Offerings catalog

Compare the options side by side.

Every entry states what it is, who it is for, and how learning begins. Open an offering for the fuller outcomes, format where confirmed, and access guidance.

Two kinds of offering

Cohort programs and shorter workshops.

Leadership programs build capability over time with peers, facilitators, and a shared language for leading people. Workshops sharpen one specific capability — dialogue under pressure, accountability, influence, focus, appreciation, or facilitation — and apply immediately to the work in front of you. Assessments provide structured developmental feedback.

How to read the access line. Each card ends with the route that starts the conversation: search Sonoco University yourself, speak with your manager or HR business partner, or go through Talent Review and Talent Management.

This guide does not provide direct registration links for these offerings. Instead, each card points to the appropriate Sonoco University, manager or HR, or Talent Review route.

13 programs

Leadership programs

BRIDGE to Leadership

A foundational step in the move from individual contributor to effective leader, built around ethical leadership, respectful communication, insightful problem solving, decisive action, team development, and continuous growth.

How this helps you: Gives a first-time or soon-to-be supervisor a shared language for making decisions, handling problems, and developing the people around them before the pressure of the role arrives.
For: Newly appointed supervisors, and individual contributors who will likely be promoted to lead people.

Manager or HR business partner

Leadership programs

Foundations of Leadership

A program for rising new leaders and people managers, focused on core leadership competencies and delivered through virtual instructor-led learning plus live, in-person practice sessions.

How this helps you: Builds the day-to-day management habits a new people leader uses immediately with direct reports, practised with a regional cohort rather than learned from theory alone.
For: Rising new leaders and those managing direct reports.

Talent Review nomination

Leadership programs

Develop to Lead

A 3-day immersive Development and Feedback Center at the University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC, USA) for people with the ability and demonstrated leadership skills to succeed in more senior, critical positions.

How this helps you: Turns assessment results and candid executive feedback into a focused development plan, useful when someone is being considered for broader responsibility.
For: Employees identified as High Potential through the Talent Review process who could fill more senior, critical roles.

Talent Review nomination

Leadership programs

Financial Acumen

A program with a curriculum developed by Sonoco’s own financial leaders, connecting plant leadership to plant financial performance through hands-on work with University of South Carolina faculty and Sonoco Finance leaders.

How this helps you: Helps an operations leader read the numbers behind their site and explain how a scheduling, staffing, or material decision moves business performance.
For: Plant managers and potential future plant managers who lead others directly or indirectly through a team or project.

Talent Review nomination

Leadership programs

Emerging Leader Program

This offering is named in the guide overview and matrix for new college graduates, but the source material contains no detailed profile for it and it is not presented here as currently running.

How this helps you: Details are not confirmed. Ask your HR business partner whether this program is currently offered before planning around it.
For: New college graduates. Ask your HR business partner whether this offering is currently available.
Availability: Ask your HR business partner for current guidance.

Manager or HR business partner

Workshops and skills

Crucial Conversations

A two-day, in-person, instructor-led course teaching nine powerful skills for working through disagreements to achieve better results, backed by 30 years of social science.

How this helps you: Gives you a method for the conversation you have been avoiding — raising a concern with a peer, a customer, or your own manager without the discussion breaking down.
For: Leaders at all levels of the organization. All employees could benefit from this course.

Manager or HR business partner

Cover of Crucial Accountability, the book the Sonoco course is based on.

Workshops and skills

Crucial Conversations for Accountability

A two-day, in-person, instructor-led course that builds on the Crucial Conversations skills, helping you address violated expectations early and resolve accountability problems without damaging the relationship.

How this helps you: Equips a leader to raise a missed commitment, understand why it happened, and agree on a next step — without the conversation turning into blame.
For: Graduates of Crucial Conversations. All employees could benefit from this course.

Manager or HR business partner

Workshops and skills

Crucial Influence

An instructor-led course teaching the leadership skills that change behavior across a team or organization, drawing on five decades of social science research and the Crucial Influence Model.

How this helps you: Useful when a change has been announced but behavior has not moved: it helps you name the few vital behaviors and use more than persuasion to support them.
For: Leaders at all levels. Highly recommended for leaders without direct authority, such as SPS, Quality, and Safety.

Manager or HR business partner

Workshops and skills

Getting Things Done

A course in the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology — productivity with presence and purpose. It builds focus and personal productivity, and helps teams create a shared, trusted way of working.

How this helps you: Gives you one trusted place for every commitment, so a busy week is driven by deliberate priorities instead of whatever arrived most recently.
For: Leaders and employees at all levels of the organization.

Manager or HR business partner

Workshops and skills

The Power of Habit

A course on the science of habit formation: recognizing when change is needed, choosing which behaviors to change, and making desired behaviors stick so knowing turns into doing.

How this helps you: Helps you see the trigger behind a routine you want to change, then redesign it so an improvement lasts beyond the first good week.
For: Leaders and employees at all levels of the organization.

Manager or HR business partner

Workshops and skills

The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace

A class that helps employees and leaders express meaningful, personalized appreciation. It introduces five distinct ways people feel valued and practical tools for applying them at work.

How this helps you: Helps a leader recognize people in the way each person actually values, so recognition lands instead of feeling routine.
For: People leaders, team leads, and individual contributors who want to strengthen workplace relationships, boost morale, and create a more positive, engaging team environment.

Manager or HR business partner

Workshops and skills

Train the Trainer

A five-part program that equips learners with the knowledge, skills, and behaviors to create, define, and deliver measurable, transformative learning experiences based on stakeholder requirements.

How this helps you: Prepares a subject-matter expert to run a session others can follow — planning the content, delivering it clearly, keeping participants involved, and showing the value afterwards.
For: Employees looking to improve communication and presentation skills while gaining the ability to create and facilitate learning experiences for their team, plant, or region.

Manager or HR business partner

Assessments and feedback

Korn Ferry 360 Feedback Review

A professional feedback tool using multiple raters — peers, direct reports, manager, and self — to give candid, anonymous feedback based on your behavior and the Sonoco leadership competencies.

How this helps you: Shows a leader how their behavior is experienced by the people around them, so development effort goes where it will be noticed rather than where it is assumed.
For: Managers with direct reports who have been in their role for at least 6 months.

Manager or HR business partner

Once you have a shortlist

Take one offering into your next development conversation.

Two or three options is enough. Open each one, read the outcomes and the access route, then bring the closest fit to your manager or HR business partner — they confirm timing and availability for your group.

See how to get started