Safety & Compliance Specialist

About the Company Cérélia operates a state‑of‑the‑art commercial bakery and production facility in Whitehall, Ohio, a 150,000‑square‑foot plant that opened in September 2021 and serves as the U.S. manufacturing hub for the Jus‑Rol brand. Our Whitehall facility specializes in ready‑to‑bake chilled dough products - including pizza dough, pie crusts, puff pastry, and cookie dough - and continues to expand with new product lines to support national growth.

Team members enjoy modern onsite amenities such as a fitness center and EV charging stations, all within a clean, innovative, and fast‑growing environment. While our Whitehall plant is new, Cérélia’s roots trace back to 1974, evolving from a France based bakery into an international leader in dough innovation. As we grow, our people grow with us - if you’re passionate about doing meaningful work with a company on the rise, we’d love to hear from you.

Position Summary The Safety & Compliance Specialist coordinates and administers the facility’s occupational safety and compliance programs for a 250-employee refrigerated dough manufacturing operation. This role partners closely with Operations, Maintenance, Sanitation, Quality, People & Culture, and frontline leadership to identify and control workplace hazards, maintain regulatory records, investigate incidents, strengthen emergency preparedness, and build a safety-first culture in which injuries and near misses are treated as preventable. The Specialist provides visible floor-level support across production, sanitation, warehouse, maintenance, and office areas and drives corrective actions through verification of sustainable completion. Operational leaders remain accountable for safe execution in their departments and for completing assigned corrective actions. The Specialist administers the safety system, provides technical guidance, verifies effectiveness, and escalates unresolved risk rather than becoming the sole owner of site safety.

Primary Responsibilities Safety Leadership & Culture

• Develop, coordinate, and continuously strengthen the facility Safety Committee; establish membership, charters, meeting cadence, agendas, minutes, action logs, and accountability for follow-up.
• Host monthly Safety Committee meetings and engage hourly employees and frontline leaders in hazard identification, near-miss reporting, inspections, and risk-reduction initiatives.
• Build and maintain a safety-first culture by reinforcing that incidents are preventable, ensuring lessons learned are communicated appropriately, and establishing corrective action plans to prevent recurrence.
• Provide practical safety guidance during weekly operations meetings, monthly business reviews, pre-shift start-ups, and other leadership forums; report trends, open risks, and overdue actions.
• Maintain a visible presence on the production floor across applicable shifts and coach employees and leaders on safe work practices, stop-work expectations, and policy compliance.

Regulatory Compliance, Recordkeeping & Reporting

• Maintain required occupational safety records and reports, including the OSHA 300 Log, OSHA 301 Incident Reports, OSHA 300A annual summary and posting, days-away/restricted-duty tracking, and internal employee-visibility boards, while protecting confidential medical information.
• Prepare and distribute weekly, monthly, and annual safety performance reports covering recordable injuries, days away/restricted or transferred cases, first aid cases, near misses, severity, trends, corrective action status, and other agreed leading and lagging key performance indicators.
• Monitor applicable OSHA general industry requirements, state and local requirements, company standards, and relevant consensus standards; recommend and implement program updates when requirements or facility risks change.
• Maintain accurate, audit-ready training, inspection, incident, permit, equipment, and corrective-action records in accordance with retention requirements.
• Coordinate regulatory inspections, insurance loss-control visits, customer or certification audits, and internal compliance reviews; organize records and track findings through closure.

Incident, Near-Miss & Workers’ Compensation Management

• Manage and continually improve incident, injury, illness, property damage, unsafe-condition, and near-miss reporting procedures, forms, communication, and escalation requirements.
• Respond promptly to incidents; secure the area, preserve relevant evidence, coordinate immediate care, collect factual statements, review available video or records, and lead timely investigations using root-cause methods.
• Facilitate corrective and preventive action development with responsible leaders; assign owners and due dates, verify effectiveness, and escalate overdue or ineffective actions.
• Coordinate the post-accident drug and alcohol testing process in partnership with leadership and People & Culture and leadership, including eligibility review under company policy, testing coordination, chain-of-custody administration, documentation, and follow-up.
• Partner with People & Culture, the workers’ compensation carrier or third-party administrator, medical providers, and operations leaders on claim reporting, investigation support, transitional duty, restrictions, return-to-work coordination, and claim-status reviews. People & Culture retains ownership of employment, leave, and accommodation decisions.
• Analyze incident and near-miss data to identify recurring hazards by task, department, shift, equipment, tenure, and injury type, and recommend prioritized controls.

Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment & Corrective Actions

• Coordinates routine facility safety inspections, behavioral observations, job hazard analyses, and risk assessments in collaboration with Maintenance, Production, Sanitation, Quality, and employees performing the work with specific attention to machine guarding and pinch points, hazardous energy, powered-industrial-truck and pedestrian interaction, fire, industrial refrigeration/ammonia interfaces, sanitation chemicals, ergonomics, and slips and falls.
• Identify safety and PPE risks and apply the hierarchy of controls, prioritizing elimination, substitution, and engineering controls before administrative controls and personal protective equipment.
• Maintain a centralized corrective-action register; document risk level, interim controls, owner, target date, verification evidence, and closure approval, escalate serious, recurring, or overdue risks to the Plant Director and People & Culture Manager.
• Participate in management-of-change reviews for new or modified equipment, processes, chemicals, layouts, packaging lines, utilities, and work methods before start-up.
• Review contractor safety qualifications and site requirements; support contractor orientation, permit controls, and monitoring for compliance while work is performed.

