Director, People Development and Leadership Effectiveness

Position Summary

The Director, People Development and Leadership Effectiveness is responsible for building and leading Denny’s people development work in partnership with the Chief People leader. This role supports leadership development, manager effectiveness, support center growth, restaurant leadership curriculum, talent readiness, culture activation, and the practical application of The Denny’s Way across the organization.

This is a hands-on leadership role. The person in this role must be able to think strategically, build the work, facilitate leadership sessions, support leaders, manage execution, and measure whether the work is making a difference. This role will not lead a large team. It will serve as the primary owner responsible for bringing structure, clarity, and momentum to people development under the People function.

Denny’s is entering one of the most important chapters in its history. The brand is moving with greater focus, accountability, and expectation that work must turn into visible progress. That kind of growth requires stronger people capability: leaders who communicate clearly, managers who coach and develop their teams, support center teams who understand the restaurants and franchisees they serve, and restaurant-facing development that helps operators execute with confidence.

This role helps build that capability. The work is bigger than training. It is about helping Denny’s grow into a stronger organization with clearer leadership expectations, stronger manager routines, deeper connection to franchisees, better follow-through, and a culture that shows up in how people lead every day.
 

Key Responsibilities

People Development Strategy

- Build and execute Denny’s people development roadmap in partnership with the People leader.
- Translate business priorities into development programs, tools, leadership routines, and learning experiences that support the work ahead.
- Identify the leadership and manager capabilities needed to strengthen business performance, franchisee partnership, restaurant execution, team effectiveness, and organizational growth.
- Prioritize the work that will have the greatest impact on leaders, teams, restaurants, franchisees, and guests.
- Bring structure and follow-through to people development so ideas turn into usable programs, tools, and leadership behaviors.

Leadership and Manager Effectiveness

- Design and deliver development for managers, emerging leaders, functional leaders, field leaders, and high-potential talent.
- Build leadership experiences that strengthen accountability, communication, coaching, decision-making, change leadership, business ownership, and follow-through.
- Help define what strong leadership looks like at Denny’s and make those expectations clear, teachable, and repeatable.
- Develop tools that help managers lead better conversations, give feedback, coach performance, recognize people, set expectations, and lead through change.
- Partner with business leaders to identify manager capability gaps and create targeted solutions.
- Support leadership meetings, team sessions, retreats, onboarding experiences, and other key moments where leaders need clarity and alignment.

 The Denny’s Way and Culture Activation

- Translate The Denny’s Way into leadership behaviors, manager expectations, team routines, and development experiences.
- Build tools that help leaders understand what The Denny’s Way looks like in daily decisions, communication, coaching, accountability, recognition, and collaboration.
- Partner with HR, Internal Communications, Operations, Field Leadership, and functional leaders to reinforce The Denny’s Way across support center, field, and restaurant-facing audiences.
- Help leaders connect The Denny’s Way to business performance, franchisee trust, restaurant execution, team engagement, and guest experience.
- Ensure culture is not treated as separate from the business, but as part of how Denny’s leads, operates, and serves the system.

 Support Center Team Growth

- Build development strategies that help support center leaders and teams grow with the needs of the business.
- Create learning experiences that help support center teams understand the franchise model, restaurant economics, field realities, operator pressure, and guest impact.
- Partner with functional leaders to identify capability gaps and build solutions that improve team performance and collaboration.
- Help support center teams see how their work connects to restaurants, franchisees, field leaders, and guests.
- Reinforce a stronger service mindset so the support center understands its role in helping the system perform.

Restaurant Leadership Curriculum and Field Capability

- Support the design and improvement of restaurant-facing leadership curriculum that strengthens restaurant execution, field leadership, franchisee capability, and team readiness.
- Partner with Operations, Training, Field Leadership, Franchise Business Leaders, and subject matter experts to ensure curriculum is operator-informed and connected to restaurant performance.
- Build leadership tools and learning content that help restaurant managers, multi-unit leaders, and field teams lead people, coach performance, uphold standards, and create a consistent guest experience.
- Ensure restaurant-facing curriculum reflects labor pressure, manager readiness, execution consistency, restaurant economics, franchisee adoption, and daily restaurant operations.
- Use feedback from operators, field leaders, restaurant teams, and business results to improve curriculum over time.

