Transport Team Leader

Job Title: Transport Team Leader

Location: Unit 7a, Odhams Trading Estate, St Albans Road, Watford, WD24 7RY

Salary: Up to £30,000 per year - depending on experience

Job Type: Permanent, Full Time

Working Hours: 40 hours per week (04:30 to 13:00) with a 30 minutes unpaid lunch break. However, flexibility on these times is essential.

Main purpose of role:

To be responsible for directing, coordinating, support with planning of vehicle departures and liaising with the driver team on day-to-day vehicle and logistic issues within Vegetarian Express involving all transportation activities. Supporting the logistics and supply chain manager ensuring the legal requirements for transport are met.

To support where necessary the resource planning to maintain a stable distribution network across all the delivery scheduling. To be the focal point for all driver colleagues of all distribution processes and procedures providing consistent and robust advice, communicating clearly on requirements to our driver colleagues, and the supply chain and logistics manager.

About us:

Vegetarian Express specialise in delivering plant-based ingredients, ideas and inspiration to chefs across the UK for eating out of home. With the astronomical rise in popularity of plant-based, vegan, vegetarian and flexitarian diets, Vegetarian Express are uniquely placed in Foodservice to meet with this demand, and as such are rapidly growing and expanding.

Nationally we supply more than 4,000 skilled chefs from customers such as Compass, Baxterstorey and CH&Co, as well as a ton of Independent operators and events such as The Chelsea Flower Show, Wimbledon and Wembley Stadium to name just a few.

Vegetarian Express work with customers to create plant-based menus that are enticing, better for consumers health, the planet and commercially for businesses.

Vegetarian Express are proud to be a certified B Corporation. This means they are part of a growing number of progressive businesses around the world that truly believe in the power of business to do good things and, more importantly, are doing something about it.

Key responsibilities:

• Support, direct and monitor driver colleagues and the overall performance of the transport team to help increase efficiency and maximise service, performance, value and deliver an excellent service proposition.
• Ensuring that the transport team understands their duties and their role within the organisation
• Provide swift response to absences and ensure a seamless impact on our customer base.
• Support with delivery days in driver holiday or absence.
• Develop new initiatives and look for new ways to optimise the transport activities
• Meet your targets and those of the team.
• The smooth running of the vehicles and the team.
• Contribute to training and development of the team and department as a whole.
• Support the Logistics and Supply Chain Manager Ensuring that all drivers have the correct, up to date qualifications
• Maintaining and completing accurate records working collaboratively with the Distribution Planner and Transport Supervisor
• Support to all other departments with transport issues.
• Ensuring customers are receiving their orders on time and without any delays and increased cost.
• Collaborate with other departments such as Sales and Customer Service to identify vulnerabilities and close any distribution gaps
• Understanding pinch points and removing any obstacles
• From time to time you may be expected to be part of special projects as are reasonably required of your job role

Salary & benefits:

• Up to £30k dependant on experience
• 25 days holiday plus public holidays
• Option to purchase additional annual leave (up to 3 days)
• Cash health plan (money back for dentist, opticians, physio etc.)
• Life assurance (4 x salary)
• Staff discount on ALL products
• Pension (3% employer and 5% employee)

Candidate criteria:

Qualifications;

• Full UK driving licence (no more than 6 points)
• No driving disqualifications within the last Three years

Skills/competencies;

• Customer focused
• Resilience and ability to adapt to a fast-paced environment
• The ability to effectively manage internal and external relationships
• Team player 'one team' approach
• Proven influencing skills
• Good time-management skills
• Great interpersonal and communication skills
• Good communication skills
• Excellent customer service skills
• Excellent attention to detail
• Ability to drive long distances and sit for long periods of time

Experience Required;

• Min of 2 years commercial driving experience (will be checked via references)
• Experience of multi-drop environment

Other;

• Must be 21 years of age or older to comply with our insurance requirements
• May have to lift heavy products and be capable of climbing in and out of the Company vehicles

Candidates with experience or relevant job titles of; Transport Teamleader, Lead Driver, Transport Supervisor, Transport Manager, Operations Manager, Logistics Manager, Distribution Manager, will all be considered.