Talent Development Manager

POSITION SUMMARY

BluSky is a People First | Compliance Always organization, and the Talent Development Manager is how that philosophy is carried through the full employee lifecycle. This role makes sure we know who our people are, what they are capable of, where our bench is thin, and that we are building the capability to close those gaps.

Reporting to the Senior Director of Human Resources, this role owns the talent lifecycle from onboarding through development, performance, and succession. It designs and runs the company-wide talent review and succession planning cycle, owns the performance management cycle, builds the career and competency frameworks that support internal mobility, and identifies and mitigates talent and engagement risk. It also leads the Learning & Development team, setting direction for leadership, operational, and field training.

PRINCIPAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Talent Review, Succession & Risk

• Design, own, and govern the end-to-end talent review, calibration, and succession planning process, including the calendar, framework, and standards.
• Lead the design of talent review and calibration sessions and co-facilitate them with the Regional HR Business Partners, equipping them to guide their own leaders over time.
• Own the succession bench for critical branch, regional, and functional roles, maintaining readiness assessments and keeping plans current with HRBPs and business leaders.
• Define the approach for identifying high-potential employees and critical-role successors, and partner with HRBPs and business leaders to build the internal pipelines that support promotion.
• Establish and govern the process for identifying flight risk, single points of failure, and bench gaps, and partner with HRBPs and leaders to put mitigation and retention plans in place and confirm they are executed.
• Analyze bench strength, succession gaps, readiness, engagement survey results, and attrition, translating them into recommendations for HR and operations leadership, and partner with leaders on targeted initiatives that improve culture and retention.

Performance & Development

• Own and govern the annual and mid-year performance review cycles, including timeline, tooling, standards, templates, communication, and completion tracking, in partnership with the HRBPs.
• Integrate performance outcomes into talent review calibration so both tell a consistent story about the same people, and flag gaps or inconsistencies to HR leadership.
• Enable managers and HR Business Partners to run effective review and development conversations and address underperformance constructively, through training, coaching resources, and escalation guidance.
• Define and govern the competency models, career pathways, and development plan standards that support internal mobility, keeping them current as roles and business needs evolve.
• Ensure talent review outcomes become development plans for successors and high-potential employees, and monitor completion and progress with HRBPs, working with them to address plans that stall.

Learning & Development Leadership

• Lead, develop, and manage the Learning & Development team, including the L&D Specialist, Lead Operations Trainer, and Operations Trainer.
• Lead organization-wide skill gap analysis and set the annual learning roadmap across leadership, operational, field, and compliance training, ensuring needs identified in talent processes are addressed through programs and experiences.
• Direct manager and leadership development programming and the employee onboarding experience, continuously improving both to accelerate time to productivity and cultural alignment.
• Set standards for curriculum quality, instructional design, and facilitation, and hold the team accountable to them.
• Oversee Learning Management System governance, and define, track, and report on learning metrics -- participation, completion, effectiveness, and business impact -- using results to adjust the roadmap.
• Manage the L&D budget, vendors, and platform relationships, and partner with Legal, Safety, and HR to ensure required compliance training and documentation are delivered and audit ready.
• Oversee operational and field training for Project Managers, Superintendents, Restoration Technicians and Supervisors, and Construction roles, setting priorities and quality standards and partnering with Operations, IT, and field leadership to keep training aligned to current processes, systems, and rollouts.

Organizational Design & Role Architecture

• Partner with HR leadership and operations on role leveling, career progression frameworks, span-of-control analysis, and organizational restructuring, providing analysis and recommendations.
• Establish documented, defensible selection and leveling criteria that hold up to scrutiny.
• Guide in-flight leveling work across field and operations roles, and align career progression frameworks with the development paths that support them.

HRBP Enablement & Partnership

• Develop toolkits, playbooks, and training that enable the Regional HR Business Partner team to run talent processes consistently across regions.
• Advise and coach HR Business Partners through calibration, succession, performance, and development conversations.
• Serve as the point of escalation and subject matter authority for talent and learning process questions and standards.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITY

This role manages the Learning & Development team including hiring, performance management, coaching, and development. Beyond the direct team, the role is expected to exercise meaningful influence across the organization: setting standards, holding leaders and HR Business Partners accountable to the talent process, and driving adoption without relying on positional authority.

QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS

• Minimum 6 years of progressive HR, talent, or learning experience, with at least 3 years direct ownership of talent management, talent development, or learning and development programs including program creation and execution.
• People management experience, with a track record of developing direct reports.
• Demonstrated experience running a full talent review and succession planning cycle in a multi-site or distributed organization -- having led the process, not only participated in it.
• Experience owning a performance management cycle, including review tooling, manager enablement, and completion tracking.
• Experience building or leading a learning function, including curriculum standards, facilitation quality, and learning metrics.
• Experience developing training materials and facilitation guides and delivering training to HR and business leaders.
• Experience with learning management systems, including course architecture, reporting, and administration oversight.
• Experience working with employee engagement survey data and translating results into initiatives leaders will act on.
• HR generalist background with hands-on experience in employee relations, performance management, and HR compliance preferred.
• Proven ability to influence senior leaders without direct authority.
• Strong facilitation and public speaking skills with leadership audiences, including calibration and succession discussions.
• Ability to build practical, low-friction processes and training suited to a field and operations workforce.
• Analytical mindset; ability to use workforce and learning data to identify trends and recommend actionable solutions.
• Experience managing budgets, vendors, and external content or platform providers.
• High degree of integrity, discretion, and emotional intelligence when handling sensitive talent information.
• Self-directed, adaptable, and comfortable operating with minimal supervision in a dynamic, distributed environment.
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 25%, including overnight travel.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite required; ADP Workforce Now or comparable HRIS strongly preferred.
• Experience with organizational design, job architecture, role leveling, competency modeling, and career pathing is strongly preferred.
• Background in industries with a distributed or field-based workforce is a plus (restoration, construction, facilities management, etc.).

EDUCATION

Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, Education, or a related field required.

SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, SPHR, CPTD, or adult learning / instructional design certification strongly preferred.

WORK ENVIRONMENT & PHYSICAL JOB DEMANDS

This is a remote position with regular travel (up to 25%) to branches, regional meetings, training sessions, and field locations. The physical demands of the role are consistent with standard professional work, including extended periods of computer use, phone and video communication, and travel by car or air.

The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit; use hands and fingers, reach with hands and arms, talk, and hear.

Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this role.

COMPENSATION

BluSky offers a competitive base salary, a bonus plan for qualified positions, and a comprehensive benefits package that includes: a matching 401(k) plan, health insurance (medical, dental and vision), paid time off, disability, equipment appropriate to the position (i.e.: laptop, smart phone, etc.), and corporate apparel allowance.

BluSky also offers extended benefits such as: Remote Work, Employee Assistance Program, Accident & Critical Illness Coverage, LegalShield, Professional Development, Paid Referral Program and more.

EEOC

BluSky is dedicated to the principles of equal employment opportunity. BluSky prohibits unlawful discrimination against applicants or employees on the basis of age 40 or over, race, sex, color, religion, national origin, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, or any other applicable status protected by Federal, State, or local law.

It is and will continue to be the policy of BluSky that all persons are entitled to equal employment opportunity based on their individual qualifications, performance, and potential without regard for any protected status, as required by state and federal law.

Application Duration

To ensure a thorough and fair selection process, we would like to inform you that the application deadline for this position is 7 days from posting. Please ensure that your application is submitted by this date for consideration.

To be considered for this position you must complete the online application located at www.goblusky.com/careers.