Senior Manager Learning & Development at Pick n Pay Stores Limited

• To lead and execute the enterprise-wide learning and development agenda, with a core focus on building deep technical and service excellence capabilities across Pick n Pay’s operational workforce.
• A central pillar of this role is to establish and lead the disruption called Fresh Food Academy (FFA), a flagship capability-building engine focused on Produce, Deli, Bakery, and Butchery.
• The SM of L&D will ensure that learning frameworks are role-specific, scalable, regionally supported and directly tied to performance, customer satisfaction and compliance outcomes.

Minimum Requirements

• 10+ years in Learning and Development, with 5+ in a senior leadership role.
• Experience in food retail, hospitality, service industry, FMCG or technical education required.
• Track record in setting up academies or similar technical capability programmes.
• Bachelor’s degree in Education, Human Resources, Organisational Development, or Food Technology.
• Postgraduate qualification in Learning & Development/HR or related field.
• ETDP SETA-accredited Assessor/Moderator credentials (advantageous).
• Advantageous: Exposure to QCTO, SAQA-accredited program design.

Competencies

Cognitive

• Analysis: Use performance data to prioritise technical learning in underperforming categories (e.g., shrinkage, quality).
• Judgement: Make decisions that balance operational speed with long-term capability building.

Personal

• Drive: Champion the FFA as a vehicle for elevating customer-facing excellence and food credibility.
• Ethical Behaviour: Embed integrity, food safety and customer-first practices into every learning initiative.

Interpersonal

• Building Relationships: Influence across Store Ops, Trading, Regional HR and Suppliers.
• Customer Service Orientation: Ensure that service delivery is built into every learning module.

Communication

• Influencing and Negotiation: Secure business buy-in for learning programs and funding.

Functional

• Business Insight: Align the FFA with broader trading performance levers like margin protection, waste reduction, and brand trust.

Leadership

• Strategic Leadership: Position the Fresh Food Academy as a driver and disrupter for store excellence and future-fit workforce readiness.
• Execution Management: Deliver against rollout plans with strong QA, tracking and continuous improvement cycles.

Key Responsibilities

L&D Strategy and Governance

• Define and govern the enterprise-wide L&D strategy focused on technical proficiency, service delivery and frontline capability uplift.
• Develop learning policies, governance processes and compliance tracking systems.
• Drive strategic reporting on learning metrics (e.g time-to-competence, performance improvement, and ROI).

Fresh Food Academy (FFA) – Build and Execution

• Establish and operationalise the Fresh Food Academy as the technical learning centre for Produce, Deli, Bakery, and Butchery.
• Design occupationally aligned pathways, learnerships, and certifications (e.g., NQF-aligned) for each food division.
• Collaborate with Trading, Store Ops, Food Safety, and QA to ensure FFA content reflects store excellence, hygiene, merchandising, and customer care standards.
• Oversee the rollout of entry-level and advanced learning progammes and align to succession into roles like Blockmen and Bakery Managers.

Capability Framework and Learning Design

• Build a Skills and Capability Framework for all operational and fresh food roles.
• Map learning interventions to real performance indicators (e.g., waste reduction, sales uplift, compliance audits).
• Design modular learning (classroom, e-learning, in-store practicals) that enables consistent standards across all regions.

National Learning Deployment

• Manage the Development Partners and regional Learning Partners to ensure consistent rollout and localisation of learning programs.
• Establish a quality assurance process across all facilitators and training environments.
• Ensure digital learning adoption through LMS platforms and self-paced toolkits.

External Partnerships and Funding

• Engage with SETAs, QCTO and industry bodies to accredit programs and unlock discretionary grants.
• Oversee vendor selection and manage provider SLAs in line with FFA and enterprise learning priorities.

People Leadership

• Lead and coach a national L&D team responsible for functional, regional and divisional bespoke learning.
• Create a performance-driven learning culture with strong feedback, coaching and progression mechanisms.

Closing date: 16 August 2025