Talent development for automation & industrial technology
Manager training for technicians who now lead a crew
The best technician on the job becomes the lead because they can diagnose a cell, walk a customer through a fault, and keep a commissioning date. Then they have to schedule other technicians, review someone else's work, and hold a conversation when a callback is really a people problem. If nobody in your company owns teaching that transition, the new lead learns it on the customer's time.Thrive runs the talent-development function for automation companies of 50 to 2,500 people: live workshops, a course library, coaching between sessions, and reporting, at one flat organization price.
Photograph, not a Thrive session. Sessions run live on Microsoft Teams.
The situations we see
What automation & industrial technology teams run into.
In automation & industrial technology
Technicians become leads without a leadership job description
The skill that earned the promotion is still the skill they hide in. When a panel is late or a site is down, they take the tools back. The crew waits, the new lead stays buried in the work, and the customer only ever sees one person who can finish.
In automation & industrial technology
The job walks out when one person is out
Program knowledge, site history, and the unofficial way a line was commissioned live in a handful of heads. A lead is asked to spread that knowledge and still hit the next startup. Without a habit of documenting and coaching, the company is one resignation away from a project it cannot staff.
In automation & industrial technology
Shop, field, and customer-site crews at once
The same lead may own a panel shop, a field crew, and a customer who wants a date. Feedback that works at a bench does not always work in a plant that is not yours. New leads need practice on both kinds of conversation.
In automation & industrial technology
Accountability when a line is down
Automation work is judged in downtime, callbacks, and whether the next shift can run without a phone call. The lead is the person who has to say what went wrong and who owns the fix. That is a leadership skill, not a programming skill.
What works
How Thrive answers each one.
Treat the lead job as its own skill
Coaching Fundamentals and Difficult Conversations give new leads a way to review work, reset expectations, and talk about a miss without taking the job back. The examples can be a callback, a drawing error, or a site that was left unfinished.
A first program for the technician who now has a crew
Fundamentals of Leading People is built for people in their first leadership role. Applied work is their actual job: the person they have not coached, the handoff they keep repeating, the customer conversation they have been avoiding.
Standard work for how the crew does the work
Documenting Standard Work and Problem Solving & Root Cause Analysis sit next to the people workshops. They give a lead a way to write down what only they know and to work a repeat failure instead of living in it.
Live sessions that do not take a full day off the job
Workshops are two hours on Microsoft Teams; each topic runs once a month at 3:00 PM Eastern. Can't make 3 PM? Talk with us about timing for a private cohort before you buy. On-demand courses stay available between those sessions.
How the function fits
An L&D function for a controls firm. The first program we recommend is for the new lead.
Thrive is the talent-development function an automation company of 50 to 2,500 people is usually asked to invent: live teaching, a library, setup, coaching between sessions, and reporting, at one flat organization price. Fundamentals of Leading People is the first program we recommend for technicians and specialists who now lead. Any program can also run as a private cohort for your company alone, using your situations as the applied work, on dates set with you. Private cohorts are priced per participant and quoted with the dates. Public sessions stay on the published calendar.
The function, not a technical catalog
Thrive does not teach PLC, robotics, or a vendor platform. It carries the people-leadership and professional-skills work those firms still have to do after the technical training is done.
Fundamentals of Leading People: the first program we recommend
Four weeks, live sessions, applied work reviewed by the participant's company. Cohort programs are priced separately, per participant. A company can send one new lead or a group that was promoted in the same season.
Platform access for everyone else
Once the organization is on a band, every employee can use the workshops, the course library, and Coach Taylor, our AI practice coach. That matters when the next technician is asked to lead a job and there is no internal program waiting for them.
Named with permission
Organizations in this industry, and only what we can stand behind.
Automation & industrial technology
Apex Controls
Leadership development.
Manufacturing
Stiles Machinery
Supervisor and frontline leadership development.
Live workshops for automation & industrial technology
Two hours, twenty-five seats, someone who has done it.
Pricing
The function, priced by headcount.
