Department Leader, Operations Trainer

Pharmavite•Opelika, AL

3d•$80,000 - $146,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Department Leader, Operations Training, serves as the strategic capability leader for assigned training operations. This position partners with Operations, Quality, Engineering, EHS, Human Resources, and Business Excellence to develop the workforce capabilities required to safely, efficiently, and consistently achieve business objectives. The Department Leader is responsible for establishing the site's capability strategy, aligning workforce development with operational priorities, and leading a high-performing Training & Development team. Rather than managing training activities alone, this role builds organizational capability by integrating learning, coaching, continuous improvement, and performance consulting into daily operations. This leader ensures Training & Development is viewed as a business partner that enables execution, not simply a function that delivers training. Success is measured through improvements in organizational capability and operational performance, including safety, quality, productivity, flexibility, and leadership effectiveness.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience
Experience in designing and developing technical end-user training on multiple, complex projects, and Project Management experience.
4-6 years of related progressive leadership experience in manufacturing, learning and development, operations, continuous improvement, or organizational capability.
Strong understanding of Lean Manufacturing, Training Within Industry (TWI), adult learning principles, and structured problem solving.
Ability to collaborate with others to develop course content, exercises, and presentation materials to support rollout of new processes and tools. This work includes the development of job aids and online help materials for end-user training across the organization.
Ability to develop technical materials in support of a manufacturing operations environment.
Skilled in the use of personal computing equipment and software packages such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Project, Excel, Visio, and others.
Proven skills that will help in evaluating and setting project schedules and making recommendations for future training needs.
The ability to plan, organize, coordinate, and schedule multiple tasks with minimal supervision, and adjust to changing priorities and assignments.
Excellent interpersonal skills; ability to communicate and relate well with others from a variety of backgrounds and levels.

Nice To Haves

TWI trainer certification within 2 years of employment.

Responsibilities

Partner with Site Leadership to identify capability needs affecting business performance and translate operational priorities into workforce development strategies through development of time-bound capability roadmaps, anticipate future workforce capability requirements, and represent Training & Development as a strategic partner during site planning and business reviews.
Build organizational capability through creation or improvement of frameworks for operators, technicians, leaders, and trainers, lead cross-training and workforce flexibility initiatives, improve succession readiness for critical operational roles. Support leadership development through site and enterprise programs, and ensure capability systems are scalable across sites.
Serve as an operational performance partner to manufacturing leaders to improve operational performance through building and supporting workforce capability by identifying capability gaps contributing to operational challenges and developing sustainable solutions that improve: Safety, Quality, OEE, Throughput, Schedule Attainment, Case Fill Rate, Workforce Flexibility, and Startup Readiness.
Coach and develop Training Specialists and Coordinators through establishing clear priorities aligned with business objectives, building a culture of accountability and continuous improvement, and managing team performance and development
Build capability governance through standardized onboarding and qualification processes, alignment with GMP and corporate requirements, consistency across shifts, departments, and sites, and review and improve capability metrics and organizational readiness through establishing standard work for the Training & Development function.
Prioritize and allocate work resources based on business impact across departments and locations; balance onboarding, qualification, improvement initiatives, and strategic projects, and support surge staffing requirements during business-critical periods by coordinating and securing all training resources
Integrate Continuous Improvement and Lean principles into capability systems, support Kaizen events, BRPS, RCA, and process improvement initiatives, identify opportunities to simplify, standardize, and improve training processes, and ensure capability systems evolve alongside business needs.
Monitor and improve capability metrics to drive operational outcomes including OEE, Quality, Safety, and Schedule Attainment through measurement of Time-to-Proficiency, Qualification Completion, Cross-Training Coverage, Training Attainment, Capability Gap Closure, Workforce Readiness, Trainer Effectiveness, and Stakeholder Satisfaction.
Lead strategically while remaining connected to shop-floor execution.
Influence leaders without formal authority.
Develop systems instead of solving individual problems.
Make decisions using business data.
Coach leaders as effectively as employees.
Build capability that improves business performance.
Create alignment across Operations, Quality, Engineering, EHS, HR, and Business Excellence.
Support all training and development functions as a leader, participant, facilitator, or support leader, when required.