At the CVS/pharmacy headquarters in Woonsocket, 140 people in the human resources department have been responsible for managing payroll and benefits for the company’s 170,000 employees –55,000 hired in the last two years alone.
It’s a heavy work load, further complicated by those workers being scattered at more than 6,100 stores across the United States. But now, under a 10-year agreement with IBM, most of those HR tasks will be outsourced and automated.
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“The current human resources system was taxed,” said CVS spokeswoman Carolyn Castel, handling an employee population that, at 170,000, “is pretty close to the population of Providence.”
So CVS looked “at what our options would be,” Castel said, and that led to the IBM deal.
IBM will handle “transactional services such as payroll, benefits enrollment and things as simple as changing an address or dependent information,” she said. “These were all things we were handling for our employees, but this looked like the better way, going into the future.”
An IBM news release said the contract will allow HR services to be delivered “in a more real-time, flexible manner,” using “enhanced tools and technologies complemented by best practices for process transformation.”
The HR team at CVS, meanwhile, will focus more on “strategic” projects, policy development, training and leadership development.
IBM also will support the administration of compensation, performance management, payroll, benefits, work force analytics, recruiting and staffing, and provide HR call-center support, the companies said. For CVS workers, the new system will provide online access to their information and the ability to enroll in benefits programs 24/7.
“This really brings some needed technology for these HR transactions for our stores and the personnel in our stores,” Castel said. “Our intent is for ease and convenience. Some of it will now be online, with call support if needed. Currently, it’s all phone service.”
The 140 employees whose work is being outsourced will lose their jobs by the time the shift is completed next year, Castel said, but the company hopes to find them positions elsewhere within CVS. “We have the advantage of a transition time frame,” she said. “Our hope and our expectation is the majority of those individuals can transition to other roles.”
The 55,000 jobs CVS has added in the last two years have been due, to a great extent, to the acquisition in 2004 of 1,300 Eckerd drugstores and the acquisition this year of nearly 700 Sav-On and Osco drugstores. CVS has added about 500 jobs at its headquarters to support the growth, with extra hires in marketing, merchandising and the customer call centers.
“We’re strong and growing,” Castel said. Despite the 140 job cuts, “in the end, we expect to have even more positions in Woonsocket then we had previously.”