Talent Development, Onboarding, and Change Support

- Support talent development work that strengthens leadership readiness and internal pipeline.
- Partner with the People leader and HR to identify high-potential talent, emerging leaders, capability gaps, and development needs.
- Help translate talent review and succession insights into practical development plans and learning experiences.
- Build onboarding and assimilation experiences that help new leaders understand Denny’s business model, culture, franchise system, restaurant realities, leadership expectations, and strategic priorities.
- Build leader tools, discussion guides, and learning moments that help teams move through change with clarity.
- Design and facilitate sessions that help teams clarify priorities, address barriers, strengthen trust, improve collaboration, and move work forward.

 Learning Design, Execution, and Measurement

- Personally design, build, and facilitate programs, workshops, leadership sessions, and learning experiences.
- Create facilitator guides, participant guides, leader toolkits, discussion guides, presentations, onboarding resources, and communication support.
- Partner with subject matter experts to ensure content is accurate, useful, operator-informed, and aligned to business priorities.
- Partner with learning platform owners and technology teams so development content is organized, accessible, trackable, and easy to use.
- Manage external partners, facilitators, consultants, platforms, or tools when additional expertise or capacity is needed.
- Establish success measures, track adoption, gather feedback, and evaluate whether development work is improving leadership behavior, manager confidence, support center capability, restaurant execution, culture adoption, and team effectiveness.

Required Qualifications

- Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Organizational Development, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Business, Education, Communications, or related field.
- 8 or more years of experience in leadership development, learning and development, organizational development, talent development, restaurant training, field capability, or related work.
- Experience building leadership development, manager effectiveness, curriculum, or capability-building programs from the ground up.
- Strong facilitation skills with the ability to lead sessions across multiple leadership levels.
- Strong content development, instructional design, and communication skills.
- Ability to translate business needs into practical tools, learning experiences, and leadership routines.
- Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities independently.
- Experience partnering with senior leaders, HR partners, operations leaders, and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Ability to work effectively in a lean environment without relying on a large team.

Preferred Qualifications

- Master’s degree in Organizational Development, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Human Resources, Business, Leadership, Education, or related field.
- Experience in restaurant, hospitality, retail, franchise, field-based, or multi-unit environments.
- Experience developing restaurant leadership curriculum, manager training, field activation tools, or operational learning resources.
- Experience supporting culture change, leadership transitions, organizational redesign, transformation, or performance improvement work.
- Experience supporting talent reviews, succession planning, leadership pipelines, or high-potential development.
- Certification or experience in coaching, leadership assessments, change management, facilitation, organizational effectiveness, or instructional design.

Critical Capabilities

The successful candidate must be able to think strategically and execute hands-on, build from scratch, create structure where there is ambiguity, influence leaders without formal authority, and translate business priorities into people capability. They must understand restaurant operations, field realities, franchisee pressure, and support center dynamics. They must also be able to make The Denny’s Way practical, teachable, and repeatable so leaders can turn culture, strategy, and expectations into daily behaviors.

Success Measures

Success in this role will be measured by a clear people development roadmap, leadership development programs that are launched and adopted, manager tools that are used across the organization, stronger support center capability, improved restaurant-facing leadership curriculum, clearer leadership readiness, and stronger connection between The Denny’s Way, leadership behavior, restaurant execution, franchisee support, and guest experience.

The typical pay range for this role is:

Minimum:$114,000.00 - Maximum:$156,200.00

Please note that this range represents the pay range for all positions in the job grade within which the position falls. This job posting is not a promise of any specific pay for any specific employee as the actual pay will take into account a range of factors, including location and experience.

Denny's, Inc. is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all persons regardless of age, race, creed, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, genetic information, military or veteran's status, criminal background, or any other characteristic protected by Federal, State, or local law. 

Applicants requiring reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process should contact 864-597-8000. PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT THIS NUMBER TO CHECK THE STATUS OF YOUR APPLICATION.

Denny’s, Inc. participates in E-Verify. We will provide the Social Security Administration, and if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security, with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization. For more information on E-Verify, please contact the DHS at 888-897-7781 or dhs.gov/e-verify.  Please note that we do not use this information to pre-screen job applicants.