Training Manager

About Amy's

At Amy's Kitchen, we're more than just a food company-we're a family-owned, proudly independent organic, and vegetarian food company on a mission. As a Certified B Corporation, our purpose is clear: to make it simple and enjoyable for everyone to eat well.

We're committed to crafting authentic, mouthwatering dishes using only the finest organic ingredients sourced with care. From farm to table, we ensure top-notch quality in every bite, making healthy eating accessible and convenient for all. At Amy's, we're not just serving meals; we're serving up a taste of goodness, one delicious dish at a time.

Perks are as delicious as our meals!

Comprehensive health plans with Medical, Eye & Dental coverage, including virtual physical therapy options. Lyra mental health support to nourish your well-being. 401(k) Retirement Plan with employer match, plus Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts to plan for the future. Referral Rewards and Scholarship Program to celebrate and invest in our teams. Tuition Reimbursement Program to fuel your educational pursuits. Family-forming benefits because we support every stage of life's journey. Paid Time Off for vacations and sick days, with 9 paid US Holidays annually to savor those special moments. Amy's product discount reimbursement to keep your pantry stocked, plus remote gym discounts to keep you moving and grooving! Join us and indulge in a career where the benefits are as fulfilling as our food!

The Training Manager is key to the success of manufacturing training and development at Amy's Kitchen. This person must have a solid training foundation and be able to balance different types of training programs (onboarding, work and food safety, job specific training, leadership development). A key focus for this role is to grow the leadership competencies of all leaders through training, individual coaching, development plans, and programs supporting continued growth. It is critical this person is dynamic, motivated, a strong facilitator and able to build relationships across all stakeholder groups. This leader needs to be a strong communicator and partner with department leaders to efficiently incorporate training requirements into day-to-day operations, grow our leader's competencies, drive department's training initiatives, and assess evolving training needs. This role will motivate, lead, and develop a team of training specialists across three shifts. This role is responsible for creating and managing the learning and development/training programs and promoting a learning environment that will drive operational results.

Manage and grow Training programs

New Employee Onboarding

Ensure standardized onboarding program is followed and that incoming temps and direct hires have a positive onboarding experience and learn the skills necessary to be successful in their job.
• Ensure General Onboarding plan and role specific new hire training guides are followed, and training is documented.
• Maintain line of communication with People & Recruiting teams to receive timely information of any incoming temps, direct hires to ensure they are trained adequately and have a positive onboarding experience.
• Ensure Production Scheduler knows the status of all new hire training skills and that trainees are not scheduled outside of training until they have been released from training.
• Track buddy system and new hire tracking and be able to report out.

Compliance and Regulatory Training

• Ensure all compliance and regulatory and record keeping is up to date and the plant is audit ready at all times:
  • All MFG Monthly Food Safety & Workplace training requirements.
  • Role specific food & workplace safety requirements.
• Maintains Compliance Reporting, ensuring plant leaders know the status of requirements. Communicates status proactively in MOS Process.
• Partner with plant leaders to efficiently incorporate new food and workplace safety changes into operations.

LOTO Program

• Ensure theory course is taken initially and at least every 3 years there after.
• Ensure machine specific LOTO on the job training is conducted and recorded in Coach.
• Manage the issuance of locks.
• Audit locks annually.
• Work with Safety to ensure annual audits are taking place.

PIT Program

• Ensures entire plant follows the Amy's PIT Operator Certification Process
• Maintains PIT Reporting ensuring plant knows the status of who is certified to operate, upcoming re-certs needed and new pending certifications. Communicates proactively in MOS Process.

New People Leader Onboarding

• Ensure new people leaders have strong onboarding experience and learn the skills necessary to be successful in their job.
• Ensure New People Leaders are assigned to the correct learning plan and track all trainings to ensure all onboarding is completed.
• Maintain line of communication with People & Recruiting teams to receive timely information of any new or promoted people leaders to ensure they are trained adequately and have a positive onboarding experience.
• Introduce new leaders to Amy's Leadership competencies.

Job Specific Cross-Training & Continued Job Development

• Drive a Safety Always culture.
• Identify and assess training needs, creating/updating tailored learning plans by department to ensure employees' skills continue to grow during their Amy's journey.
• Ensures there is a process in place for cross training and continued skill development across all departments.
• Partner with department managers and supervisors to advise and provide guidance on updates needed for role specific department training programs. This includes role specific learning plans, training checklists, COACH observations (work instructions) and job aids.
• Partner with Engineering to ensure smooth transition and training plan for new equipment.
• Partner with Plant leaders to ensure smooth transition and training plan for new processes and products being launched.

Leadership Development

• Responsible of actively embedding Amy's Leadership competencies into all development activities.
• Responsible for developing, coaching, and growing the leadership skills of all manufacturing leaders.

Course/Program Development

• Create / update training materials (as needed).

