Goodlife foods - group health & safety manager

Group Health & Safety Manager

Location: Granollers, Spain

Reports to: COO

GoodLife Foods is one of Europe's leading frozen food manufacturers, producing a broad portfolio of branded and private-label products across both retail and foodservice channels. Operating through a network of manufacturing sites across the UK, Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, the Group employs more than 1,700 people and has built a strong market position through a combination of heritage brands, product innovation and strategic acquisitions. The business serves a diverse customer base with products spanning frozen snacks, appetizers, vegetarian and plant-based meals, and convenience foods. GoodLife Foods combines the entrepreneurial spirit of a fast-growing organisation with the operational complexity of a multi-site international manufacturing group.

The Role

The Health & Safety (H&S) Manager is as senior position within the operations function, responsible for developing, implementing, and maintaining all Health & Safety policies across GoodLife Foods' European Organization with a strong focus on the Manufacturing Operations. In this role you are responsible to develop the strategic direction in terms of Health & Safety in the company, the implementation and execution of this strategy is done by this role for the Iberia factories. The Health & Safety Manager in Northern Europe takes care of implementation and execution in the North.

This role is pivotal in shaping a safety-first culture, building robust systems and processes, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. The H&S Manager will lead initiatives that protect employees, reduce risk, and embed safety behaviours into daily operations, ultimately driving a continuous improvement in safety performance. The ultimate goal is to become a zero accident organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement Health & Safety policies, procedures, and life-saving rules across all sites and ensure compliance.
• Lead identification and assessment of risks on the shop floor and drive action plans to mitigate risks through improved processes, PPE standards, safe working practices, and engineering/capex investments.
• Build the fundament for a safety culture, influence and coach Plant Managers, operational leaders, and employees to embed a proactive safety culture.
• Monitor safety performance through metrics (e.g., TRIR) and implement initiatives to achieve year-on-year improvements based on benchmarks and best practices in the industry.
• Perform high quality accident analysis by finding appropriate root causes and identifying effective countermeasures, share learnings across the organization
• Perform and manage safety audits and inspections, making use of facts & evidence to issue recommendations to sustain safety excellence
• Follow actively Health & Safety related legal developments and support legal compliance within the organization
• Lead and/or support the local plant organization in the communication with relevant governmental bodies when required
• Design and deliver training, workshops, and campaigns to raise awareness and competencies in safety practices.
• Actively engage employees at all levels to ensure ownership of safety outcomes.

Key objectives and KPI's to measure and achieve

• Year-on-year measurable decrease in TRIR across all sites.
• Full rollout and adherence to defined life-saving rules, with compliance tracked and reported.
• Completion of regular shopfloor risk assessments with action plans implemented within agreed timelines.
• Demonstrable improvement in safety culture survey scores and observable safety behaviours from leadership and frontline employees.
• Plant Managers and operational leaders actively leading and driving safety initiatives, evidenced by audits and performance reviews.
• Successful execution of capex and process improvement projects that directly improve workplace safety.

Candidate Profile

• 5-7 years of proven leadership experience in operations and Health & safety
• Proven experience in Health & Safety management within a multi plant (international) manufacturing or food production environments.
• Strong knowledge of H&S regulations, risk management frameworks, and best practices.
• Excellent leadership, influencing, and coaching skills to drive cultural change.
• Analytical mindset with ability to interpret safety performance data and translate into improvement actions.
• Strong communication and engagement skills at all levels of the organization.
• Fluent in Dutch and English both spoken and written. Fluency in Spanish is a big plus.
• Flexibility to travel to our sites on a frequent basis. The Spanish factories are located in Granollers (close to Barcelona and the preferred location), Parets, Balsereny, Roales (Zamore) and Almada close to Lisbon in Portugal.