Career Paths within Six Sigma
Six Sigma is recognized at Maple Leaf Foods as a significant development opportunity for our top talent in the organization. Following time as Black Belts, many of our Six Sigma alumni have found great career opportunities in the business, from Manufacturing and Supply Chain to Marketing and Sales.
There are also great career opportunities within Six Sigma. As our capability and capacity grows and evolves, there is increasing demand for Six Sigma resources to address major business issues requiring advanced change management and more sophisticated problem solving. This added complexity continues to raise the bar with respect to project challenges creating rewarding opportunities for our people to grow and develop.
Set your own pace for growth
The Black Belt role is the most common point of entry into Six Sigma at Maple Leaf, for both internal and external candidates. People on this career path can progress through a number of increasingly challenging, project-focused roles up to and including the Executive Lead role.
The progression depicted below has many facets including, but not limited to the following:
- Leading initiatives of greater size, risk, complexity, ambiguity and visibility
- Managing the business relationship with, and coaching of, increasingly senior executives
- Assuming accountability for the problem solving quality of a portfolio of Black Belt projects (Lead role and above)
- Having the option to directly manage and develop a team of one or more Six Sigma resources (Lead role and above)
There is no clock that defines the duration within a role. If an individual performs and develops at an accelerated rate, they too can advance in Six Sigma at an accelerated rate.
Tailor your career path
In addition to the Black Belt progression path, there are several options to enable Black Belts to focus and develop their skills.
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Dedicated Coaching Group: Members of this group are experienced Black Belts focused on providing technical, change management and/or project management coaching, primarily to Black Belts and Project Champions.
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Advanced Business Science Group: Specialists in this group focus on developing deep expertise in a cluster of related analytical methods, concepts and tools such as process modeling and lean manufacturing.
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Project Management Office (PMO): Members of this group include the role of PMO leader, which provides leadership in the prioritizing, tracking and resourcing of initiatives across the business. The PMO Leader role is one where Black Belt experience is strongly preferred.
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Process Management Group: Black Belts in this group develop and support efforts to embed Six Sigma thinking, continual improvement and process management at all levels of the organization.
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Strategic Projects Group: Black Belts in this group are focused on executing high priority Black Belt projects that are of strategic importance to the business. Maple Leaf Black Belts begin their Six Sigma careers as team members of Black Belt-led projects.
To apply for a role in Six Sigma, visit the Maple Leaf Career Centre to see our available postings.
