New Starter Champion

Job Title: New Starter Champion
Location: Bakkavor Wigan
Days: Monday-Friday
Shift Times: 08.30-17.00 (However must be flexible to cover all shifts where required)
Salary: £25,000 - £27,000 (Dependant on Experience)
Benefits: 25 Days Annual Leave + Bank Holidays
Bonus Scheme
Pension
Flexible Benefits Package

The company
Bakkavor is one of the leading providers of fresh prepared food in the UK, with an international presence in the US and China. Our 19,000 employees operate from 39 locations, developing and producing innovative food for a wide variety of occasions and budgets. In the UK, we work with leading grocery retailers, focusing on their own label brands.
Bakkavor Meals based in Wigan, specialises in making chilled ready meals, food to go salads and vegetable accompaniments and employs over 1,000 people. It is part of the Bakkavor Meals sector which has eight factories in the UK.

The Role
We are looking for a New Starter Champion to assist the business in the welcoming and onboarding of new candidates and employees.

The main purpose of the role is to champion new weekly colleagues joining the business, overcoming barriers to retention to drive a reduction in site turnover. The successful candidate will act as a conduit and communication arm between the new colleagues and their line manager, the operations team, HR, and L&D teams.

Job Duties:

• To liaise with HR & Learning teams to obtain data on new colleagues due to commence on their induction with the business. To prepare a weekly plan to determine specific support required by each department/shift. To communicate new colleagues’ to relevant line managers for the dept they are joining.
• To liaise with the HR, Operations, and Facilities teams to ensure that the necessary items are ready for their first day including as a minimum site access, clock card, PPE, and locker. To provide guidance and support with new colleagues’ processes such as registration on EPay, use of MyReward, access to the site facilities such as staff shop, canteens, toilets, locker rooms, awareness of the SEF reps and role of the SEF.
• To meet and greet new starters on their first day as a welcoming point of contact. To attend Day 1 Site Induction to explain their role, the touch points that they will have with them and what support will be provided. To provide ongoing support to new starters primarily throughout their first 2 block of shifts but also remain as a point of contact during their first 3 months.
• To champion any issues for the new starter during this initial period with their line manager to ensure speedy resolution.
• To manage the pipeline of buddies available for each area of the business. To allocate suitable buddies for each new colleague. To manage the introduction between the Buddy and the new colleague. To monitor the buddies to ensure they are fulfilling their roles effectively. To resolve any problems identified.
• To identify barriers to retention of new colleagues and look for ways to overcome these both in the short-term and on a more sustainable long-term basis. This may be through various sources including day-to-day interactions with new colleagues, facilitating listening groups, and reviewing metrics / turnover data to identify trends. To influence relevant stakeholders in Operations, HR and Learning to change.
• To ascertain potential & career aspirations amongst new colleagues with a view to feeding into the talent pipeline for future career progression. To liaise with HR, Learning and Operations to facilitate fast-track where appropriate.

About You:

• Ability to build relationships at all levels
• High level of interpersonal skills and communication skills.
• Able to win the hearts & minds of stakeholders to influence change
• Good organisation skills and prioritisation
• Ability to work on own initiative, reporting into a more senior manager with less frequent guidance and direction
• Strong problem-solving skills, able to identify issues and develop solutions both for the immediate short-term resolution and more sustainable longer-term options.
• Experience of operating in a role which utilises similar skill set
• Experience working in a fast-paced industry

To be considered for this fantastic internal opportunity please click ‘APPLY NOW’