R&D Consumer Testing Lab Leader

Job Location

Job Description

This role will be leading consumer testing which is a critical part of sustaining a competitive advantage for Gillette Grooming products.  Grooming R&D is seeking a motivated individual with strong leadership skills to lead a group of panelists to technically evaluate products.  The role requires a confident and agile individual who ideally has at least 1 year of lab leadership experience. This candidate will be responsible for execution of a variety of product tests and will work closely with test subjects and internal project leads from other functions to provide technical data to enable decisions for formula optimization, product development, quality, and claims support.

This role will act as the main P&G contact between contract staff and P&G Scientists planning product testing.  The Grooming Product Testing Lab Leader must be learning/teaching oriented, technically curious, and innovative to ensure we stay on the leading edge.  Responsibilities to include:

• Partnering closely with Sensory Scientist to learn and deliver data & insights to project teams.

• Work in lab most of the time and provide oversight about lab quality, reliability, compliance, maintenance, functionality, and productivity with contractor agency staff to execute tests regularly.

• Demonstrate ownership of laboratory practices and resulting insights by ensuring appropriate protocols are followed, data is collected, analyzed, and shared with requesters.

• Managing lab schedule for testing and developing partnerships with other P&G Sensory labs to grow the Grooming business and sensory capability. 

• Assess and clearly communicate risks associated with different choices to enable teams to make decisions regarding test methodology, test design, and timing impacts.

• Ability to learn R&D Digital Systems (questionnaire programing, data entry, basic analysis), R&D Study Placement Process & Systems, etc. and ability to use Microsoft Word, Excel, & Power Point for basic data entry, analysis, and reporting.  Experience in technical report writing and documentation of technical and operational procedures. Experience with basic statistics is preferred.

• Maintain complete and accurate records in lab documentation system.  Document results summaries including process data, product testing results, and relevant material data in collaboration with engineers.

• Maintain safety and training procedures in R&D labs to ensure safe operations.

Job Qualifications

• Associate degree in a technology or Engineering field is preferred or a high school diploma with relevant work experience in an R&D or equivalent lab setting. This role will not accept a master’s degree or PhD.

• This role requires applicant to be on site Monday-Friday days/week (5:30AM start time) to manage panels.

• Experience in, and supervision of, an R&D lab environment is preferred.

• Effectively communicate, both verbal and written, across different audiences including project teams, product testing panelists, and contractor agency staff. 

• Ability to learn on the job in a dynamic environment.

• A successful Panel Leader must effectively lead panelists through methods training and implementation, be able to trouble shoot contractor, business partner, and technical issues. Demonstrates ownership, initiative, develops plans, resolves issues and delivers. Champions new and better ways to achieve project objectives.

• Strong organization skills to coordinate multiple tasks & projects with right sense of urgency. Have a bias for action & take strong ownership in solving issues in a lab environment. Ability to work with ambiguity & adapt to changing priorities.

• Passion for experimenting with new ideas that lead to method development and/or meaningful insights and observations. This means the ideal applicant should have a passion for learning, understanding how products work and a desire to be part of the process to make grooming products better.

• Candidate will have a solid foundational knowledge of the scientific method including test design principles.

• Strong collaboration skills and listening to understand as this role needs to partner closely with R&D teams, establish trust, and have open dialogues to ensure optimal solutions are offered and business needs are met. Interface across multiple groups to ensure studies are completed with excellence and result in actionable data generation.  Candidate should be resourceful and able to leverage daily coaches and their management line to remove barriers to achieving seamless study flow.

• Attention to detail will be necessary for proper docume