Sr. Mgr, Talent Mgmt Ops/Technical

WestRock Company; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading packaging firm in Atlanta is searching for a Senior Manager, Talent Management in Operations/Technical. This role focuses on advancing learning initiatives and talent development across the Corrugated North America division, requiring strong partnership with stakeholders. Essential expertise includes instructional design, communication, and strategic influence. The position is full-time and involves frequent travel. This is an excellent opportunity for experienced professionals looking to impact operational training in a large-scale manufacturing environment.

Qualifications

• Experience with e-learning authoring tools is required.
• Ability to enhance learning solutions through design support and effective use of learning technologies.
• Exceptional oral and written communication skills for diverse audiences.

Responsibilities

• Create and deploy learning solutions to support organizational talent plans.
• Partner with key stakeholders to align technical learning initiatives.
• Track and measure programs using data and metrics to ensure effectiveness.

Skills

Growth and Results Oriented

Innovation

People Skills

Accountability

Influence

Decision Making

Communication

Education

7-9 years of training or learning experience

Experience in operations and/or technical learning for manufacturing

Tools

Instructional Design Tools

Microsoft applications (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Outlook, SharePoint, Teams)

Learning Management Systems

Job description

Overview

The Senior Manager, Talent Management - Operations/Technical plays a pivotal role in driving impactful learning and talent initiatives across Corrugated North America. This role supports the operations and technical learning and development within the Corrugated Packaging business across $10.0 billion annually, over 200 sites, and 17,000 employees across three sub-businesses - Container produces custom and standard corrugated packaging with high-impact graphics and durable materials, engineered to protect and promote products across all delivery channels, supported by facilities throughout North America, Packaging Solutions helps customers streamline their entire packaging operation—from sourcing to just-in-time delivery—through a flexible supply chain, strong industry partnerships, and a broad presence across the US and Mexico, and Merchandising Display / Graphic Solutions creates high-impact, customizable retail solutions that drive consumer engagement and sales, backed by deep expertise, retailer insights, and end-to-end capabilities from design to manufacturing.

This role involves program coordination, technology integration, and continuous improvement to support a high-performing workforce, with a focus on technical and operational training. Must be comfortable working in manufacturing environments and willing to travel up to 50%.

This role partners with key stakeholders across the Corrugated business segment and to support building, aligning, and implementing the training strategy across the division. This includes identification and communication of skill needs, the integration of those skill needs into common training programs and processes, and the improvement of learning solutions that allow us to better scale learning to our teams.

Key stakeholders

Key stakeholders for this leader are the operational leaders across corrugated, SMEs, Technical Trainers that own courseware/work, technical operations functions like quality, safety, mfg services, engineering and HR Leaders in the Corrugated business segment.

Impact and responsibilities

• The focus of this role is to understand organizational needs, synthesize findings, and create/deploy learning solutions to support strategic and talent plans for both operations and technical roles. This will require forward-thinking and a willingness to dive into the work and engage with the details through strong partnership with business and HR leaders looking historically and into the future (3–5 years).
• Leverage understanding of market trends and internal talent strategies to align operational and technical learning initiatives with evolving needs.
• Build partnerships and relationships with key stakeholders related to operations and technical learning needs that support the Corrugated business strategy.
• Gather requirements and develop tailored learning solutions for both operations and technical skill requirements of the Corrugated business segment in support of talent development and pipelines.
• Create and leverage capability and skill-related content in partnership with North American regional capability leads aligned with business priorities.
• Manage and implement learning initiatives including experiential learning opportunities to build practical, on-the-job skills by identifying key sponsors, developing project plans, and collaborating effectively across teams.
• Design, develop, and coordinate technical learning programs.
• Coordinate with technical trainers to deliver consistent, high-impact training.
• Track and measure programs using data and metrics to ensure objectives are met, strategic needs are fulfilled, and talent development is effective.
• Lead the design and coordination of programs for Corrugated-specific audiences and support regional program delivery.
• Support vocational and technical training initiatives tailored to corrugated operational needs.
• Partner with business and HR leaders to strengthen the talent pipeline across operational areas.
• Support engagement initiatives and provide strategic partnership to HR and business leaders.
• Utilize approved learning systems to assign, track, deploy, and report on training across the division.
• Facilitate in-person and virtual learning experiences, ensuring skill and/or knowledge acquisition toward intended business results as needed.
• Improve performance and efficiency through effective training solutions that eliminate skill gaps.
• Improve certification and training processes through the Technical Training Center Network to enable robust training is in place for our most critical roles.
• Deliver learning solutions across the Corrugated business segment to help all sites and leaders build technical knowledge that drives performance.

What you need to succeed

Critical Skills/Capabilities

• Growth and Results Oriented: Delivers personal or organizational results by successfully influencing others; delivers high quality work within the stipulated time to achieve maximum results.
• Innovation: Able to support training improvement with innovative solutions and approaches that have broad organizational impact; shows resourcefulness in identifying trends, gaps and opportunities that enable us to drive operational training efficiency; and create learning in the flow of work.
• People Skills: Possess keen awareness and understanding of the importance of strong interpersonal skills in communicating, achieving goals and leading people or teams. (self-awareness)
• Accountability: Holds self and others responsible for actions and results.
• Influence: Able to partner and build relationships to influence teams to work together, share best practice and develop and drive effective training for operations teams.
• Decision Making: Uses strong problem-solving skills and supporting information to arrive at optimal decisions in a suitable timeframe; knows when to decide and/or when to seek additional input, and drive for consensus.
• Communication: creates and delivers engaging presentations to internal audiences; develops new communication strategies and approaches to communicate data, insights, and critical messages resulting in clear understanding.

Technical Skills

• Instructional Design Tools: Experience with e-learning authoring tools.
• Knowledge of Learning Management Systems, Talent strategies, HR best practices.
• Higher level competency in Microsoft applications including PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Outlook, SharePoint and Teams.
• Learning & Development experience is a plus (e.g., ADDIE design, L&D technology/design tools, facilitation, on-the-job training, implementation and measurement of L&D systems, frameworks, and processes).
• Ability to enhance learning solutions through design support and effective use of learning technologies.

Other Qualifications

• 7-9 years of training or learning experience, across large learning teams preferred
• Experience in operations and/or technical learning for manufacturing, paper industry a plus
• Knowledge of operational/technical learning; staying current on best practices and offerings, business drivers associated with talent pipeline development
• Self-driven with the capability and confidence to consult with senior leaders and stakeholders as well as the ability to work closely with front line leaders and employees
• Ability to improve learning solutions through design support and use of learning technology.
• Ability to gather, interpret, and act on workforce data to inform talent strategies. This includes using dashboards and tools to track development metrics, skill gaps, and program effectiveness.
• Exceptional and creative oral, written, facilitation and presentation skills; proven ability to professionally communicate clearly and effectively both verbally and in writing to technical and non-technical audiences at multiple organizational levels
• Proficiency in managing timelines, budgets, and stakeholder communications
• Naturally collaborative with others, having worked in a matrixed organization to achieve organizational goals and to identify and resolve problems.
• Strong ability to influence and use effective communication.
• Availability to travel as needed (approximately 50%)

Seniority level

• Director

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Human Resources

Industries

• Packaging and Containers Manufacturing

Note: Referrals and job alerts copy were removed to improve clarity and focus on the role itself.