Maintenance Manager Bedford Park, IL

Founded in 2013, Home Chef is the leading meal solutions company with both a retail and online presence. Available online at  and in retail at more than 2,100 Kroger grocery stores, Home Chef is committed to inspiring and enabling more people to cook simple, delicious meals, no matter how busy they are.

In 2023, Home Chef introduced a new brand, Tempo! Tempo features a rotating selection of ready‑to‑heat meals delivered directly to your door. These meals are better‑for‑you versions of familiar favorites, designed to save you time and reduce stress while maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Our Tempo menu includes options that are protein‑packed, fiber‑rich, calorie‑and‑carb conscious, keto‑friendly, and dietitian‑approved.

Similar to our recipes, we recognize that variety is the spice of life, and therefore, our employees also bring their uniqueness and color to our fantastic team. We’re eager to work with humble team players and pragmatic next‑level thinkers to innovate on Home Chef’s offerings.

The Maintenance Manager is primarily responsible for leading, developing, and building the capabilities of the maintenance team while ensuring reliable operation of all equipment and facility infrastructure. This role establishes and enforces planned maintenance systems, safety and training standards, and budget controls, while providing technical leadership and accountability. The Maintenance Manager serves as the site point of contact for capital improvement projects and works closely with FSQA, Safety, and Production teams to support safe, compliant, and efficient operations.

• Manages the CMMS and ensures work orders are closed in a timely manner.
• Prioritizes emergency as well as planned work orders to keep operations running and the equipment running reliably.

• Develops Preventative Maintenance tasks to keep equipment reliable for all existing and future equipment.
• Manages spare parts inventory for all equipment and maintenance needs.
• Conducts trends of work orders to understand which assets are bad actors.
• Acts as site point of contact for all capital improvement work and helps manage project progress when corporate project manager is not on site.

• Trains all maintenance team members on how to complete PMs.
• Trains all maintenance team members on safe work practices.
• Plans day to day maintenance activities for the maintenance team and contractors.
• Ensures all planned work is executed for the maintenance team and contractors.
• Ensures all emergency work is prioritized and completed to prevent impact to operations.

• Ensures all equipment that is worked on is released to sanitation before returning to the operations team.
• Ensures all maintenance team members are trained and retrained on safe work practices (LOTO, elevated work, hot work, confined space, line breaks).
• Enforces safety standards and safe work practices for all Home Chef employees and contractors working on site.

• Ensures maintenance SOPs are developed and maintained up to date.
• Ensures documentation on all maintenance tasks are compliant with Food Safety best practices to ensure we are audit ready.
• Communicates with other plant leaders on required maintenance work that could impact operations or put team members at risk.
• Communicates expectations to the maintenance team and leads by example.

• Coaches maintenance team members on a daily basis.
• Coaches operations team on the work order process to ensure work is getting resolved in a timely manner.

• Manages work order completion on a daily basis.
• Manages the site maintenance budget.
• Manages equipment uptime and reliability to minimize production impact.

This position requires less than 10% travel.

• General high school degree, or equivalent (e.g., GED). Associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree or technical degree preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years of facilities or industrial maintenance experience, with sufficient technical depth to lead, coach, and hold teams accountable for best practices.
• Minimum of 5 years of demonstrated, successful people leadership…