Planned Companies – Director of Learning & Development – Job Description
Schedule: Monday-Friday 8:30am-5:00pm
Location: Parsippany NJ (Hybrid)
Salary: 110-120k
Summary
At Planned Companies, we believe exceptional service begins with exceptional people—and exceptional people need exceptional training. Every day, thousands of our frontline employees represent Planned Companies in office buildings, residential communities, healthcare facilities, and commercial properties across the country. Their knowledge, professionalism, and customer service skills define our clients' experience.
Reporting directly to the Chief Operations Officer, the Director of Learning & Leadership Development is responsible for building and leading the Company's learning function, creating scalable learning programs that prepare frontline employees for success while developing Operations Managers into exceptional trainers, coaches, and people leaders. This role plays a critical part in improving employee engagement, retention, operational consistency, leadership capability, and customer experience.
This is a highly visible, hands-on leadership role. While responsible for establishing the Company's learning strategy, the successful candidate must also enjoy personally facilitating training, coaching leaders, visiting field locations, observing operations, and building relationships throughout the organization.
The ideal candidate is an exceptional facilitator who naturally commands a room, adapts to diverse audiences, and creates learning experiences that are engaging, practical, and memorable. They thrive in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment where priorities evolve, embrace innovation, and continuously seek new ways—including leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI)—to improve learning effectiveness and operational performance.
Primary Job Responsibilities:
Frontline Learning & New Hire Development
Frontline employees are the face of Planned Companies. This role will lead the design, development, and continuous improvement of learning experiences that prepare employees to succeed from their first day and throughout their careers.
Responsibilities include:
- Design, develop, and continuously improve enterprise learning programs for concierge, janitorial, security, EVS, and other frontline positions.
- Create standardized onboarding and role-specific learning experiences that prepare employees before and during site-level onboarding.
- Develop engaging learning paths, facilitator guides, videos, job aids, and digital learning resources that improve knowledge retention and long-term employee performance.
- Build scalable learning programs that support a geographically dispersed, high-volume workforce while maintaining consistency across all markets.
- Evaluate the Company's HR orientation program and recommend opportunities to enhance, streamline, or integrate content into digital learning and operational training where appropriate.
- Partner with Operations leaders to strengthen site-level onboarding and ensure consistent delivery of frontline training.
- Spend time in the field observing onboarding and training to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
- Measure learning effectiveness through employee feedback, manager feedback, operational performance, retention, and time-to-productivity metrics.
Leadership Development
Operations Managers are the Company's most important people leaders. Their ability to onboard, coach, develop, engage, and retain employees directly impacts service delivery, customer satisfaction, and employee retention.
This role will:
- Design and facilitate leadership development programs focused on Operations Managers and frontline leaders.
- Develop train-the-trainer programs that enable managers to consistently deliver exceptional onboarding, coaching, and operational training.
- Create practical leadership resources focused on coaching, communication, accountability, customer service, employee engagement, conflict resolution, and performance management.
- Partner with Operations leadership to identify leadership capability gaps and implement targeted development solutions.
- Build leadership development pathways that strengthen management capability while improving employee engagement, retention, and operational consistency.
Learning Strategy, Innovation & Organizational Development
- Develop and execute the Company's learning and leadership development strategy aligned with operational priorities and business objectives.
- Serve as the business owner of the Company's Learning Management System (LMS).
- Leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging learning technologies to modernize learning, personalize learning experiences, improve engagement, and increase operational efficiency.
- Expand the use of blended learning, video learning, microlearning, and other innovative instructional methods.
- Partner with Human Resources and Talent Acquisition to support career development, internal mobility, succession planning, and the continued evolution of the Company's career development programs.
- Establish meaningful learning metrics and continuously improve programs using operational data, learner feedback, and business results.
Business Partnership
- Partner closely with the Chief Operations Officer and Operations leadership to build organizational capability through learning.
- Collaborate with Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, IT, and Executive Leadership to align learning initiatives with organizational priorities.
- Serve as a trusted advisor on leadership development, organizational capability, and learning strategy.
- Support organizational change initiatives through learning, communication, and coaching.
- Lead special projects and additional learning initiatives as business priorities evolve.
Qualifications
Education
- Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Education, Organizational Development, Business Administration, or a related field is preferred but not required. Equivalent professional experience and demonstrated success will be considered.
Experience
- 7+ years of progressive experience in Learning & Development, Leadership Development, Organizational Development, Training, or a related field.
- Demonstrated success designing, implementing, and facilitating enterprise-wide learning programs.
- Exceptional presentation, facilitation, and communication skills with the ability to engage audiences ranging from frontline employees to executive leadership.
- Experience developing leadership development programs, frontline learning programs, onboarding curricula, and train-the-trainer initiatives.
- Experience managing Learning Management Systems (LMS) and modern learning technologies.
- Strong instructional design, project management, and organizational skills.
- Experience leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) or emerging learning technologies is strongly preferred.
- Experience supporting large, geographically dispersed frontline workforces within hospitality, property management, healthcare, facilities services, security, retail, or another service-intensive industry is highly desirable.
What Makes You Successful
The ideal candidate:
- Is passionate about developing people and helping others succeed.
- Naturally commands a room and creates engaging, high-energy learning experiences.
- Connects equally well with frontline employees, Operations Managers, executive leadership, and corporate teams.
- Is equally comfortable developing learning strategy and personally delivering training.
- Builds credibility through action and enjoys spending time in the field understanding operational challenges firsthand.
- Thrives in a fast-paced environment where priorities evolve and new initiatives emerge.
- Embraces innovation and continuously explores AI and emerging technologies to improve learning.
- Is collaborative, adaptable, curious, and committed to continuous improvement.
What Success Looks Like
Within your first 12–18 months, you will have:
- Built a best-in-class frontline learning program that prepares employees for success, creates a consistent onboarding experience, and improves employee readiness across all markets.
- Developed Operations Managers into stronger trainers, coaches, and people leaders who consistently engage, develop, and retain their teams.
- Modernized learning through AI and technology, creating more engaging, scalable, and effective learning experiences.
- Established meaningful learning metrics that demonstrate measurable improvements in training effectiveness, leadership capability, employee readiness, retention, and operational performance.
- Built trusted partnerships across Operations, Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, IT, and Executive Leadership, positioning Learning & Leadership Development as a strategic driver of organizational capability and business performance.
Requirements:
- Ability to lift, carry, push, and pull up to 50 lbs.
- Ability to bend, twist, and climb stairs as needed
Benefits
- Full-time employees (defined as working 30 or more hours per week) are eligible for medical, dental, vision and other ancillary benefits.
- All employees (full-time and part-time) are eligible to participate in the company’s 401K which has an employer match.
“Planned Companies is an equal opportunity employer. Planned Companies does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, color, religion, age, national origin, marital status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other reason prohibited by law in the provision of employment opportunities and benefits.”
