Process Improvement Jobs in Tennessee (NOW HIRING)

The Director of Global Culture and Continual Improvement reports to the Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of the Company and is responsible for shaping and sustaining a high-performance values-driven culture aligned with the Gleason Business Principles while driving continuous improvement methodologies that support a structured problem-solving approach throughout the organization.

Key Responsibilities:

• Culture Development and Assimilation
• Develops and executes a global set of initiatives oriented around key elements of culture evolution which is aligned with the company’s vision, values and strategies.
• Is the global champion for supporting the creation and delivery of training for the Gleason Business Principles which is the foundation for the Company’s cultural aspirations.
• Leads a sustainable process to ensure the training is exhibited through action on a daily basis – supported and practiced by the Leadership team and aligned with Strategy Deployment goals and the Corporate Objectives.
• Through established metrics, CEI (Culture Evolution Index) demonstrates progress (and countermeasures, where needed) on a semiannual basis.
• Conducts the annual Leadership Development Program – ensuring that the content is relevant, drives improvements and most importantly, engages our high potential talent with Gleason’s approach to the Core Behaviors and Process Principles – with a focus on structured problem-solving methodologies.
• Partners with executive leadership to embed cultural principles into business practices, leadership behaviors and employee interactions.
• Leads global initiatives to assess, evolve, and reinforce culture through data-driven insights and employee feedback.
• Integrates culture into onboarding, training and leadership development programs.
• Serves as a cultural ambassador, fostering inclusion, collaboration, and accountability across all levels of the organization.
• Leads change management efforts to support cultural transformation and organizational agility.
• Continual Improvement
• Develops and leads continual improvement strategies based on structured problem-solving methodologies (Six Steps of Problem Solving).
• Identifies specific areas for process optimization that could lead to global best practices throughout the organization.
• Develops other leaders to become problem solving experts – thus, multiplying continual improvement efforts.
• Facilitates cross-organizational continual improvement projects to optimize key processes.
• Champions continual improvement methodologies (e.g., Lean, Six Sigma, PDCA, etc.) to enhance operational efficiency and innovation.
• Talent Management Initiatives
• Is responsible for supporting existing talent management efforts through a systemic and robust process, driven by metrics and countermeasures, where appropriate
• Using KPI’s and automation drives improvements to the existing TM process so that it is easily viewable, measurable and actionable.
• Reports on the overall progress of our Talent Management initiative on a semiannual basis
•  

Key Competencies:

• PEOPLE – Comfortable with multiple cultures.  Familiar with talent management best practices.  Supports the company culture of continuous improvement by demonstrating a leadership role in a structured approach to global consistency (through the Gleason Business Principles).  Strong communication skills both verbal and written with the ability to align multiple teams around a stated mission.
• PROCESS – Passionate about business process improvement.  Develops a detailed knowledge of key business processes within the organization.  Provides the environment where employees collaboratively launch process improvement initiatives focused on ensuring the company’s quality systems are robust and aligned with customer satisfaction metrics. 
• PERFORMANCE – drives a “results-oriented” culture where milestones and critical metrics are routinely achieved.  When targeted goals are not reached, establishment of effective countermeasures ensures long term metrics are not compromised.

Education/Experience/Training:

• The successful candidate will have a minimum of 8 years of experience in culture transformation and continuous improvement in a highly engineered product portfolio.
• Candidates will have a four-year university degree with formalized training (and positive results) in problem solving methodologies. 
• Prior experience in different disciplines (especially in Quality) would be beneficial to understand all aspects of an organization’s processes.
• Extensive travel (20% to 30%) is essential for this job (internationally as well as domestic)
• Strong facilitation, coaching and change management skills required.
• Strategic thinker with a passion for people, processes and performance
• Empathetic leader who fosters trust, transparency and collaboration.
• Data-driven decision-maker with a continual learning mindset.
• Must have a proven ability to develop training materials and to deliver these concepts to diverse teams and geographies, resulting in global process improvements.