Professional Learning Manager Jobs in Lowell, MA

Here at Stop & Shop, we've been serving our customers and neighborhoods for more than a century. A lot has changed in that time, but one thing hasn't: Stop & Shop is a place where everyone can thrive and feel like they're part of family.

Our more than 50,000 associates enjoy competitive salaries, comprehensive benefits and discounts to support professional and personal journeys and flexibility that fits their lives.

We invite you to pull up a seat and discover the ways you can make an impact. There's always room at our table!

Build the skills that help Stop & Shop associates succeed.

We're looking for a hands-on learning leader who enjoys partnering with the business to identify needs, create learning solutions, and help bring them to life. In this role, you'll lead a small team while contributing directly to the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of learning experiences.

What do we mean by functional learning?

Functional learning helps associates and leaders perform specific aspects of their jobs more effectively. Depending on business needs, you and your team might strengthen customer service capabilities, support adoption of new processes and tools, or teach associates how to perform essential job skills. If it helps someone do their job better, it's likely functional learning.

We're open to candidates from a variety of industries. What matters most is experience creating learning solutions that help people build practical, role-based skills and perform their jobs more effectively. Whether your background is in retail, banking, technology, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, or another industry, we're looking for evidence that you've helped people learn to do work, not just learn to lead.

Success in this role requires equal parts people leadership, learning expertise, and execution. If you're energized by helping people build new skills, solving business challenges through learning, and seeing solutions through from idea to implementation, we'd love to hear from you.

What we ask of you:

FUNCTIONAL TRAINING PROGRAM MANAGEMENT:

• Assess short- and long-term needs of the business related to functional capabilities and competencies.
• Create universal, yet flexible and adaptable, functional training roadmap and framework that is organized by function, level of leadership, functional competency, and priority of skill.
• Lead creation of consistent functional training programs and resources that ignite brand pride, elevate the brand standards and customer experience, and fulfill our employee value proposition.
• Monitor, introduce, and/or refine the functional training priorities, processes, and programs as needed based on learner, HR, and business feedback, along with evolving business needs.
• Partner with leaders in Category Management, Merchandising, Operations, Safety, Quality, and Human Resources to ensure appropriate connections in priorities, programs, and messages.
• Maintain relationships with vendors, ensuring service-level and quality agreements are met, providing feedback, exploring new or enhanced needs, and ensuring contracts and invoices are up to date.
• Create and annually update comprehensive program offering guide for HRBPs, leaders, and associates on variety of functional training programs and workshops, including curated online resources.
• Reconcile ongoing and annual program expenses; forecast budget needs based on evolving business needs.
• Evaluate existing functional training programs; identify and prioritize gaps and opportunities for future development.
• Establish a consistent approach to the administration, delivery, communication, and evaluation of functional training programs for Learning Specialists to follow.
• Supervise Learning Specialists on the seamless execution of functional training programs. 
• Create system for sharing and archiving program materials and support information.

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT:

• Conduct needs assessment and analysis to create learning outcomes, objectives, and outlines to support development and enhancement of functional training programs and workshops.
• Shape the prioritization, simplification, and organization of training content.
• Plan, design, and develop programs and workshops to meet leadership and organizational development needs.
• Incorporate appropriate and varied instructional methods within learning design, such as discussions, self-directed learning, reflection, feedback, role-playing, on-the-job practice, demonstrations, and exercises.
• Create and produce learning assets, including self-assessments, participant workbooks, reference materials, facilitator guides, presentations with speaker notes, and e-learning.

EVALUATION AND ENHANCEMENT:

• Develop qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods; prepare and distribute learning evaluation results by synthesizing information, reporting results, and providing recommendations for improvement.
• Assess usage, satisfaction, and impact of functional training programs and workshops. 
• Broad scope of HR, leadership and talent development knowledge including in the areas of: needs assessment and analysis, organizational development, instructional design and development, and adult learning theories. 
• Solid business and financial acumen with ability to provide insight and synthesize data.
• Grocery store operations and cross-functional collaboration to create impactful training programs.

What you bring to the table:

• 5-7 years of progressive experience in learning, functional training, talent development, instructional design, or related disciplines.
• Preferred experience in grocery retail and understanding of the industry.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience

• Proven and consistent ability leading multiple projects and experience developing and managing programs and processes.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively including getting work done through others.
• Skilled at finding patterns and connections with an eye for developing standards and practices to improve efficiency.
• Ability to work independently, prioritizing tasks to meet deadlines with minimal supervision.
• Elevated level of professional presence demonstrated through deep and active listening, curiosity, consulting, and relationship-building skills.
• Highly collaborative, able to work with a variety of levels of leadership and roles, thriving in a high-performing, creative team environment.
• Proficient in organizing and synthesizing information from diverse sources (e.g., learning assessment results, associate engagement survey results and advanced analytics, operational metrics, customer insights, external best practices, etc.) to create new, engaging, and enhanced approaches to functional training.
• Skilled in assessing organizational and learner needs aligned to functional competencies and skills, designing and developing engaging and effective learning experiences, producing learning content and assets, facilitating workshops, overseeing implementation, and evaluating the impact of training programs.
• Advanced project management skills including conceptualizing, planning, estimating, executing, and evaluating, progress and success.
• Demonstrated success with instructional design, development, and facilitation of functional training, with a focus on creating in-person, virtual, and elearning experiences.
• Ability to convey and influence balanced recommendations to different levels of the organization effectively, along with an openness to be influenced by new and differing experiences.
• Exceptional written communication skills, with a strong focus on sequencing information, conciseness, clarity, grammar, and punctuation.

• Strong presentation and facilitation skills.

• Strong MS Office skills including Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Forms.

What we bring to the table:

• Culture committed to celebrating diverse backgrounds and experiences
• Comprehensive benefits
• Opportunities for professional development and career growth
• Associate discounts
• Team of associates dedicated to serving our local customers and supporting our communities
• Flexible, hybrid work environment with three days a week at our Quincy corporate office and the remaining days working remotely

If you are passionate about customer service, thrive in a dynamic environment, and are committed to making a difference, we invite you to apply.   

The salary range is $125,200-$187,800 and will be commensurate with background, experience as well as internal equity.

Stop & Shop is an equal opportunity employer. We comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws. Qualified applicants are considered without regard to sex, race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, marital status (including civil unions), military service, veteran status, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, legally recognized disability, domestic violence victim status or any other characteristic protected by law.