NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – April 16, 2014 – The Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) has announced Kirwyn Adderley of Walgreens as the 2014 Workforce Management Professional of the Year Award, which recognizes a workforce management professional who has shown outstanding leadership in the industry.

“We are so pleased to announce Kirwyn as the winner of this prestigious award,” said Vicki Herrell, SWPP Executive Director. “His workforce management knowledge, leadership, and vision have helped him achieve great results for his company.   We believe he is truly representative of the great workforce management professionals around the world.”

Kirwyn Adderley joined Walgreens in 2003 and has over 22 years of operations and workforce management experience.  He is the Director of Walgreens Centralized Pharmacy Operations (CPO), and leads a team of 30 workforce management personnel.  Kirwyn’s team supports over 1500 staff in two locations as well at a large percentage who work from home.  The staff handles millions of contacts per year and the workforce management team supports 100% back office work groups.  Prior to joining Walgreens, Kirwyn was employed by Intuit and Household Credit.  He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and is a Six Sigma Green Belt.

Kirwyn can be described as a strategic, collaborative, creative leader, who actively seeks new opportunities to further the development of his team. Kirwyn places the training and development of his staff as his number one priority. He encourages his team to think outside of the box when searching for solutions.   Kirwyn believes in staying on top of industry knowledge. He has implemented workforce management Town Hall meetings as a forum in discussing industry best practices and business strategies. According to Kirwyn, “You are only as good as your people. I always want to foster learning and growing environment.” In addition to effectively developing his team, Kirwyn is very successful in building relationships. This ability allows him to produce successful partnerships with other business leaders.

When Kirwyn came on board with Walgreens CPO, the business struggled with balancing cost and service. High attrition and excessive overtime were a few of the problem areas that needed to be addressed. Kirwyn quickly led his team through a series of quick wins, in order to drive the business in the right direction and build operational credibility. He did this by training and leading his team through series of process improvement projects that utilized methodologies such as Process Mapping, VSM, Lean Six Sigma, and Control Charting. He quickly implemented WFM planning meetings for forecasting and scheduling improvement, changed the department structure to better align with the organization, redefined WFM practices in some sites, and added an escalation plan to assist with team empowerment. Last but not least, Kirwyn worked on his partnerships with operations, and encouraged open communication lines.

Although back office is fairly new to some call center operations, Kirwyn is no stranger to the back office industry, implementing and streamlining various back office and chat operations since 2004.  Within a year and half of Kirwyn being on board, forecasting accuracy improved by 4%, attrition decreased by 40%, service metrics were met 50/52 weeks in the year, and Walgreens CPO met cost for the first time in Operation. Meeting cost, established the foundation for the expansion of CPO operations. The strategies implemented, and the partnerships created, proved to be a success. Furthermore, the processes implemented by the team have been scalable and sustainable over time. According to Kirwyn, “my goal is to establish a best in class workforce management info structure in support of Walgreens Centralized Operations and growth.”

The other finalists included Danielle Cook-Grant of APAC/NCO Group, Heather Jackson of Assurant Solutions, Cynthia Stevenson of Citi, and Alexander Wareham of AAA Western and Central New York. The SWPP Board of Advisors selected the five finalists from nominations submitted on the SWPP website.  The Workforce Management Professional of the Year award is chosen from the five finalists by the Board of Advisors and announced at the 2014 SWPP Annual Conference.

 

About SWPP

The Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) is an organization devoted to facilitating education and networking opportunities among workforce planners across all industries.  Membership in SWPP is available to all workforce planning professionals and other interested parties from consulting and vendor organizations.  Both individual memberships and corporate membership options are available, with full benefits and costs outlined on the organization’s website at www.swpp.org.

 

##