Associate Director, Training and Operational Excellence

POSITION SUMMARY: The Associate Director, Training & Operational Excellence leads the enterprise training and process improvement functions across the Patient Experience organization, partnering with Program Management, Quality, Patient Coordinator (Inside Sales), Patient Billing, and Call Center Operations to align learning strategy and operational standards with business outcomes. This role owns two connected disciplines: the training function — strategy, team leadership, curriculum design, onboarding, and skill development across internal and BPO teams — and operational excellence — identifying process gaps, driving standardization, and embedding continuous improvement into how the organization learns and operates. Training surfaces where gaps exist; operational excellence ensures the fixes are durable and repeatable. The Associate Director operates with minimal oversight while building cross-functional consensus, combining independent ownership of results with strong collaboration across peer teams and departments. PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES: Training Strategy & Curriculum Development ● Strategic Alignment: Partner with senior leadership to align all training initiatives with long-term business objectives, revenue goals, and operational standards across the Patient Experience organization. ● Needs Assessment: Collaborate with supervisors and line managers to assess current and future training requirements through job analysis, performance data, quality findings, and career pathing. ● Instructional Design: Apply adult learning theory and instructional design methodologies (e.g., ADDIE) to build training programs that are measurable, scalable, and outcome-driven across all delivery formats — classroom, e-learning, coaching, simulation, and on-the-job. ● Curriculum & Materials: Design individualized and team-wide training plans, including sales techniques and conversion strategies; review, select, and maintain training resources to ensure they are current, accurate, and effective. ● Manager & Leadership Development: Develop the coaching and people-management capabilities of leaders across the organization, not just individual contributors. ● AI Integration: Leverage AI tools to optimize training content creation, automate administrative workflows, and scale modern e-learning experiences. Team Leadership & Execution ● Team Management & Development: Build, manage, and develop a high-performing team of training managers, instructional designers, and associates. Set clear performance expectations, own performance improvement plans and remediation programs, and ensure coaching and feedback translate into measurable behavior change. ● Onboarding: Lead effective induction and orientation programs to ensure new hires are rapidly and thoroughly prepared for their roles and reaching productivity benchmarks on time. ● Executive Partnership: Serve as a strategic partner to executive-level leaders on workforce capability, change management initiatives, and organizational readiness tied to training and process improvement. ● Cross-Functional Partnership: Work closely with Patient Coordinator (Inside Sales), Medical Billing, Patient Experience, and Quality leaders to align training delivery with operational needs and resolve competing priorities. ● BPO Training Oversight: Extend training standards and quality practices to BPO and call center partners supporting Patient Experience, ensuring consistency between internal and outsourced teams. ● Budget & Vendor Ownership: Own the training budget, including LMS and vendor spend; make build-vs-buy recommendations on tools, platforms, and content. Operational Excellence ● Process Assessment & Standardization: Identify operational gaps, inconsistencies, and inefficiencies across Patient Experience through data analysis, workflow review, and cross-functional discovery; own the development and rollout of standardized processes and SOPs. ● Continuous Improvement: Embed a culture of continuous improvement across the organization — partnering with Quality, Program Management, and operations leaders to translate findings into durable process changes, not one-time fixes. ● Change Management: Lead the people side of process and system changes, ensuring training, communication, and adoption plans are in place before go-live and that behavior change is measured post-implementation. ● Cross-Functional Problem Solving: Resolve escalated performance or process gaps in real time, adapting training and operational standards as conditions change. Measurement, Data Analytics & KPIs ● Data-Driven Assessment: Leverage data analytics to track employee performance, measure training ROI, evaluate program effectiveness, and identify process inefficiencies affecting the patient experience. ● KPI Ownership: Own and present the training and operational excellence scorecard to executive leadership — including completion rates, time-to-proficiency, quality assurance scores, sales conversion rates, process compliance, and patient satisfaction — translating data into actionable business insights. ● Root Cause & Corrective Action: Partner with Quality to own root cause analysis for recurring performance gaps, ensuring findings drive both training updates and upstream process corrections. ● Strategic Planning: Own the annual and quarterly training and operational excellence roadmap, tying investment and headcount decisions directly to company OKRs and operational goals. ● Industry Alignment: Stay current on training trends, operational excellence methodologies (e.g., Lean, Six Sigma), and technological developments in healthcare and regulated service environments. EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS: ● 12 + years of experience with Bachelor's degree in Education, Business, Organizational Development, Communications, or a related field in training, learning & development, or operational excellence roles or 8 + with Master’s degree; including at least 3+ years managing managers or multi-layer teams. ● Demonstrated experience building and scaling a training function, including hiring and developing training managers and instructional designers. ● Experience in healthcare, patient services, inside sales, or BPO/contact center environments preferred. ● Familiarity with instructional design methodologies (e.g., ADDIE) and adult learning principles. ● Experience driving process improvement, standardization, or operational excellence initiatives; familiarity with Lean, Six Sigma, or CAPA methodologies a plus. ● Experience owning a training budget and making vendor or build-vs-buy decisions, including LMS platform selection and management. ● Track record of defining, tracking, and reporting training effectiveness metrics and KPIs to senior leadership. ● Working knowledge of regulatory and compliance requirements applicable to patient-facing operations (e.g., HIPAA). KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES: ● Leadership & Team Development: Proven ability to build, structure, and scale a team or function — including hiring, developing, and managing performance — while partnering effectively across peer departments and executive stakeholders. ● Independent Ownership & Execution: Operates with minimal oversight, takes full end-to-end accountability for outcomes, and manages multiple priorities effectively in a fast-paced environment. ● Training & Instructional Expertise: Deep working knowledge of adult learning theory, instructional design (e.g., ADDIE), curriculum development, LMS platforms, and multi-modal delivery methods. ● Operational Excellence Mindset: Skilled at identifying process gaps, driving standardization, and embedding durable continuous improvement — not just training fixes — into how the organization operates. ● Analytical & Tech-Forward: Adept at leveraging data analytics, AI, and modern technology to identify trends, measure training ROI, scale learning programs, and deliver actionable insights to leadership. ● Strategic & Business Acumen: Hypothesis-driven thinker with the ability to set organization-wide priorities, own a budget, make vendor decisions, and tie investments directly to business outcomes and OKRs. ● Patient-Centric & Service Excellence: Deep commitment to driving a positive patient experience through well-trained, high-performing staff; able to train teams on both quality patient care and effective inside sales and conversion techniques. PHYSICAL DEMANDS & WORK ENVIRONMENT: ● Duties are typically performed in a remote office setting. ● Requires use of a computer keyboard, telephone communication, and reading of printed material. ● Duties may require working outside normal hours (evenings and weekends) to support training rollouts or critical business needs. The pay range is listed and actual compensation packages are based on a wide array of factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, years & depth of experience, certifications and specific office location. This may differ in other locations due to cost of labor considerations. Remote USA $142,400 — $178,000 USD OUR OPPORTUNITY Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives. The Natera team consists of highly dedicated statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers and many other professionals from world-class institutions, who care deeply for our work and each other. When you join Natera, you’ll work hard and grow quickly. Working alongside the elite of the industry, you’ll be stretched and challenged, and take pride in being part of a company that is changing the landscape of genetic disease management. WHAT WE OFFER Competitive Benefits