Mgr, Food Services

Kaiser Permanente; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, California, seeks a Manager, Food Services and Culinary to lead sanitation, procurement, and patient meal operations. You will manage teams, budgets, and vendor relationships to ensure safe, compliant, and timely food service delivery across hospital settings.

The role emphasizes leadership, strategic planning, and adherence to regulatory standards while guiding meal planning, production, and recall management to support optimal patient care and satisfaction.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and minimum four years in food service or related field; relevant experience may substitute.
• Minimum three years in a leadership role with or without direct reports.
• Food Protection Manager Certification or equivalent certification is required or preferred.

Responsibilities

• Leads cross-functional teams, sets goals, coaches for performance improvement.
• Oversees procurement, inventory, labeling, storage, and recalls of food items.
• Manages vendor contracts, performance metrics, and regulatory compliance.
• Ensures safe, sanitary food service operations and patient satisfaction.

Skills

Ambiguity/Uncertainty Management

Attention to Detail

Leadership

Communication

Problem Solving

Food Service Operations

Strategic Thinking

Team Building

Vendor Management

Time Management

Education

Bachelor's degree in a related field

Master's degree (preferred)

Tools

Microsoft Office

Job description

Job Summary:

Holds teams accountable to complete cleaning/sanitary logs and updates company standards to meet regulatory and compliance guidelines; leads communications to ensures vendor contracts are in place, oversees vendor performance metrics, and confirms service delivery is safe, sanitary, supports patient satisfaction, and is compliant with vendor agreements and regulatory standards; updates monthly budgets, and manages processes related to the procurement, inventory management, labeling, storage, utilization, and recall of perishable and nonperishable food items; guides team and leads the assembly of patient meal trays and delivery/catering of food; contributes to the development of workplans to ensure food supply, delivery, and services are efficiently maintained during times of crisis or emergency; and analyzes escalated or high-priority patient responses to quality control survey questions with advanced knowledge of quality metrics to lead initiatives that improve food service operations and the patient care experience.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Provides developmental opportunities for others; builds collaborative, cross-functional relationships. Solicits and acts on performance feedback; works closely with employees to set goals and provide open feedback and coaching to drive performance improvement. Pursues professional growth; develops and provides training and development for talent for growth opportunities; supports execution of performance management guidelines and expectations. Leads, adapts, implements, and stays up to date with organizational change, challenges, feedback, best practices, processes, and industry trends. Fosters open dialogue amongst team members, engages, motivates, and promotes collaboration within and across teams. Delegates tasks and decisions as appropriate; provides appropriate support, guidance, and scope; encourages development and consideration of options in decision making.

• Manages designated work unit or team by translating business plans into tactical action items; oversees the completion of work assignments and identifies opportunities for improvement; ensures all policies and procedures are followed. Aligns team efforts; builds accountability for and measuring progress in achieving results; determines and ensures processes and methodologies are implemented; resolves escalated issues as appropriate; sets standards and measures progress. Fosters the development of work plans to meet business priorities and deadlines; obtains and distributes resources. Removes obstacles that impact performance; identifies and addresses improvement opportunities; guides performance and develops contingency plans accordingly; influences teams to execute in alignment with operational objectives.

• Contributes to sanitation and maintenance of food services work areas and equipment by: holding teams accountable by tracking and reviewing cleaning and sanitizing logs to ensure duties are performed according to company standards, and monitoring equipment problems and reviewing replacement requests to ensure such needs do not exceed budget.

• Contributes to sanitation and maintenance of food services work areas and equipment by: leading strategic communications with vendors to ensure vendor contracts are in place; establishing relationships with vendors to ensure they are providing services consistent with vendor agreements, regulatory compliance standards; and overseeing vendor metrics to ensure service delivery is compliant, safe, sanitary, and supports patient satisfaction.

• Contributes to food procurement, storage, and distribution by: managing the team receiving, verifying, and storing of delivery items, managing inventory usage to ensure it is within established utilization levels, and ensuring procurement costs remain within budget; leading the team to maintain stock levels at food stations, in work areas, and is updating inventory with out-of-stock items; and monitoring loss and decay logs due to inaccurate labeling and storage of perishable items, and updating the procurement budgets as needed.

