NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – May 15, 2023 – The Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) is proud to announce Brandon Emms of GreenShield as the winner of the 2023 Workforce Management Professional of the Year Award, which recognizes a workforce management professional who has shown outstanding leadership in the industry.
“We are so thrilled to announce Brandon as the winner of this prestigious award,” said Vicki Herrell, SWPP Executive Director. “His 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.”
The other finalists include Mary Kathryn Dorr of Trimble Transportation, Trent Ryan of Netflix, Caci Cooper of Optum, and Tim Bodway of Thrivent. The winner was announced at the 2023 SWPP Annual Conference.
Brandon Emms is Manager of Workforce Management for GreenShield. The insurance company has one location with 200 agents handling calls and emails. They utilize systems from Avaya, Verint, and Nuance. Brandon has 13 years of workforce management experience spanning two organizations: The Minacs Group and GreenShield. While at Minacs, Brandon’s accountability grew from a Real-Time Coordinator to Workforce Team Manager, where he led a global, multi-site team. At GreenShield, Brandon’s career has grown from an Operations Analyst to the Manager of Workforce Management, where his team drives service excellence in both front- and back-office functions. He is currently in a one-year placement as Manager of the Contact Centre.
GreenShield is a not-for-profit social enterprise with a mission of providing better health for all. Brandon is very effective in connecting his team’s contributions to the company’s mission. As a result, the engagement scores for Brandon’s team is typically at or near the top of the entire company. GreenShield’s contact centre is a unionized environment and through Brandon’s passion for both people and results, Brandon has built very strong relationships with the workforce and Union Committee. Brandon’s internal clients praise him and his team for the quality and timeliness of their deliverables, which has driven very strong working relationships and business results. Brandon excels in challenging the status quo and making continuous improvement part of regular work. Brandon has a very strong commercial mindset and applies it every day, as budget and margin are factored into all decisions he makes.
In early 2022, productivity was a significant challenge as the organization was adapting to the new world of the hybrid workforce. Service and budget suffered during this timeframe, without any relief in sight. In response, Brandon saw an opportunity to drive improvements in three ways: increased productivity, reduced contact volume, and improved adherence to the long-term plan.
While productivity measures were well understood at the macro level, distilling them down to the team and individual were always more challenging. Brandon and his team played an instrumental role in the development, integration, and adoption of individual statistics. This contributed to a 25% improvement in AHT between Q1 and Q4 of 2022. Brandon also led a critical initiative to reduce call volume by introducing a first-call resolution program. In addition to reducing call volume in one of GreenShield’s top categories, it also increased employee engagement and supported efforts to measure customer effort.
Brandon also introduced a new tool that automatically measured adherence and results against the long-term plan. This tool has been extremely valuable in driving alignment between operational leadership, workforce management, and senior leadership and contributed to one of the strongest service years in recent history at GreenShield. The total impact of these initiatives equates to roughly $2M in bottom-line impact, which GreenShield uses to fund its social impact initiatives around improving mental and oral health across Canada.
Brandon and his team have presented at the SWPP Annual Conference on a range of topics in each of the last four events. The presentations have all received 5-star ratings, highlighting the substantial impact Brandon has had on the SWPP community.
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 2023 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.