Health and Safety Compliance Manager - Venus

Booker; London; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading food wholesaler is looking for a Health and Safety Advisor to provide expert guidance on health and safety matters. The successful candidate will work closely with the Booker Food Health & Safety team to ensure compliance across all sites. Responsibilities include reviewing safety standards, conducting audits, and supporting continuous improvement initiatives. Candidates should have relevant health and safety qualifications and experience in food safety.

Qualifications

• Experience in a role with health and safety responsibilities.
• Food safety experience.
• Proven ability to build positive relationships with stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Provide expert technical advice on health and safety.
• Lead audits and reviews of safety compliance.
• Support sites to ensure safety and compliance.

Skills

Exceptional delivery through engagement of teams

Ability to work as part of a team and independently

Knowledge of UK health & safety legislation

Health and safety qualification (NEBOSH Level 6)

Food Hygiene qualification – Level 3 and above

Good written and verbal communication

Education

NEBOSH Level 6 National Diploma

Food Hygiene qualification – Level 3

Job description

Overview

In this role you will provide expert, technical advice and leadership on all health and safety matters. You will support the Venus business in identifying and driving improvements that ensure a positive safety culture across the Booker Group and minimise risk to the business.

You will work in the Booker Food, Health & Safety team with a dotted line Head of Venus operations to ensure all Venus locations are fully compliant with legislation and policies across all areas of health and safety, and you will work collaboratively with the audit team, group safety teams and Venus management to monitor and improve safety standards.

You will assess risk to prioritise your time, focusing on issues with the greatest likely impact. Importantly, through the way you work, you will support key stakeholders at all levels in their responsibility for delivering correct, timely outputs.

You will provide guidance to all Venus locations and teams as required; you will play an important role as a subject matter expert for specific, allocated aspects that span all sites, and you will contribute to the development, review and delivery of improvement plans across the business to effectively manage risk.

The role requires appropriately timed responses to issues as well as proactively recognising and driving opportunities for continuous improvement.

Health, Safety and Legal – Site support

• When undertaking visits to sites, review compliance with company policies and procedures, provide expert advice and take action to support improvements where needed.
• Review reported accidents, incidents and near misses, providing expert support to site management in their investigation, where appropriate based on the level of risk.
• Lead the review of RIDDOR investigations to ensure root cause is identified and addressed appropriately.
• Review outputs from site Fire Risk Assessments, providing technical guidance to support the delivery of required actions to address findings, and collaborate with other stakeholders such as Property colleagues where necessary.
• Provide expert advice and support to site management for site-specific controls beyond those in generic risk assessments.
• Review pest activity data and trends, providing specialist advice to sites, regional and property management teams to support improvements to eradicate pest activity.
• Work collaboratively with site and regional management, property colleagues, and pest management contractors to develop robust action plans for sites with complex pest issues.
• Review the performance of pest management contractors against agreed protocols and specifications, taking action and escalating non-compliances identified.
• Review reported enforcement authority contacts and provide expert advice to local management on appropriate actions and responses.
• Lead and manage actions and liaise with enforcement authorities for more complex cases, keeping senior leadership updated as required.
• Review Permit to Work System to ensure it is managed and maintained across all sites through regular auditing.
• Ensure sites have a suitable contractor/visitor induction document and that it is delivered to contractors and visitors through regular monitoring and audits.
• Ensure that COSHH procedures are implemented by sites and maintained to ensure legal compliance.

Analysis and review

• Identify opportunities to amend policies, procedures and training materials to support continual improvement based on site visits, accident investigations, audits, data or other sources.
• Review audit results and data to identify trends. Present findings to site and regional management and provide expert guidance to support improvement plans.
• Manage and review the delivery of services by third parties, taking action where reports indicate intervention is needed.
• Share risk insight with central teams and other key stakeholders to enable robust standards, processes and risk registers.

Continuous improvement

• Support the Lead Food & Safety Compliance Manager and the Head of Food & Safety Compliance in developing, reviewing and delivering the business safety improvement plans.
• Provide expert technical support and advice on specific health and safety aspects across the business, taking the lead as SME for these aspects.
• Collaborate with the training department to review and develop health and safety materials for sites by providing expert guidance on content.
• Work with central teams to provide expert advice on changes to operations, equipment or property that may impact food safety or health and safety.
• Attend and present at meetings as required to support continual improvement of site standards and minimise business risk.

Customer Satisfaction

• Through technical expert advice and leadership, support sites to ensure they are safe and legally compliant, protecting customers from harm.

Cash Profit

• Support the review, development and delivery of improvement plans that reduce costs associated with accidents, incidents and food contamination.
• Work with stakeholders to provide cost-effective, innovative solutions to identified issues or improvement opportunities.

Skills relevant for this job

• Exceptional delivery through engagement of teams and senior leadership.
• Ability to work as part of a team and independently when required.
• Ability to think quickly and make informed decisions at short notice.
• A hunger for continuous improvement.
• Ability to work collaboratively and build relationships to enable effective influencing.
• Knowledge of UK health & safety and food legislation.
• Health and safety qualification e.g. NEBOSH Level 6 National Diploma for Occupational Health and Safety Management Professionals.
• Food Hygiene qualification – Level 3 and above.
• Self-motivation and ability to prioritise activities and organise own work schedule to deliver on time.
• Good written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively with colleagues at all levels.

Experience relevant for this job

• Experience in a role with health and safety responsibilities.
• Food safety experience.
• Food retail/wholesale operations experience.
• Accident investigations experience.
• Consistent delivery of results.
• Proven experience of building positive relationships with business stakeholders.