Programs, Permits & High-Risk Work

• Coordinate, maintain, and periodically audit the Lockout/Tagout program with Maintenance, including machine-specific energy-control procedures, authorized and affected employee training, periodic inspections, corrective actions, and coordination with Maintenance in accordance with 29 CFR 1910.147. Maintenance retains technical ownership of equipment-specific isolation points, procedures, repairs, and execution by maintenance personnel.
• Administer or support programs for hazard communication and Safety Data Sheets, machine guarding, powered industrial trucks, electrical safety, hot work, confined spaces, working at heights, ladder safety, ergonomics, chemical handling, respiratory protection if applicable, and hearing conservation when required.
• Coordinate required permits and pre-task reviews for high-risk work and verify that safeguards, trained personnel, and emergency provisions are in place before work begins.
• Partner with Maintenance and Engineering on guarding evaluations, interlock and emergency-stop concerns, energy-isolation deficiencies, and safe equipment commissioning. The Specialist identifies, documents, and verifies risk controls but is not the equipment-design authority.

Emergency Preparedness & Safety Systems

• Coordinate, evaluate, test, and modify the facility Emergency Action Plan, evacuation routes, accountability process, severe-weather procedures, emergency communications, and related training based on drills, incidents, and facility changes.
• Plan and document periodic evacuation and emergency drills; review performance, communicate lessons learned, and ensure corrective actions are completed.
• Coordinate annual First Aid/CPR/AED and designated first-responder training for frontline leaders and other designated personnel; maintain current rosters and certification records.
• Perform & coordinate inspection and readiness checks for first-aid supplies, AEDs, eyewash and emergency showers, spill kits, fire extinguishers, alarms, exits, emergency lighting, and other safety systems with qualified internal or external partners.
• Work with facility stakeholders on emergency planning related to refrigeration systems and hazardous chemicals, including response coordination and required program elements where regulatory thresholds apply.

Training & Communication

• Develop and deliver safety orientation for new hires, temporary employees, contractors, transferred employees, and visitors, with content tailored to facility hazards and assigned work.
• Develop and deploy annual refresher, toolbox, and remedial training on required safety topics; schedule sessions across shifts and verify comprehension and completion.
• Maintain the annual safety training matrix and calendar; monitor expirations, qualifications, and overdue requirements and provide status reporting to leaders.
• Create clear safety communications, alerts, standard work, signage, and visual controls in languages and formats appropriate for the workforce.

PPE & Operational Support

• Coordinate the PPE assessment, selection, standardization, availability, and ordering process in collaboration with People & Culture counterparts, Operations, Maintenance, Sanitation, and leadership. Department leaders remain accountable for enforcement and daily use.
• Ensure required PPE is suitable for food-manufacturing hazards and does not create food-safety or entanglement risks; monitor usage, condition, inventory, and replacement needs.
• Partner with Production, Quality, Logistics and Sanitation to align employee safety controls with Good Manufacturing Practices, HACCP or food-safety plans, allergen controls, sanitation chemical requirements, and hygienic design expectations.
• Attend annual safety and workers’ compensation training and maintain professional knowledge through regulatory updates, industry resources, and continuing education.

Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

Required Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Safety, Environmental Health and Safety, Industrial Hygiene, Engineering, or a related field; equivalent combinations of education and directly related experience may be considered.
• Three or more years of progressive safety or EHS experience in manufacturing, food processing, consumer packaged goods, warehousing, or a similarly regulated industrial environment.
• Working knowledge of OSHA general industry standards and practical experience implementing safety programs, conducting investigations, completing risk assessments, and managing corrective actions.
• Experience maintaining OSHA injury and illness records and preparing safety metrics and leadership reports.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and electronic safety, learning, or corrective-action systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Safety, Environmental Health and Safety, Industrial Hygiene, Engineering, or a closely related discipline.
• Experience in a food manufacturing facility with refrigerated or frozen products, automated production lines, industrial refrigeration, sanitation chemicals, and high-speed packaging equipment.
• OSHA 30-Hour General Industry, First Aid/CPR/AED instructor or provider certification, HAZWOPER as applicable, or recognized safety credentials such as ASP, GSP, or CSP.
• Experience with workers’ compensation claim coordination, return-to-work programs, and insurance loss-control partners.
• Bilingual English/Spanish capability.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Strong working knowledge of hazard recognition, hierarchy of controls, LOTO, machine guarding, emergency preparedness, hazard communication, PPE, powered industrial trucks, incident investigation, and root-cause analysis.
• Ability to influence without direct authority, coach employees and leaders respectfully, and hold stakeholders accountable for risk reduction and timely action closure.
• Excellent written, verbal, presentation, facilitation, listening, analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities, maintain confidentiality, use sound judgment, and respond calmly and promptly during incidents or emergencies.
• Ability to interpret policies, regulations, technical information, injury data, and operational trends and translate them into practical controls and clear communications.

Work Environment & Physical Requirements

• Work is performed in office, production, warehouse, maintenance, sanitation, utility, and exterior areas of a refrigerated dough manufacturing facility with desire to maintain floor presence.
• Regular exposure may include cold or hot environments, wet or slippery surfaces, noise, moving mechanical equipment, powered industrial trucks, food ingredients, cleaning chemicals, and required PPE.
• Ability to walk and stand for extended periods; climb stairs and ladders; bend, stoop, crouch, reach, and access equipment areas; and lift or move up to 40 pounds with or without reasonable accommodation.
• Ability to work a flexible schedule, including periodic early mornings, evenings, nights, weekends, or emergency response outside normal hours, based on business needs.
• Ability to travel locally for training, medical-provider coordination, or other business needs; limited overnight travel may be required.