The band is set by how many people you employ, and that is the only thing it sets. Nothing is metered, nothing is held back for a higher band, and adding people inside your band costs nothing. Cohort programs are the one line priced per participant, because a facilitator and a fixed group size are a real constraint.
| Organization size | Monthly | Annual | Per person, per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compliance LibraryAny size, no card. Start free | Free | Free | Nothing, at any size. |
| Thrive Platformup to 100 employees | $399 | $3,990 | $3.99 at 100 people, and less every time you hire inside the band. |
| Thrive Platform101-500 employees | $799 | $7,990 | $1.60 at 500 people, and less every time you hire inside the band. |
| Thrive Platform501-2,500 employees | $1,499 | $14,990 | $0.60 at 2,500 people, and less every time you hire inside the band. |
| Above 2,500 employees | Set with you, not looked up. Usually with private cohorts of your own. | ||
This table has no column for what is included, because the answer does not change by band: live workshops, all one hundred thirty-five courses across five libraries with fifty-six of those free in the compliance library, Coach Taylor, our AI practice coach, for every learner, Morgan for setup, and the reporting. Annual billing is ten months charged for twelve months of access. A monthly plan is one month, charged once. Monthly plans do not auto-renew.
Completion, attendance, and progress reporting by person, team, and department. Morgan guides setup from your employee spreadsheet, including roles, assignments, and invitations, with your approval. Security, data, and privacy are on the security page.
Supervisor and manager training guides
- Frontline Leader Development for Manufacturing
- Manager Training for Manufacturing: From Floor Expert to Team Leader
- New Manager Training for Manufacturing Companies
- Frontline Supervisor Training for Manufacturing
- Team Lead Training for Manufacturing Operations
- Fundamentals of Leading People
- Pricing
- Contact
- New and frontline leaders
For automation & industrial technology leaders
Training for frontline and new managers.
Who teaches
Held the job. Not studied it.
Content is the easy part to buy. A dozen vendors will sell you a library this afternoon. What none of them sells is the person who has already done the job, live, for two hours, watching your people practice it.
Every Thrive session is led by someone who has done the work they are teaching: run a shift, carried a quota, managed a team through a change, sat across from the person who needed the hard conversation. They bring the real version of the problem into the room, and the practice is done on your people’s actual work, not on a case study.
Sessions are capped at 25 people. The facilitator coaches practice during the two-hour session. Between sessions, Coach Taylor, our AI practice coach, keeps the thread going.
- Session size
- 25 max
- Length
- 2 hours
- Format
- Live
- Where
- Teams
Talk to ARIA
Ask what you would ask us.
ARIA works the way a good first call works. She asks who is involved and what should change, recommends the closest starting point, quotes the real price, and hands you to a person when you want one.
Start with one of these
Prefer a person? Say so in the conversation and the team follows up, or use the contact page.
Questions
Questions from automation & industrial technology companies.
We promote technicians, not factory supervisors. Does this still fit?
Yes. The first-time-lead problem is the same: someone was excellent at the work and is now responsible for other people doing it. The applied work is their actual job — a field crew, a shop, a commissioning team — not a plant-floor case they do not recognize.
Do you train PLC, robotics, or controls skills?
No. Thrive is the talent-development function around those skills: how a lead coaches, documents, and runs a crew. Technical product training stays with your vendors and your own senior technicians.
Can a field-service lead join a public cohort?
Yes. Public workshops are live two-hour sessions on Microsoft Teams, once a month at 3:00 PM Eastern, with twenty-five seats, so a field-service lead can join any session they can take as a two-hour call. Can't make 3 PM? Any program can run as a private cohort for your company alone, on dates set with you, priced per participant and quoted with the dates.
How is Thrive priced for an automation company?
The platform is one flat price per organization by headcount band. Cohort programs are priced separately, per participant. Use the table on this page or the pricing page; they read from the same source.
What is not built
Scheduled reminders are not built. Coach Taylor answers when a person asks, and nothing chases them yet. Reminders are on the roadmap.