Christina Bell of BCD Travel Named 2013 WFM Professional of the Year Award

SWPP has announced Christina Bell of BCD Travel as the 2013 Workforce Management Professional of the Year, which recognizes a workforce management professional who has shown outstanding leadership in the industry.

“Every year, we  are amazed by the quality of nominees for this award,” said Vicki Herrell, Executive Director of SWPP. “We are so pleased to recognize Christina as this year’s winner. Through her leadership and vision in the workforce management arena,  she was able to achieve great results for her company and their customers.”

Christina Bell started her career in contact centers as a part-time customer service representative over 15 years ago, never anticipating where the road would lead her. She quickly realized the fastpaced environment of the contact center suited  her, and was afforded opportunities as a Service Coordinator, Supervisor, and then a Shift Supervisor. During this time, she found her passion for workforce management.

Christina joined BCD over two years ago and now has over 12 years of operations and workforce management experience. She serves as the Senior Manager of Workforce Management at BCD Travel with a team of 17 in the workforce management group for 15 locations and 750 agents. According to Christina, “My role at BCD Travel affords me the privilege of educating others on the integral role resource management and capacity planning play in ensuring organizational success and solvency. Every day brings an occasion for me, and the wonderful team members that comprise our workforce management group, to see the direct impacts our efforts have on the customer, the operations, and the company as a whole. That daily insight fuels my passion to do more, learn more, and be more.”

Christina is described as intelligent, focused, decisive, accountable, and collaborative. She joined BCD as the company made the investment in workforce management and was providing some basic forecasting to a handful of business units in the US. Initially, she took stock of the services the internal group was providing and spent a significant amount of time developing Standard Operating  Procedures for each segment of the workforce management process. She partnered with Human Resources to craft improved job descriptions, with specifically defined roles and hierarchy for the existing and future team. Educating her team through the use of white papers, FAQs, and user forums, she has expanded their industry knowledge and leveraged proven workforce management methodologies to the point that the entire workforce management team is currently working on completing SWPP certification this year.

Christina also used programs such as Microsoft’s Excel and Access to centralize data for trending and analysis which helped to improve the credibility of the forecasting process and build greater  trust of the workforce management team. She also initiated a real-time service component that clearly defined areas of responsibility and scope of service and allowed for

awards

From left to right: WFM Professional of the Year
Finalists Scott Boyd of Guardian Life Insurance, Jeffrey Bretana of Navy Federal Credit Union, Christina Bell of BCD Travel, Seth Ettwein of Alaska Airlines, and Sean Stewart of The General

collaboration between operations and workforce management to ensure performance objectives were met and efficiencies realized. This real-time plan was piloted in May 2012 with a field location of 97 agents in six account teams.

Measured through November 2012, with a 7% increase in call volume over the prior year, there was a 7.4% increase in schedule adherence, a decrease of over one minute in AHT, decrease in overtime of 154 hours, increase in voluntary time off of 772 hours, consistent service delivery, reduction of 10 FTEs, and a net savings of  over $600,000. Christina and her team have established significant credibility with the senior executive team while managing agents not only in the US but also India, Costa Rica, and Manila.

Terri Atwood, Senior Director at BCD Travel says that Christina has “created a learning organization poised for growth, provided advancement opportunities for her staff, and put critical building blocks in place that ensures the growth is centered on well established best practices in  Workforce Management.”

On a personal note, Christina says she feels both proud and fortunate to be a mother of two collegebound children, Darryen and Alexus, who were the motivation for taking that part-time job so many years ago. “Without probably even realizing it, their love, support, and sacrifice has been a critical component of my success. Understanding my need to work many swing shifts and allowing me to sleep in late after many years of graveyard, they have supplied both the motivation and inspiration for my success. In the next few years, I hope to pursue my law degree and find a quiet space to enjoy a Maui sunset. In my spare time, I enjoy running, reading, volunteering, and feeding my obsession for shoes!”

The other finalists for the award were Scott Boyd of Guardian Life Insurance Company, Jeffrey Bretana of Navy Federal Credit Union, Seth Ettwein of Alaska Airlines, and Sean Stewart of The General. 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 SWPP Annual  Conference.