Learning & Development Specialist

General Purpose & Essential Duties:

The Customer Operations Learning & Development Specialist is responsible for designing, developing, facilitating, and evaluating learning programs that build the knowledge, skills, and capabilities of employees across Customer Operations.

This role supports learning throughout the employee lifecycle, including new-hire onboarding, role-specific development, cross-training, systems and platform training, process changes, customer experience initiatives, compliance, refresher training, performance improvement, and ongoing professional development. The Customer Operations Learning & Development Specialist serves as the primary learning resource for the function, partnering with leaders and subject matter experts to identify skill and knowledge gaps, determine appropriate learning interventions, and create engaging instructor-led, virtual, digital, and blended learning experiences grounded in adult learning principles. This role is responsible not only for delivering training, but also for assessing whether learning results in demonstrated knowledge, skill development, adoption, and improved performance.

Learning Needs & Skills Assessment

• Partner with Customer Operations leadership to identify current and emerging knowledge, skill, and performance gaps across teams and roles.
• Conduct and support skills assessments, knowledge assessments, proficiency evaluations, and other learning-needs analyses to determine where training or development intervention is appropriate.
• Analyze assessment results, performance trends, leader feedback, quality results, and other available information to identify learning priorities.
• Distinguish between performance issues that can be addressed through training and those requiring other operational or leadership interventions.
• Establish appropriate learning objectives and proficiency expectations based on identified business and employee-development needs.
• Partner with leaders to develop targeted learning and reinforcement plans for employees or groups who do not initially demonstrate required proficiency.
• Periodically reassess skills and knowledge to identify emerging development needs and support continuous employee growth.

Instructional Design & Learning Content Development

• Design comprehensive learning programs using adult learning principles and instructional-design methodologies.
• Develop engaging instructor-led, virtual, blended, and self-paced learning experiences appropriate to the subject matter and learner population.
• Create lesson plans, presentations, facilitator guides, participant materials, exercises, simulations, assessments, e-learning modules, job aids, and other instructional resources.
• Translate complex operational, technical, and customer-facing information into practical learning experiences employees can understand and apply.
• Partner with subject matter experts and operational leaders to validate technical accuracy while maintaining ownership of instructional design and learning methodology.
• Incorporate real-world scenarios, hands-on practice, role-play, simulations, and other experiential learning techniques when appropriate.
• Continuously evaluate and improve learning content based on learner performance, feedback, business changes, and measured training effectiveness.

Training Facilitation & Employee Development

• Facilitate engaging and effective training for Customer Operations employees across the full employee lifecycle, including new-hire onboarding, role-specific development, cross-training, upskilling, systems training, process changes, refresher training, and performance improvement.
• Deliver training through classroom, virtual, e-learning, blended, and hands-on formats based on learning objectives and business needs.
• Create an inclusive, participative learning environment that encourages questions, practice, collaboration, accountability, and confidence.
• Adapt facilitation techniques to different learning styles, experience levels, and learner needs while maintaining established proficiency expectations.
• Provide constructive, timely feedback to learners and reinforce expectations throughout the learning process.
• Partner with leaders following training to support knowledge transfer, reinforcement, and successful application on the job.
• Create meaningful recognition opportunities that celebrate learning milestones, skill achievement, new-hire graduation, cross-training completion, and employee development.

Learning Management System & Digital Learning

• Serve as the primary Customer Operations learning resource for effective use and adoption of Guardian's Learning Management System (LMS).
• Build, publish, assign, administer, and maintain digital learning content and learning paths within the LMS.
• Leverage virtual learning capabilities to provide scalable and accessible training across Customer Operations teams and locations.
• Monitor course completion, assessment results, learner participation, and other available LMS data to evaluate learning progress and compliance.
• Identify opportunities to move appropriate learning into self-paced, virtual, or blended formats without sacrificing learning effectiveness.
• Evaluate new learning technologies, tools, and delivery methods and recommend opportunities to improve accessibility, engagement, scalability, and effectiveness.
• Promote consistent use of the LMS as an ongoing development resource rather than solely as a course-completion platform.

