Warehouse Operations Manager

Maintain overall accountability for inventory integrity, including physical counts, cycle counts, inbound receipts, stock movements, credits, adjustments, product rotation, damaged goods and lot-code traceability.

Ensure inventory discrepancies are investigated and resolved promptly and root causes are addressed.

Provide overall oversight of fleet strategy, utilization and transportation costs, ensuring fleet resources support operational requirements and company objectives.

Ensure warehouse equipment, material-handling assets and other operational resources are maintained and utilized effectively.

Lead and develop the Transport Manager and Warehouse Frontline Managers, establishing clear accountability, goals and performance expectations.

Recruit, onboard, develop and retain qualified operational personnel in partnership with HR.

Ensure managers consistently apply company policies, attendance standards and performance-management practices.

Address performance and employee-relations matters promptly and in collaboration with HR.

Build leadership capability, training plans and succession plans to meet current and future operational requirements.

Foster a safe, respectful and accountable workplace culture consistent with applicable occupational health and safety requirements.

Ensure safety standards, inspections, hazard controls, incident reporting and corrective actions are consistently implemented.

Maintain departmental SOPs, policies and procedures consistent with company standards and regulatory requirements.

Partner with Human Resources on employee relations, investigations and policy matters.

Ensure transportation and warehouse activities comply with applicable federal and provincial requirements.

Identify and lead initiatives that improve productivity, service, quality and operational efficiency while reducing waste and avoidable costs.

Own departmental operating performance, including labour productivity, overtime, transportation costs, fleet costs and other approved operating expenses.

Participate in annual budgeting and manage departmental spending within approved authority and company policies.

Conduct monthly variance analysis and implement corrective actions to improve financial performance.

Use operational data to identify trends, opportunities and root causes and translate findings into measurable improvements.

Lead operational readiness for the company’s ERP/WMS implementation, including process design, data integrity, testing, training, adoption and post-go-live stabilization.

Ensure warehouse and distribution processes are accurately reflected in system workflows and performance reporting.

Promote adoption of barcode scanning, digital transactions and other technology that improves accuracy, traceability and productivity.

Accountable for overall warehouse and distribution performance, operating standards, departmental costs, inventory integrity, safety and achievement of agreed KPIs.

Delegates daily warehouse execution to the Warehouse Frontline Managers and daily transportation execution to the Transport Manager.

Provides strategic oversight of transportation performance and fleet costs; the Transport Manager owns day-to-day dispatch, routing, driver management, fleet operations and transportation compliance.

Escalates material operational, financial, safety or employee-relations matters in accordance with company policies and established approval authorities.

Order Picking Accuracy

Picking Productivity: per 8-hour shift per productive FTE, subject to product mix and order profile.

Inventory Accuracy

On-Time Delivery

Fleet Downtime: Below established threshold

Health & Safety: Timely reporting and corrective action; reduction in preventable incidents and lost-time injuries.

Employee Turnover: Within established company target

Labour and Operating Cost: Within approved budget with favourable variance trends.

The Warehouse Operations Manager establishes a safe, accountable, data-driven and high-performing warehouse and distribution operation. The operation consistently meets customer service expectations, inventory is reliable, managers hold teams accountable to clear standards, costs are controlled, and the organization is equipped to support growth and technology-enabled operations.

Establish relationships and clear accountability with managers and operational teams.

Assess staffing, workflows, safety, inventory controls, transportation performance and operating costs.

Establish daily/weekly KPI reporting and identify immediate improvement opportunities.

Implement measurable improvements in productivity, service, inventory control and operating costs.

Assess ERP/WMS readiness and identify critical process and training requirements.

Establish consistent performance-management and leadership practices.

Strengthen SOPs, inventory controls and cross-functional operating processes.

Support ERP/WMS testing, training and organizational readiness.

Achieve agreed warehouse and distribution KPIs.

Deliver measurable productivity and cost improvements.

Establish a high-performing management structure and leadership pipeline.

Successfully transition warehouse and distribution operations into the ERP/WMS environment and stabilize post-go-live performance.

The role requires regular presence in warehouse, yard and operational areas and a hands-on leadership approach. The Manager must be comfortable working in a fast-paced distribution environment and responding to operational issues as required.