Develop strong business partnerships

• Actively participate in plant MOS process, proactively getting involved.
• Build strong relationships with all departments. Utilizes these relationships to help support improvement in processes, conditions, and equipment on the plant floor.
• Champions Amy's Food and Workplace Safety Programs within the plant by raising issues and working closely with Safety & QFS to ensure effective training programs are in place.
• Collaborate with other Training Business Partners and Training Leadership Team to ensure training program consistency across plants and leverage overlapping work where possible.
• Collaborate with the plant management team to establish effective Key Performance Indicators KPIs and operational objectives that drive improvement year after year in the training programs.

Continuous Improvement mindset

• Evaluate and measure current training processes/programs to continue to optimize and grow training and development programs, sharing ideas and strategizing with fellow training managers at other plants.
• Identify areas that still need training developed or where training needs to be updated or evolve. Work with appropriate teams to identify program improvements.

Represent the plant in audits

• Understand all training related audit requirements and participate in internal and external plant audits.
• Ensure the plant is audit ready at all times
• Ensure plant leadership is trained on accessing records in our LMS and that you are able to pull needed data during audits.

Productivity and Performance

• Lead and participate in Root Cause Analyses, updating training materials as needed.
• Be an active participant, in daily Tier board activities.
• Responsible for providing training data that is timely and accurate, and update Tier boards with appropriate weekly updates.
• Proactively bring up training issues and work to resolve issues with leaders.

Other

• Attends daily MOS review; actively helps the team solve problems.
• Attends weekly production scheduling meeting.
• Attends weekly recruiting meeting.
• Attends RCAs.
• Effectively Communicates proactively with training team, entire Plant Management team and Sr Mgr., L&D.
• Other duties as assigned.

It is the responsibility of all employees to uphold the mission of the Amy's Food Safety and Quality Policy. This includes following all Food Safety and Sustainability programs and participating in all required training.

Team Management & Development Responsibilities

Directly manages Training Team. Supports team members in their work across all business units. Carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization's policies and applicable laws.

Responsibilities include:

• Monitors training team's effectiveness assuming overall responsibility for the performance of the plant training.
• Interviewing, hiring, and training new team members.
• Manages the team's time: Ensures all timekeeping, attendance, paid time off (PTO) and payroll records are accurate, approved and submitted on time.
• Create a culture of continuous improvement, problem solving and teamwork among team members.
• Support a culture based on engaged team members actively promoting ideas to improve the team and the training we do.
• Plans, assigns, and directs work.
• Manages the team's performance and provides timely feedback.
• Timely Addresses complaints and resolves problems with team and stakeholders.
• Develops the team: Actively develops all team members. Coaches and mentors Supervisors and Team Leaders to inspire exceptional leadership.
• Effectively utilize the capabilities of Training Lead to ensure shift performance.
• Effectively communicates, manages, and leads the training team.
• Maintains a positive work environment. Promotes a high level of teamwork by maintaining a cohesive group and by managing in a positive work environment that is inclusive and with an open-door policy at all levels.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Education and/or Experience

• Bachelor's degree in related field or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 3 years of experience in a food manufacturing environment
• 5 years of experience in a training role
• 5 years of experience in a supervisory role

Skills

• Strong communication skills
• Constructively and expeditiously confronts and resolves employee conflicts.
• Ability to write reports and work instructions and build presentations.
• Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from groups of managers and teams in English.

Key Communications & Behaviors

• Detail oriented, results focused and highly organized.
• Positive and professional attitude
• Models the Amy's core values. (Acts as an ambassador for Amy's. Provides a warm welcome to new employees and is patient, helpful and supportive as they learn their new role.)
• Exhibits the following behaviors thinks long term, inspire others, great listener, and communicator, organized, a strong problem solver, collaborates well.
• Demonstrates the ability to partner with all plant leaders so that they can achieve plant KPI's.

Technology Skills

• Strong Skills in Microsoft Office: Excel, Word, and PowerPoint
• Data Analysis: Trends, Risks, Data Significance
• Familiarity with learning management systems (LMS)

Training Skills

• Willing to learn and grow within a development and coaching role
• Able to motivate, lead, and coach employees
• Able to effectively support and listen to employees
• Able to give timely feedback in a constructive manner
• Able to effectively facilitate classroom and on the job training

Language Skills

• Bilingual (preferred) - Proficient in written and spoken English and Spanish.
• Ability to speak effectively before groups of employees.

Mathematical Skills

• Ability to apply concepts such as fractions, percentages, ratios, and proportions to practical situations.

Reasoning Ability

• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally exposed to wet and/or humid conditions, cold (coolers and freezers) and hot (processing equipment) conditions, and moving mechanical parts. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Amy's

At Amy's, we don't just accept differences-we celebrate them, support them, and thrive on them for the betterment of our employees, our culinary creations, and our communities.

Amy's takes pride in being an Equal Opportunity and Second-Chance Employer and is equally dedicated to Affirmative Action and providing fair chances in our workplace. We are committed to fostering diversity and inclusion, ensuring that every individual has an equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status.

For further details, please refer to Amy's EEO Policy and EEO is the Law. Additionally, Amy's is dedicated to collaborating with candidates and providing reasonable accommodations during the interview process. Should you require assistance, please contact us at careers@amys.com or notify your Recruiter.