New Technology, Platform & Change Enablement

• Partner with Customer Operations leaders, project teams, technology partners, and subject matter experts when new systems, platforms, tools, products, or processes are introduced.
• Assess how operational changes affect employee knowledge, skills, workflows, and behaviors and determine appropriate training requirements.
• Develop and execute learning plans that prepare employees for successful adoption of new tools, processes, and ways of working.
• Apply practical change-management principles to training design and delivery, recognizing that successful learning requires both understanding and adoption.
• Participate in appropriate system demonstrations, testing, implementation planning, and readiness activities to develop sufficient understanding to create and deliver effective training.
• Identify potential learning or adoption barriers and partner with leadership to address them before and following implementation.
• Develop remediation or reinforcement training when assessments identify employees who have not yet demonstrated required proficiency.

Training Effectiveness & Learning Measurement

• Develop appropriate pre-training and post-training assessments to measure knowledge acquisition, skill development, proficiency, and readiness.
• Evaluate whether employees can demonstrate and apply required skills following training rather than relying solely on course completion or participant satisfaction.
• Establish meaningful measures of training effectiveness and monitor results over time.
• Gather learner and leader feedback and use findings to improve content, facilitation, and learning approaches.
• Partner with operational leadership to evaluate post-training adoption and determine whether learning is translating into improved employee performance.
• Recommend reinforcement, retraining, coaching, or additional development when learning objectives have not been achieved.
• Maintain training records and provide leadership with meaningful insight regarding participation, completion, proficiency, and learning outcomes.

Industry Knowledge & Continuous Learning

• Maintain awareness of trends, best practices, tools, technologies, and regulatory developments relevant to Customer Operations and the security industry.
• Leverage credible industry knowledge bases, professional resources, manufacturer materials, technology-provider resources, and other external sources to strengthen learning content.
• Research emerging learning practices and technologies and evaluate their potential application within Guardian.
• Develop and maintain working knowledge of Guardian's Monitoring, Customer Care, Technical Support, Customer Retention, systems, products, and customer experience processes to effectively support learning across Customer Operations.
• Continuously strengthen personal instructional-design, facilitation, technology, and adult-learning capabilities.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Build strong relationships with Customer Operations leaders, subject matter experts, and frontline employees to understand learning needs and maintain relevant training programs.
• Collaborate with People & Culture and other departments when organizational learning initiatives intersect with Customer Operations.
• Partner closely with the Customer Operations content and knowledge-management function to ensure instructional materials are built from accurate, current operational documentation and source information.
• Communicate training schedules, expectations, learner progress, assessment results, and development needs clearly to appropriate stakeholders.
• Support a culture in which learning, development, feedback, skills assessment, and continuous improvement are viewed as positive and ongoing components of employee success.

Required Skills, Abilities, Education & Experience

• Strong classroom and virtual facilitation skills with the ability to engage adult learners and create participative learning environments.
• Strong knowledge of adult learning principles, instructional design, training methodology, and learning evaluation.
• Demonstrated ability to develop instructor-led, virtual, blended, and self-paced learning programs.
• Experience conducting learning-needs assessments, skills assessments, and knowledge-gap analyses.
• Ability to create meaningful assessments that evaluate knowledge, proficiency, and practical application.
• Strong understanding of change management and the role learning plays in successful organizational and technology adoption.
• Proficiency with Learning Management Systems and comfort utilizing virtual and digital learning technologies.
• Experience with e-learning authoring tools such as Articulate Rise, Storyline, or comparable platforms preferred.
• Strong presentation, written communication, facilitation, coaching, and interpersonal skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to connect learning outcomes to operational performance.
• Strong organizational and project-management skills with the ability to manage multiple learning initiatives simultaneously.
• Technologically curious and comfortable learning new systems, platforms, products, and processes.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with leaders, subject matter experts, project teams, and employees at varying levels of the organization.
• Ability to provide constructive feedback and maintain appropriate proficiency expectations while creating a supportive learning environment.
• Ability to balance employee experience with objective assessment of skills, knowledge, and readiness.
• Bachelor's degree in Training & Development, Instructional Design, Education, Organizational Development, Business, Human Resources, Communications, or related field preferred; equivalent relevant experience accepted.
• Minimum of three (3) years of professional experience designing and facilitating employee training programs preferred.
• Demonstrated experience with both instructional design/content development and live training facilitation required.
• Experience utilizing an LMS to administer, deliver, track, or evaluate learning strongly preferred.
• Experience developing virtual or e-learning content strongly preferred.
• Experience conducting skills assessments, learning-needs analyses, or training-effectiveness evaluations preferred.
• Experience supporting technology implementations, process changes, or organizational change initiatives preferred.
• Experience within a customer contact center, customer operations, security/alarm, telecommunications, or similarly fast-paced service environment preferred.