Production Team Leader

Job Description

About the role:
We’re looking for a Production Team Leader to lead a high-performing team in a fast-paced manufacturing environment. In this role, you will be responsible for delivering key operational KPIs across Safety, Quality, and Tonnage, while ensuring smooth day-to-day production flow, strong shift handovers, and clear team communication.

This is a hands-on leadership role where you will coordinate people, processes, and systems to keep operations running safely, efficiently, and to a high standard. You will also play an important role in driving continuous improvement, supporting team capability, and maintaining compliance across the production area.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the production team during shift to achieve planned output, quality, safety and efficiency targets.
• Ensure all colleagues follow site safety rules, food safety standards, GMP requirements, standard operating procedures and hygiene expectations.
• Organise labour effectively across the production area, ensuring the right people are in the right place to meet production requirements.
• Monitor line performance, downtime, waste, quality concerns and other key measures, escalating issues where required.
• Support production start-ups, shutdowns, changeovers, sanitations and line checks to ensure effective and compliant operation.
• Coach, guide and support team members to build capability, ownership and engagement.
• Complete shift handovers clearly and accurately, ensuring all relevant information is communicated to the next shift and wider leadership team.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement by identifying losses, supporting root cause analysis and encouraging practical improvement ideas.
• Work closely with Quality, Engineering, Planning, EHS and other support functions to resolve operational issues and maintain production flow.
• Ensure production documentation, checks and records are completed accurately, on time and in line with site requirements.
• Support investigations into safety, quality, process or people-related incidents, ensuring corrective actions are followed through.
• Act as a role model for Kraft Heinz values, demonstrating ownership, accountability, integrity and respect in all interactions.

Key Skills and Competencies

• Strong leadership skills with the ability to motivate, direct and support a production team.
• Good understanding of food manufacturing, production processes, GMP and quality standards.
• Excellent communication skills, including confident handovers, escalation and team briefings.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced manufacturing environment and make effective decisions under pressure.
• Strong attention to detail, particularly in relation to safety, quality, documentation and compliance.
• Problem-solving mindset with the ability to identify issues, support root cause analysis and drive corrective actions.
• Good organisational skills with the ability to prioritise workload and manage changing production requirements.
• Positive, professional and approachable manner with a focus on teamwork and continuous improvement.

Location(s)

Kraft Heinz is an Equal Opportunity Employer – Underrepresented Ethnic Minority Groups/Women/Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity and other protected classes.