Learning Partner - South East London (Sydenham, Purley Way, Orpington)

As a Learning Partner at Sainsbury’s, you will be instrumental in creating a welcoming, consistent and inspiring learning environment that enables colleagues and managers to grow and thrive. Please note: As this is a role working across a number of areas and/or regions, you will be required to travel to stores and sites within your area multiple times per week.

By joining Sainsbury’s as a Learning Partner, you will be part of a dynamic regional team (Sydenham, Purley Way, Oprington) dedicated to helping colleagues and managers grow, thrive and deliver outstanding results. You don’t need to come from a People or HR background - what matters most is your ability to build strong relationships, collaborate across a region, and ensure learning is deployed brilliantly in a fast‑paced retail environment. We will provide full facilitation and learning‑delivery training, enabling you to bring your strengths in communication, organisation and teamwork to a role that truly shapes the colleague experience.

What You’ll Do

As a Learning Partner at Sainsbury’s, you will take ownership of deploying learning brilliantly across your region, ensuring that every colleague receives a high‑quality experience – whether they are attending induction in a training store, joining a virtual session, or learning on the job in their store. You will partner closely with training stores to shape and deliver exceptional induction and learning programmes for new and existing managers, supporting them with regular check‑ins and tailored development conversations as they progress. Working collaboratively with Regional Store Directors, Area Managers and People teams, you will help ensure every new manager receives a brilliant and consistent business welcome, and that talent pipelines at all levels are supported through timely development opportunities. Using data, insight and feedback, you will continually evaluate how learning is landing across your region, identifying performance opportunities and recommending interventions that can make a real difference. You will champion our learning products and policies, becoming a trusted expert for store leaders and training store managers, and you will coach and challenge these teams to strengthen people processes and drive high performance. Your role will also involve supporting regional people activity and contributing to key transformational projects such as store openings, closures and refreshes, coordinating the delivery of both technical and behavioural training to ensure change is well‑supported.

Who You Are

You are someone who thrives on building relationships, understanding people, and helping others grow. You do not need to be a People professional already – but you should enjoy connecting with others, working as part of a regional team, and driving high‑quality execution of learning and people processes. With curiosity and a forward‑thinking mindset, you understand how learning supports store performance and contributes to wider business priorities. You value inclusion and create an environment where colleagues feel supported, confident and encouraged to develop. You’re organised, proactive and comfortable navigating retail operations to ensure learning lands brilliantly and consistently across your area.

Essential Criteria

• Strong relationship‑building skills, with the ability to connect with colleagues at all levels and support learning in a busy retail operational setting.
• Confidence delivering messages, guiding groups, or supporting learning – even if you haven’t facilitated formally before (we’ll provide full training).
• Ability to follow processes accurately and consistently, ensuring learning and people activities are deployed brilliantly across multiple stores.
• Good organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities across a regional landscape.
• Experience using insights or data to understand performance or identify opportunities for improvement.
• Ability to work collaboratively as part of a regional team, sharing best practice and contributing to continuous improvement.

Benefits

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed wherever you work. In addition to the standard benefits, we offer flexible working, career development opportunities and recognition for exceptional performance. Our benefits include:

• Colleague discount – 10% to 15% on Sainsbury’s, Argos, TU and Habitat.
• Pensions scheme and life cover.
• Performance‑related bonus of up to 10% of salary.
• Annual holiday allowance with the option to purchase up to an additional week's holiday.
• Season ticket loans, cycle‑to‑work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance and access to discounts from hundreds of retailers.
• Employee assistance programme.
• Up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

For more information about benefits, please visit the Sainsbury’s careers website.