• Contributes to food recall management by: documenting and managing the return of food that has been recalled or is at risk of contamination; and communicating or advising others on communications to patients and staff about ongoing updates or actions being taken to resolve food recall issues.

• Contributes to meal planning, preparation, and production by: guiding team to prepare menu/meal items by assisting cooking staff, according to standardized recipes and/or directions and providing support for other team members, and overseeing regulatory and budget adherence; creating safety checks to ensure food is prepared in a safe manner, according to food preparation standards, and is safe for patients; and leading the team assembling patient meal trays and cafeteria and/or catering services, and overseeing the team through the catering of food items according to scheduled mealtimes.

• Contributes to emergency planning by: contributing to the development of workplans that ensure food supply, delivery, and services are efficiently maintained during times of crisis or emergency.

• Serves customers and patients by: monitoring team members, customer/patient interactions, and addresses highly sensitive service recovery issues; providing guidance across unit based teams to support food service and delivery operations that help the business unit deliver quality care; analyzing escalated or high-priority patient responses to quality control survey questions, guides the submission of relevant quality control reporting, and demonstrates advanced knowledge of metrics used to assess quality control and quality performance and how they affect other fields across the sub-function; leading efforts to reduce critical control points to acceptable levels to acceptable levels and improve the care experience; and leading the implementation of quality control initiatives on the team and prioritizing improvement recommendations for customer and patient services.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: (Core)

• Ambiguity/Uncertainty Management

• Attention to Detail

• Business Knowledge

• Communication

• Constructive Feedback

• Critical Thinking

• Cross-Group Collaboration

• Decision Making

• Dependability

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Support

• Drives Results

• Facilitation Skills

• Health Care Industry

• Influencing Others

• Integrity

• Leadership

• Learning Agility

• Organizational Savvy

• Problem Solving

• Short- and Long-term Learning & Recall

• Strategic Thinking

• Team Building

• Teamwork

• Topic-Specific Communication

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: (Functional)

• Accountability

• Adaptability

• Applied Data Analysis

• Clinical Nutrition

• Collaborative Innovation

• Commercial Customer Quality

• Computer Literacy

• Deadline Oriented

• Delegation

• Emergency Preparedness

• English Language Proficiency

• Event Management

• Food Quantity and Preparation

• Food Service Operations

• Goal Setting

• Interpersonal Skills

• Kitchen Equipment Operations

• Mathematical and Statistical Computation

• Nutrition Care Standards

• Organizational Skills

• Procurement and Contracting

• Project Management

• Service Focus

• Stakeholder Management

• Stress Tolerance

• Sustainability

• Time Management

• Vendor Management

  Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree AND minimum four (4) years of experience in food service or a directly related field. Additional equivalent work experience in a directly related field may be substituted for the degree requirement. Relevant Masters degrees may be substituted for a portion of the work experience requirements.

• Minimum three (3) years of experience in a leadership role with or without direct reports.

• Minimum two (2) years of experience with PC based tools, Microsoft Office applications, Web-based applications.

• Food Protection Manager Certification from Learn 2 Serve OR ServSafe Manager Certification OR International Certified Food Safety Manager from National Registry of Food Safety Professionals OR Food Protection Manager Certification from My Food Service License OR Food Protection Manager Certification from World Food Safety Organization OR Food Safety Manager Certification from National Registry of Food Safety Professionals OR Food Protection Manager Certification from State Food Safety OR Food Protection Manager Certification from AAA Food Handler OR Food Manager Certification from EduClasses OR Food Protection Manager Certification from Responsible Training OR Food Manager Certification from Always Food Safe OR Food Protection Manager Certification from Trust20

Preferred Qualifications:

• Two (2) years of supervisory experience with direct reports.

• Master's degree from an accredited college or university.

COMPANY: KAISER

TITLE: Manager, Food Services and Culinary

LOCATION: San Diego, California

REQNUMBER: 1436655

External hires must pass a background check/drug screen. Qualified applicants with arrest and/or conviction records will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with Federal, state and local laws, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran, or disability status.