When LaTonya Richardson took on training at Sauer Brands, training didn’t exist at the company. Not because the fourth-generation family business didn’t value it. They just didn’t have a person to lead it.
LaTonya’s task was clear: find training for production supervisors and managers across four manufacturing plants. These are the first point of contact for team members at facilities producing Duke’s Mayo, Kernel Season’s popcorn seasonings, and premium spices under the Spice Hunter brand.
The challenge? Most training programs aren’t built for manufacturing floors.
What Manufacturing Training Actually Needs
Staci Cooper, HR Manager at Sauer’s Richmond, Virginia plant (133 associates producing seasonings for restaurants and grocery stores), explains the problem with typical training.
“People do go through trainings, but sometimes training is not relatable. It’s just something that they’re putting on the whiteboard, and then you have to think about how you can turn that around to what we actually do.”
Manufacturing supervisors don’t have time for theoretical concepts. They need practical tools they can use immediately when they’re boots on the ground.
“In the manufacturing environment, as soon as you get on that ground, you’re just going,” Staci says. “We need time that’s away from the floor, designated time, a professional person coming in to teach all of the issues, challenges, and pain points.”
An hour here and there from an already stretched HR manager doesn’t cut it. And when knowledge isn’t formalized, it walks out the door when people leave.
“If I was here and I happen to have some training and then I leave, the new person doesn’t get that training. So having a cadence each year will ensure that our frontline supervisors get that training.”
Finding the Right Fit
LaTonya researched multiple vendors in 2022. Trinity’s Frontline Leadership Program stood out for three reasons:
Manufacturing focus. The curriculum was built specifically for production environments, not adapted from corporate training.
Comprehensive modules. The content covered the exact pain points HR managers were seeing: performance gaps, people management, and conflict resolution.
Partner approach. “He really took the time to want to know what we were looking for, to understand our needs. He knew that I was new and I didn’t have any prior experience with putting together a training program. So he really worked with me step by step.”
What Makes It Work
Now going into their fourth year with the program, Sauer Brands runs it annually across all four plants with sessions of 20 to 25 supervisors and managers (they’ve even included leads, customer service, and transportation in some cohorts).
The training runs two full days with role playing and practical scenarios.
“The examples in the book are relatable, so they’re able to take that back to the floor,” Staci says. “Having the role play sessions during the class and then going back to the floor… I’m able to reinforce some of those tasks by asking them, what did you do when this happened? Did anybody in the classroom have this occur?”
The Trinity facilitator gets consistent positive feedback year after year.
“She is very engaging and extremely relatable,” LaTonya notes. “When people see her, they light up. They look forward to the training, and I think that’s half the battle because people don’t typically like to look forward to sitting in a classroom all day.”
Senior leadership sees the evaluation scores and participant feedback. The message is consistent: employees are engaged, they have buy in, and they want more training.
“The feedback from the participants has been great,” LaTonya says. “They want to see more topics within the training.”
For a manufacturing company that didn’t have formalized training in 2022, that’s exactly where they wanted to be.
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