CVS HR Management the Business of CVS

CVS HR Management

The business of CVS is to provide products and health services with a vision that "strives to improve the quality of human life" (CVScaremark, 2011). Taking a look at two of the organization's strategic goals of the Human Resource business areas Training, Recruiting, Selection, and Technology it is easy to see how CVS is an industry leader.

CVS recognizes the importance of establishing a culture that will have an affect on its people and their performance. The organizational development functional management at CVS realized that sharing a common vision would assist each individual in understanding what the company stands for, commit to the same vision, and then work toward supporting the mission each and every day.

The target market are communities with consumers in major urban cities across America. In these communities is a pool of employable workers as well as many cities have government programs to facilitate jobs. The CVS sustainable competitive advantage is centered in providing superior training to their employees and partnerships with government programs.

II. HRM Function: CVS Technology

The management at CVS has attempted to improve customer service by implementing several technological solutions. Currently the call center has recently brought on board a Voice interaction response system across all customer service platforms to accept incoming customer calls. Management added a voice response system to dial out to customers informing them of the status of their pharmaceutical orders. For online requests from customers there are email auto-response handlers. Each of these customer service response systems acts independently and often results in customer complaints of poor service with many customers needs left unmet and others being lost in the process. At CVS this was unacceptable and management was charged with devising an organized approach to meeting the needs of customers that presents a single solution to handle all aspects of customer service issues (Thies, 2010). The reporting generated by the different systems failed to give an accurate picture of the volume and type of service necessary to improve customer satisfaction. Because the systems were different they did not provide the data required to make informed decisions of how to improve matters. The number of customer service workers hired to service customers had high turnover due to the stress associated with meeting the customer needs. Training was not provided in a consistent manner to new and existing employees as there was no formal training available.

It was clear to leadership at CVS that the traditional organizational structure of multiple systems to meet individual managerial functionality was an inefficient and unsatisfactory manner to resolve the customer service issues. They decided to implement a single technological system to handle all customer service issues in an integrated delivery support system.

III. HRM function: Customer Service Technology

The solution was a vendor that has developed a single application with a unified approach to handle multiple customer service functions. The product has integrated the administrative, training, delivery, task flow and reporting functions. It also handles Internet, phones, email, and fax customer requests under one technological platform, Aspect. CVS is now able to consolidate customer service functions while providing an efficient service delivery application (Thies, 2010).

Achieving Optimal Results - Technology

The result of using Aspect has been faster email response times ranging from 2 days to less than an hour.

The costs of rolling out a new system has been lowered by over 50%.

A higher volume of calls can be handled in less time with minimal callbacks.

Less calls are being dropped due to long wait times which have been reduced 25%.

The ability to improve the level of customer service in areas of wait times, responding accurately to customer concerns and lowering operating costs allowed CVS to maximize efficiency while remaining effective in meeting organizational goals.

IV. HRM function: Government Hire Recruitment Programs

CVS Corporation is the number one convenience and pharmacy retailer in the country. They currently have more than 100,000 employees. In order to keep pace with a growing customer base and aggressively achieve corporate leadership goals and objectives a Government Hiree Program was implemented at CVS. This Human Resource strategy allowed the company to meet objectives while supplying a high level of quality customer service.

The HR program called the Welfare Work program initiated in the late 1990s. There has been 21,000 hirees of former welfare recipients and as many as 12,500 have remained with the company and received promotions. Meaning the managers have trained these employees and supported the transition to a long-term career path for over 60% of workers. Compare this to many retailers experience turnover rates of more than 150% annually. This rate is also higher than the entry level recruitment of CVS workers from sources outside of the program by around 30% (Wing, 2006).

The difference according to Steve Wing, Director of HR Hiring Programs for CVS, is that these employees realize the importance of teamwork and maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction. In training keeping your position in the company depends on these two objectives (Wing, 2006). These workers also recognize the importance of employment as they have experienced the alternatives. Once the workers realize this, they readily commit to the training and many find high levels of job satisfaction as well.