Senior Specialist, R&D Training Excellence Program

Job Location:

Hershey, PA

Reporting to the Senior Manager Reese Research & Development and working at the Technical Center in Hershey, PA, the Associate Manager R&D Excellence Program position is responsible for coordinating onboarding and technical training activities with an opportunity to expand into equipment training programs. This role focuses on program coordination and execution excellence, strategic partnership with functional training leaders, and contributing to building a unified and sustainable onboarding and training model.

A high level of autonomy is required. A successful candidate demonstrates excellent program, timing, and budget management, along with working across multiple teams and priorities. This candidate can solve problems & think critically, communicate across functions and with management, influence cross‑functional team members, and build personal networks.

• Own the end‑to‑end training calendar for R&D onboarding and technical courses—build the annual plan, schedule sessions, secure rooms/equipment, and coordinate speakers/SMEs; serve as the single point of contact for all training logistics.
• Partner with functional training leads and people leaders to assess needs, define target audiences, and prioritize training demand against capacity; align offerings with site and enterprise L&D standards.
• Coordinate content development with internal SMEs and external vendors (scoping, SOWs, delivery method, materials review), ensuring consistency with our unified onboarding model and brand/product area depth.
• Ensure proper management of LMS for assigned programs (enrollment, pre‑work, completions, reminders), and digitize artifacts (job aids, videos, decks) to improve access and consistency.
• Act as “experience owner” for new‑hire onboarding in R&D, orchestrating week‑by‑week checklists, buddy/mentor touchpoints, site tours, and resource way finding to reduce time to competency.
• Track and report program KPIs (attendance, satisfaction, assessment scores, time to competency), translate insights into improvement backlogs, and share monthly updates with R&D leadership.
• Own training budget basics (POs, invoices, accruals, vendor setup), monitor cost per learner, and surface trade‑offs to keep programs on plan.
• Establish governance and cadence (planning forums, change control for content, review cycles with training leads) to maintain accuracy and ongoing viability of the onboarding and training model.
• Maintain source‑of‑truth content and documentation standards (versioning, naming, storage), improving findability and knowledge capture for new‑to‑R&D and new‑to‑role employees.
• Drive stakeholder communications (pre‑reads, agendas, calendars, Teams posts, recap notes) to keep learners, managers, and SMEs aligned before, during, and after each training.
• Continuously improve learner experience by curating feedback (surveys, quick polls, post‑class debriefs) and testing refinements to sequencing, formats, and modalities.
• (Optional Role Expansion) Coordinate equipment training and rollouts (with Process/Tech Ops and vendor partners), including prerequisite tracking, floor access, and documentation of standard work/safety considerations.

• Leadership (director level and above)
• Technical and professional employees within R&D
• External Vendors
• Manufacturing, Operations, and Plant Quality Assurance
• Quality and Regulatory Compliance
• Procurement
• Engineering
• Marketing

This role will require 5‑15% domestic and