Manufacturing (Shift) Operations Manager
About the Role
This is not your average Shift Manager role. At Wombourne our Shift Manager sits at the heart of site performance – leading people, driving operational excellence, and owning outcomes across Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, Environment, and People (SQDC). It is a role with real weight, real responsibility, and a salary to match. The position acts as a bridge between a traditional Shift Manager and a Production Manager, managing a team of up to 25 people – including three Team Leaders and a mix of permanent and agency operators – as the senior leader on site out of hours.
Responsibilities include running the Daily Direction Setting (DDS) meeting each morning, presenting the operational picture for the next 24 hours to the wider site team and ensuring everything and everyone is performing to the required standard. A key focus is upskilling Team Leaders and developing the workforce so that the pipeline below you is strong, capable, and ready to step up.
What You’ll Do
- Lead the Daily Operations: Chair the Daily Direction Setting (DDS) meeting – presenting the previous 24 hours and the plan ahead, flagging any material or operational considerations to the wider site team.
- Own Your Team’s Performance: Ensure your Team Leaders and operators are working to the right standard work methods. Make decisions. Solve problems. Do not wait to be told.
- Develop Your People: Create genuine development opportunities for your Team Leaders and operators – with the goal of having someone ready to step into your shoes when the time comes.
- Drive SQDC Performance: Own your metrics across Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, Environment, and People. You are accountable for the full picture, not just production output.
- Collaborate Across the Site: Work closely with Engineering, Food Safety, Quality, Technical, and other functions. The Operations Manager at Wombourne is considered one of the biggest drivers of overall site performance.
- Champion Continuous Improvement: Use lean manufacturing tools to drive efficiency, reduce waste, and embed a culture of improvement within your team.
- Uphold Safety and Compliance: Maintain the highest standards of Health & Food Safety across your shift, ensuring full competence and compliance at all times.
What We’re Looking For
Essential
- Proven people leadership experience – ideally managing larger, multi‑layered teams in a fast‑paced operational environment.
- A track record of making decisions independently and driving results without constant direction from above.
- Technical understanding of manufacturing environments, ideally within food or FMCG – an engineering background or bias is a genuine advantage and something we actively welcome.
- Resilience, energy, and the ability to thrive across a rotating shift pattern (days, nights, and weekends).
- Strong communication skills – you will be presenting, influencing, and collaborating across the site every single day.
- Ambition – we want someone who is looking to grow their career.
Desirable
- Knowledge of Health & Safety requirements within a manufacturing setting.
- Familiarity with Lean Manufacturing, Continuous Improvement, or Managing Daily Improvement (MDI).
- Proficiency in MS Office and SAP Manufacturing.
- Advanced Food Hygiene or HACCP certification.
Your Approach
- You own your patch – you make decisions and take accountability without waiting for permission.
- You lead through others – coaching and developing your team is as important as hitting today’s numbers.
- You are curious and technically minded – you want to understand how things work, not just whether they are working.
- You are ambitious – you are not here to stand still, you are here to grow.
Shift Pattern
2 days on, 1 day off, 2 nights, 3 days off (6am–6pm / 6pm–6am).
Benefits
- Paid overtime.
- Private healthcare (single).
- An excellent salary sacrifice pension scheme – we will contribute double what you do, up to a maximum of 12% of your salary.
- 25 days’ annual leave from day one plus bank holidays (increasing with service), with the option to buy and sell up to 5 days per year.
- Life insurance cover providing peace of mind for you and your family.
- Enhanced maternity and paternity pay.
- Medicash health cash plan – helping you claim money back on everyday healthcare costs, with access to a virtual GP and wellbeing support.
- TELUS Health employee and family assistance programme – full wellbeing support.
- Salary sacrifice cycle to work scheme.
- A paid ‘Chips In’ volunteering day, giving you the opportunity to support projects that make a positive impact in our communities.
About the Site
You will be based at our Wombourne plant in Staffordshire – a close‑knit, high‑engagement site of around 140–145 colleagues, where the production team of 102 people is the engine of everything we do. We produce McCain’s most loved products including potato Smiles, hash browns, rösti, potato pops, air fry hash brown bites, and pre‑baked Jacket Spuds. Across our two production lines we pack up to 100 tonnes of Potato Specialty product and up to 38 tonnes of Bakes product in a single 24‑hour period.
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