Health & Safety Lead

Join Our Pack

From a bold idea to revolutionising dog food, Years has grown into a fast-scaling business dedicated to helping dogs live longer, healthier lives.

In just 3 years, we've built a great start up business, serving thousands of happy customers, all while striving to achieve our mission.

Our goal? To give dog owners a better, fresher, and healthier way to feed their pets. We provide human cut, personalised meals designed to support each dog’s unique needs, delivered straight to their door, no preservatives, no compromises, just real nutrition.

You can find our customers across the UK, with future ambitions to scale internationally and continue transforming how people care for their dogs.

Your Mission

You’ll join Years at a pivotal moment for our operations. As we scale production, we need to build the health, safety, and engineering safety foundations that will carry us through SALSA accreditation, while keeping our baseline APHA approval secure. Today, our safety documentation, training records, and audit readiness are being built from the ground up, and you’ll be the person who takes us from ad hoc to airtight, working hands‑on across production, hygiene, maintenance, and engineering.

You’ll report directly to our CEO giving you direct senior visibility and backing as you establish this function, and direct accountability with shift managers, engineering, and site leadership to close out actions. You’ll work hand‑in‑hand with our external H&S partner, who bring specialist audit and technical support. You’ll lead H&S ensuring ways of working are embedded and become day‑to‑day practice on site, so the systems and training stick long after any audit visit. You’ll also work closely with People & Culture on inductions and new starter training, and with production planning to schedule training without disrupting output.

This is a genuinely hands‑on role in its first phase, you’ll be writing SOPs, delivering training directly on the floor, and building our compliance and competency matrix yourself, not managing a team of H&S professionals from a distance. We know SALSA‑readiness is a big lift, so we don’t expect this to happen overnight; we’ll work with you and internal and external stakeholders to set a realistic pace as you ramp up. But it’s also the foundation for something bigger: once we’re legally and operationally airtight in manufacturing, we’ll look to you to help embed great ways of working right across the business, both operational and non‑operational.

Key Responsibilities

Documentation & Accreditation

• Author, review and standardise SOPs and Safe Systems of Work (SSOWs) across production, hygiene and maintenance.
• Work towards ensuring all safety and operational documentation meets the standard required for SALSA accreditation while maintaining baseline APHA approval.
• Conduct and manage risk assessments (general, machinery/PUWER, COSHH, manual handling), ensuring actions are assigned and closed out.
• Own the near‑miss reporting process: logging incidents, reviewing trends, and following through on preventative action.

Stakeholder & Project Management

• Chair regular site H&S meetings, with clear agendas, action logs and accountability across departments.
• Project‑manage key stakeholders (shift managers, engineering, hygiene, site leadership) to ensure compliance tasks, safety actions and audit findings are completed on time.
• Coordinate with stakeholders to book training into production scheduling, ensuring it’s delivered without disrupting output.
• Act as the main point of contact for our external H&S partner, driving their recommendations and audit actions through to completion.

Training & Competency

• Deliver practical, on‑the‑floor training on new and updated SOPs/SSOWs to operators, shift leads and contractors.
• Own and maintain the site training and compliance matrix, tracking completion, renewal dates and expiry alerts, with clear audit‑ready trails for SALSA, APHA and internal reviews.
• Maintain accurate training records and certificates (manual handling, COSHH, forklift, etc.) ready for external audit at any time.
• Proactively schedule refresher training and requalification (first aid, fire marshal, forklift, food safety) ahead of expiry.
• Source and manage external training providers where in‑house delivery isn’t suitable, within budget.
• Track new starter training through probation, ensuring mandatory H&S training is signed off before lone working or higher‑risk tasks.
• Deliver H&S and site safety inductions for all new hires, temporary workers and contractors.

What You’ll Bring

• NEBOSH General Certificate (essential). IOSH Managing Safely may be considered instead only where paired with strong, demonstrable hands‑on experience of machinery risk assessment (PUWER) and COSHH. Train‑the‑Trainer or project management exposure is a plus.
• Experience in a fast‑paced manufacturing environment, comfortable with frequent change and evolving training needs; food manufacturing or SALSA/APHA‑regulated experience is a strong advantage.
• A project‑management mindset: you track tasks to closure, influence stakeholders across departments and write clear, precise documentation.
• Solid technical grounding in COSHH, PUWER, machinery safety, manual handling and audit‑ready documentation practices.
• Comfortable being hands‑on: this role is as much about being on the floor delivering training and chasing actions as it is about writing policy.

What’s In It For You? Years Benefits

• Salary of £50,000 - £60,000
• Medicash Level 4 Cashback plan
• Spill EAP and Mental Health Support programme
• Annual £250.00 Learning & Development budget for courses, books or other self‑learn activities each year
• Annual £200.00 Wellbeing budget each year
• Up to 2 weeks working abroad per year (selected roles)
• Monthly recognition through our Yappa of The Month programme
• 1 Volunteer day per year - dog themed or not: it’s your choice!
• Subsidised employee groups - from five a side to padel there's loads to get involved in or the chance to start up your own group
• Bi‑annually subsidised team events from Axe throwing, crazy golf to cocktail making
• Exclusive discounts on Years and Years treats for yourself and friends/family
• Lunch & Learn programme - from dog first aid to financial savviness we’ve got sessions planned to cover all kinds of topics
• Casual dress
• Your birthday off or different day if it falls on a non‑working day

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