Restaurant Safety Program Manager

The Manager of Restaurant Safety is a key member of the Legal Department of a rapidly growing restaurant company and will be a member of the Risk subteam within the Legal Department.

About the Role

This role partners closely with operations, training, and risk teams to reduce employee and guest injuries through effective training programs, analysis of loss data, and proactive OSHA and regulatory response, and will support the Company’s enterprise risk management initiatives. The ideal candidate will serve as a subject matter resource, a partner for operators, and bring hands-on restaurant experience, strong safety fundamentals, and the ability to translate data and regulations into practical, field-ready solutions.

Responsibilities

General Managerial Duties

• Manage the safety programs and work directly with operators.
• Act at the direction of the leader of the Risk subteam, counsel, and/or General Counsel while maintaining strict confidentiality regarding Company trade secrets, confidential information, and intangible assets.
• Provide guidance and direction to various members of the Legal Department.
• Provide process control, evaluate, and develop improvements in business processes or functions.

Safety Leadership & Training

• Develop, promote, implement, oversee, maintain, and deliver enterprise-wide safety programming and training programs for restaurant managers and hourly employees, including onboarding, refresher, and targeted trainings based on incident trends for safe work practices related to slips/falls, cuts, burns, lifting, equipment use, hazard communication, and other related safety issues.
• Support field leaders by helping implement safety meetings, safety messaging, and safety observations.

Loss Data & Trend Analysis

• Analyze injury, incident, and near-miss data to identify trends, root causes, and opportunities for prevention.
• Establish clear goals and standards and measure with clear, actionable reports and dashboards for presentation to leadership and operations partners.
• Partner with risk, claims, workers’ compensation, and operations functional teams to implement corrective action plans and measure effectiveness over time.
• Prioritize training and safety initiatives based on data and analytics.

OSHA & Regulatory Support

• Coordinate, investigate, and manage responses to OSHA inquiries, inspections, citations, and correspondence including development of corrective action plans.
• Identify new or changing regulations with State and Federal agencies to stay current with training and guidance.
• Support compliance with federal and state OSHA requirements and other applicable safety regulations.

Program Development & Continuous Improvement

• Prepare material and support safety committees, audits, and inspections as assigned.
• Partner cross-functionally with operations, claims, facilities, HR, training, and legal teams to improve safety outcomes.
• Promote safety recognition programs empowering operators to lead safety.
• Participate in special projects related to safety, loss prevention, and risk reduction.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Occupational Safety or related field is preferred, but will consider equivalent experience.
• Minimum of 3+ years of experience in a Safety, Risk, Claims, Loss prevention, Food safety, or related environment.
• OSHA training, OSHA compliance experience, or experience supporting workplace safety investigations or regular audits.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications such as Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; experience with collaboration or reporting tools such as Teams, Power BI, OneDrive, OneNote, or Adobe is a plus.
• Professionalism, outstanding organizational skills, strong attention to detail, strong interpersonal, communication, and presentation skills, ability to multi-task and meet deadlines under pressure, proactive and self-motivated with a curious, problem-solving mindset, and the desire and ability to work in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment.
• Solid understanding of Workers’ Comp and General Liability Claims and terminology.

This job description includes essential functions and basic duties and is intended to provide guidelines for job expectations and the employee's ability to perform the position described. It is not an exhaustive list of all functions, responsibilities, skills, and abilities. Additional functions and requirements may be assigned by supervisors as appropriate.