* Experience Years: 5-10 Years of Experience
* Employee Type: Regular
* Remote Type: Onsite
About the Opportunity
This hands-on Head of Technical role is the interface between Driscoll’s and our retailers (customers) ensuring that product supplied by Driscoll’s is in line with our vision and complies with all customer requirements. The role holder will enjoy building strong customer relationships, managing a team, and being a point of escalation for all retailers. Additionally, the role will be responsible for managing a retailer account to support the workload of a small team.
Responsibilities
* Coordinate with the team to accompany retail customer personnel on grower/packhouse visits when required.
* Act as a point of escalation for customers, helping to resolve any issues as efficiently as possible, achieving optimum outcomes for our business, our suppliers, and our customers.
* Be proactive about developing strong, positive relationships with our customers’ senior teams.
* Ensure the team has strong relationships with their commercial counterparts internally to deliver the best outcomes for our customers and suppliers.
* Oversee the preparation of reports for management, supplier, and customer meetings by the team, making your own contribution to the final pack where needed.
* Support marketing and commercial teams with crisis management plans (including media and customer communications) relating to food safety, social, and environmental topics, and execute plans if required.
* Be proactive in working with relevant teams to reduce quality complaints and drive consistency of quality, particularly within our branded business.
* Develop lasting relationships with internal and external stakeholders and leverage these relationships to influence business-critical issues and/or implementations.
* Be the liaison for the department for own label innovation and project work, liaising with growers and stakeholders to gather and transfer all necessary information.
* Review and manage KPIs to ensure continuous improvement by understanding and addressing the root cause of any issues contributing to poor performance against them.
* Use data and knowledge to continually review and improve ways of working.
* Oversee innovation, research, and development in the team, including working with our R&D teams on varietal development and customer acceptance.
In addition to the functional responsibilities of the role, as a Driscoll’s people manager, you are responsible for the employee lifecycle, including:
* Workforce Planning: Aligning the people plan to the business plan.
* Hiring: Find, evaluate, and hire new team members.
* Onboarding: Integrating new employees into the organization.
* Managing: Organize and coordinate activities of a team to achieve defined strategic objectives.
* Development: Partnering with your employees to create a plan to grow in their existing or potential future roles.
* Employee Safety: Ensure both physical and psychological safety in the workplace.
* Off-boarding: Ending an employment relationship.
Candidate Profile
Education, Knowledge, and Experience required for the role:
Professional experience:
* Evidence of extensive experience working in a comparable role, preferably within the soft fruit industry.
* Experience of managing a team.
* Ability to delegate effectively and to follow up as appropriate.
* Ability to work as part of a team with colleagues across professional, operational, and cultural boundaries.
* Ability to identify needs and issues and recommend suitable and pragmatic courses of action and solutions, adopting a risk-aware approach.
Areas of experience:
* Excellent relationship-building skills and experience.
* Excellent organizational skills.
* Excellent communication skills with the ability to adapt to the recipient's needs.
* Ability to multitask and manage time effectively to meet deadlines.
* Food Safety and Product Integrity.
Certifications and Technical skills:
* Good IT skills including experience with Word and Excel.
Experience Managing People (years):
* 5+ years.
About Driscolls
Driscoll's is the global market leader for fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. With more than 100 years of farming heritage and hundreds of independent growers around the world, Driscoll's is passionate about growing fresh, beautiful, and delicious berries. Our values of humility, passion, and trustworthiness have guided our mission to delight consumers around the world.
Driscoll's exclusive patented berry varieties are developed through years of research using only natural breeding methods – meaning no GMOs. From farm-to-table, we focus on delivering a high-quality, premium berry experience with our many supply chain partners.
Driscoll's is the trusted brand for Only the Finest Berries.
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