital investment over the next 18 months, you will also play a key role in upholding our GMP standards, ensuring excellence across every facet of the operation.

As Site Operations Manager, you will empower your team to thrive by guiding them through a tailored, self-developed balanced scorecard of KPIs, all while achieving critical business objectives and delivering results that matter.

This is a Monday - Friday, full-time position, operating across standard office working hours. There is no expectation to work weekends, however our Factory runs a 7-day-a-week operation, so we do expect this role to work a pattern that provides all teams (including nightshift) the touchpoints they require.

As well as a competitive salary and a range of company benefits including private healthcare cover, enhanced maternity and paternity leave and Company pension contributions, you’ll receive 50% discount on products, and a 70% discount for you and your guests when you stay at our Rabot Estate hideaway on the paradise island of Saint Lucia.

The onsite location for this role is our Factory 'Hadley Park’, in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, right in the heart of where our chocolates are made and where weekly, we can produce between 4 to 6 million of the chocolates we all know and love.

Hadley Park is just 5 minutes off the A141 and 1.3 miles from Huntingdon train station, with direct rail links to Peterborough and London King’s Cross.

What You’ll Be Doing….

Compliance to Safety and Quality Standards

• Accountable for Health and Safety of all colleagues at Hadley Park, working in partnership with the H&S team
• GMP ownership and analysis to drive improvement to business world class standards
• 100% compliance and confidence of company processes and procedures, driving a no-compromise culture for product quality and team behaviour
• Drive a Quality and Food Safety Culture to proactively minimise any risks to customers and colleagues, acting as the main point of contact for all external audits, BRC, ISO etc
• Drive root cause analysis and action plans for non-compliant produce
• Ensure SOPs / CiCs are followed by the team for all parts of the operation and that skills matrices reflect this

Leadership

• Overall P&L responsibility for Hadley Park, understanding logic around costed standards of labour, rate and overhead recovery
• Leadership of the two main business units - Chocolate manufacturing and Velvetiser Hot Chocolate
• Line management of 5 managers, frequently holding 1-2-1’s to monitor performance and development, making sure clear objectives are set and managed, providing clarity and driving accountability
• Developing a strategic labour profile, planning training and resources to minimise labour spikes and skill gaps over a 24-month horizon
• Working alongside your HR partner, ensure team holidays are utilised effectively and drive an accurate absence management process to control attendance within the absence targets set
• Lead the site to achieve its financial goals, driving a CI culture to continuously strive for improvements in production
• Lead Daily Review Meetings and performance meetings across site
• Provide formal communication at all levels, including full site briefings to ensure an engaged workforce at site

Operational responsibilities

• Ownership of daily and weekly plan completion for the site, including being the main supplier for the Pack Area at our Distribution centre in St Neots
• Hold responsibility for the Roast and Conch production area, centre Preparation area, main Production Hall and Velvetiser factory
• Liaise with the planning team to find the most effective and efficient way to deliver demand through daily meetings and forward-looking planning sessions
• Accountable for the Hygiene Function including Mould Wash Room and Line Deep Cleaning
• Deliver the Safety, Quality, Delivery, Control KPIs on time and accurately, focussing on the drive to Behavioural Safety
• Drive the embedding of data into performance metrics to showcase performance and realise opportunities through system deployment and reporting
• Focus on the capital delivery plan to support the automation journey in manufacturing
• Be the primary point of contact for the temporary workforce agency relationship
• Understand the criticality of Temperature management to support product life cycle
• Ensure optimal utilisation of materials and resources through yield and labour control, owning the material variance line on the P&L.

Who You are…

Keeping health and safety front of mind, you are able to produce and provide the products ordered at the right specification and cost to meet the supply target.

You are a motivational leader, able to promote positive culture and navigate teams through effective change initiatives.

You adopt a data-driven approach which enables you to balance and prioritise day-to-day tasks with thorough project delivery.

Essential

• People leadership and Motivation Capability.
• Knowledge and full understanding and adherence of HP GMP standards.
• Knowledge and understanding of Health & Safety standards.
• Knowledge and understanding of Food Hygiene and Food Safety standards, HACCP trained.

Desirable

• Ability to multi-task a number of short and long term priorities, minimising disruption to the operation.
• Managing performance through short interval control systems.
• Facilitate training, development and coaching of the teams to create a future fit workforce.
• Support and engage with a culture of Continuous Improvement to coach and develop team members to perform in their role.