Company Description

Eurofins Scientific is an international life sciences company, providing a unique range of analytical testing services to clients across multiple industries, to make life and our environment safer, healthier and more sustainable. From the food you eat, to the water you drink, to the medicines you rely on, Eurofins laboratories work with the biggest companies in the world to ensure the products they supply are safe, their ingredients are authentic, and labelling is accurate.

Eurofins is dedicated to delivering testing services that contribute to the health and safety of society and the planet, and to its corporate responsibility to protect the environment and ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion across the entire network of Eurofins companies.

Job Description

Working hours are Monday - Friday, 9am-5pm.

This role can be home based, but extensive travel across the UK will be required.

The purpose of the role is to be responsible for leading and harmonising the ISO: 17025 Quality Management Systems at our Food Microbiology laboratories and ensuring good quality standards are in place across Eurofins UK Food Microbiology laboratories. 

You will lead and develop the on-site Quality Managers and/or Quality Co-ordinators to ensure they have clear action plans in place, are focused on delivery of key quality activity focused on ensuring high quality standards are continuously maintained.  You will work closely with Senior Managers to ensure robust plans are in place with their team to drive knowledge, understanding and delivery of required standards to ensure maintenance of UKAS and client standards.

Within this role you will also support the onboarding and integration of newly acquired UK Food Microbiology sites into Eurofins.  

• To inspire and drive a culture of outstanding quality with our senior managers and employees to exceed the requirements of our customers and embrace our core organisational values.
• Responsibility for adherence to the quality systems and the requirement of all accreditation statuses for all Eurofins UK Food Microbiology laboratories.
• Responsible for the maintenance of UKAS accreditation (and other accreditations where appropriate) in Eurofins UK Food Microbiology laboratories.  
• With the support of the Director of Technical and Quality develop a clear Food Microbiology Quality Improvement Strategy over 3 years incorporating the development of a CI culture, improvement in key metrics and test method harmonisation across laboratories to ensure a consistent approach and best practice.
• Chair and drive performance through the Monthly Quality KPI Meetings.  
• Act as a key contact for UKAS on all matters of accreditation relating to UK food microbiology testing.
• Approve recruitment and induction plans of on-site Quality Managers and/or Quality Co-ordinators.  
• To attend/lead external audits by UKAS, other regulatory bodies, and customers and to ensure that corrective actions are completed and submitted to the relevant body within the timescale required.
• Lead internal auditing to ensure it is carried out effectively and in accordance with audit plans through on-site Quality Manager and Quality Co-ordinators.  
• Assess key operational risks and take action to mitigate them. 
• Be actively aware of commercial activities and any need for new accredited tests.
• Ensure that the Quality procedures and documents, including laboratory methods are maintained up to date, reflect current practice and group objectives. 
• Work closely with the Group Microbiology Technical Manager to ensure that written procedures are up to date and easily understood by laboratory staff.
• Responsible for the annual Quality Management Reviews in the relevant sections.
• Train employees in ISO: 17025, auditing, non-conforming work investigations and root cause analysis, where applicable.  Work with HR & Business Unit Managers (laboratories and functional teams) to ensure that induction and training meets business requirements.
• Assess data and trends as required to instigate improvements through development of Quality KPI dashboards. 
• Be a key member of the UK Food Microbiology forum.
• Delivery of continuous improvement in laboratory processes, customer service, quality, health and safety, with a key focus on efficiency, cost and timeliness.
• Build relationships with laboratory staff; engage laboratory staff in the purpose, their responsibilities and use of the Quality system.
• Review authorisation of external proficiency testing scheme programmes as/when needed.
• Attend monthly Corporate Quality Meetings.
• Develop internal Quality Control schemes to meet the needs of the business.
• Work closely with the Group Quality Managers of other departments / Group Microbiology Technical lead to ensure that all aspects of the Quality system are maintained.
• Act as deputy to the Director of Technical and Quality on food microbiology matters as/when needed

Qualifications

• Degree in Microbiology or related discipline.
• Excellent working knowledge of Microbiology laboratories accredited to ISO: 17025, RSA where applicable.
• Experience leading Quality Management systems.
• Experience of working in a UKAS accredited laboratory.
• Good IT skills, Word, Excel, LIMS (i.e. laboratory testing system) & pivot tables.
• Excellent analytical skills.
• Good auditing skills.
• Must have a ‘can do’ attitude and be able to deliver change through people management skills.
• Proven track record in people management responsibilities, with laboratory/technical staff would be desirable.
• Ability to communicate fluently – written and verbal – at varying levels of seniority and confident engaging at various levels in a style that ensures a clear insight for employees / key stakeholders regarding quality standards and their roles/required actions.
• Organised, able to prioritise and delegate to ensure focus on key quality deliverables.
• Team player, with good level of emotional intelligence to engage peers and build strong working relationships.  
• Self-motivated with a positive attitude, able to work unsupervised.

Additional Information

Benefits

At Eurofins we are growing, innovating and always learning. We celebrate the achievements of our employees through annual long service awards, recognise our colleagues special life events, and we are committed to charitable causes through global fundraising activities.

As a Eurofins employee you will benefit from:

• Life Assurance (4 times annual salary)
• Holiday Purchase Scheme
• Enhanced Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Pay Scheme 
• Company Pension Plan
• Employee Assistance Programme – 24/7 confidential support.
• Free car parking
• Worldwide career opportunities
• Everyone who joins our team also gets access to Perkbox, allowing you to save money all year round. Whether its supermarket savings or days out, the daily coffee or a summer holiday – there’s something to suit everyone’s lifestyle.

What Happens Next
Our people are the backbone of what we do, so it's incredibly important we find the right individuals to join us. As a potential new recruit you'll be invited to meet the team in the form of an assessment centre or a staged interview process dependent on the role and it's requirements, this will give you the opportunity to see what working for Eurofins is really like and enable us to get you know your key skills and strengths. 
 
Your data 
As part of any recruitment process, the company collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The company is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.
 
Closing Date
We reserve the right to close or extend this position depending on application numbers. Therefore we would urge candidates to submit an application as early as possible.
 
Due to the high volume of applications we receive please be aware that if you do not receive a response within 4 weeks of the vacancy expiry date unfortunately, on this occasion your application has been unsuccessful. 

We support your development! Do you feel you don’t match 100% of the requirements? Don’t hesitate to apply anyway! Eurofins companies are committed to supporting your career development.

We embrace diversity! Eurofins network of companies believe in strength and innovation through diversity, being an Equal Opportunity Employer. We prohibit discrimination against employees or applications based on gender identity and/or expression, race, nationality, age, religion, sexual orientation, disability, and everything else that makes employees of Eurofins companies unique.

Sustainability matters to us!  We are well on our way to achieving our objective of carbon neutrality by 2025, through a combination of emission reduction and compensation initiatives. We encourage our laboratory leaders to make sustainable changes at their local level, and in addition to their initiatives we also count on our dedicated carbon reduction team to help us to achieve this goal!

Find out more in our career page: https://careers.eurofins.com/