As our Head of Staffing Strategy & Vendor Management, you will be tasked with ensuring Member Care has the right people, with the right skills, in the right place at the right time—across both internal teams and outsourced partners.

This transformational leader will own the multi‑year staffing strategy for Member Care, including the design and ongoing optimization of our tiered staffing model, skills‑based routing strategy, and the balance between internal and BPO resources. You will directly oversee workforce management and scheduling functions (skilling, staffing, scheduling, and real‑time management) and vendor/BPO operations, ensuring we consistently meet or exceed service level, quality, and margin goals while delivering a top-notch member and employee experience.

Reporting to the Senior Director, Member Care Strategy & Operations, you will partner closely with Member Care Advocacy (our member-facing teams), Staffing Forecasting, Quality, Training, Operations Enablement, Implementation, Finance, and Product/Engineering to turn demand forecasts and staffing assumptions into an executable plan that works in production.

This role is perfect for a skilled leader who is enthusiastic about workforce strategy, contact center operations, and vendor management, and who loves using data, process, and relationships to drive measurable results at scale.

Staffing Strategy & Workforce Management

• Own the multi‑year Member Care staffing strategy across channels, roles (e.g., Member Care Advocates, specialty teams, support functions) and staffing type (internal and BPO), ensuring alignment with company growth plans, product roadmap, and client commitments.

• Translate demand forecasts (provided by the Forecasting Team) into clear capacity and staffing requirements by role, tier, BPO/internal and skill group across standard and surge periods.

• Lead the workforce management and scheduling function for Member Care, including long‑term capacity planning, short‑term staffing plans, shift and schedule design, skill assignment, and real‑time management responsibilities for both internal and outsourced teams.

• Design and continuously refine a tiered staffing and skilling model (e.g., role tiers, skill groups, routing rules, cross-skilling) that optimizes for member experience, efficiency, and employee engagement.

• Ensure staffing plans are operationalized via skilling, and scheduling tools and that there is tight feedback between plan and actual performance.

• Establish and maintain clear staffing governance, including how staffing decisions are made, who owns what (Member Care vs. Finance), and how trade‑offs are escalated and resolved.

• Drive continuous improvement in staffing efficiency, shrink management, adherence, and productive occupancy, while maintaining or improving key experience metrics (e.g., service levels, AHT, MSAT, escalation rate).

• Serve as the owner for Member Care Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) strategy, including which scopes of work are internal vs. outsourced, partner selection, and portfolio mix across vendors and geographies.

• Define and maintain performance standards, SLAs, and KPIs for BPO partners (e.g., service levels, quality, MSAT, AHT, escalation rates, adherence, error rates, unit cost).

• Oversee the management of BPO relationships. This includes daily and weekly check-ins for operational governance. You will also conduct Monthly Business Reviews (MBRs) and Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs). These activities help drive accountability and encourage continuous improvement.

• Ensure BPO partners are trained, enabled, and informed at the same standard as internal teams by coordinating with Training, Knowledge, Quality Coaching, and Product/IT.

• Partner with Legal, Procurement, and Finance on contracting, pricing, and commercial terms, ensuring we can meet both performance and margin goals.

• Build and maintain a robust issue and escalation management process with vendors, ensuring clear ownership, timely root cause analyses, and durable corrective actions.

• Proactively identify and mitigate vendor and operational risk, including business continuity planning, diversification of partners, and coverage for surge or outage scenarios.

Operational Performance, Analytics & Tooling

• Own a core set of staffing and vendor performance metrics (e.g., service level, AHT, staffing efficiency, occupancy, utilization, adherence, shrink, unit cost, BPO vs. internal mix) and ensure they are rigorously measured, understood, and acted upon.

• Partner with Analytics, and Finance to build and maintain dashboards and reporting that connect demand, capacity, staffing decisions, and outcomes (quality, MSAT, financials).

• Use data to routinely drive refinement of staffing models, routing strategies, and partner allocations; pilot and scale new approaches based on evidence.

• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and IT on tooling requirements related to IVR, chat routing, WFM platforms, skills management, and reporting, ensuring systems support the complexity of the staffing model.

• Drive a disciplined test‑and‑learn approach to staffing (e.g., pilots on tiering, routing strategies, channel mix, BPO vs. internal allocations) and ensure learnings are documented and institutionalized.

• Lead, coach, and develop a high‑performing team that includes ICs and people-managers.

• Set a clear vision, strategy, and roadmap for the staffing and vendor management function, with defined milestones and success metrics over an 18‑month horizon.

• Foster a culture of partnership, transparency, and shared accountability across all cross‑functional partners.

• Champion a culture of continuous improvement and experimentation, encouraging the team to identify issues, test solutions, and share learnings.

• Model Included Health’s values and maintain a deep focus on equity, inclusion, and employee experience, ensuring staffing and vendor decisions support a sustainable and engaging work environment.

Cross‑Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with Staffing Forecasting to align on forecasting assumptions, surge plans, and tooling needed to execute the staffing strategy.

• Collaborate with Member Care Advocacy and Service Excellence to ensure staffing and vendor decisions reflect member experience goals, escalation themes, and quality insights.

• Work with Operations Enablement and Project Management on the staffing implications of new clients, new products, and major operational changes (e.g., routing redesigns, new service lines).

• Coordinate with Finance on budget planning, margin improvement initiatives, and unit cost tracking tied to staffing and vendor performance.

• Partner with Client Success and Sales to help explain our staffing and vendor strategy to clients and prospects, as needed, including in RFP responses, client design sessions, and client business reviews.

• 10+ years of experience in workforce management, contact center operations, or staffing strategy, including at least 5 years in a management role.

• Proven experience leading workforce management and/or vendor operations teams (e.g., WFM, scheduling, real‑time management, BPO/vendor management) in a high‑volume, multi‑channel environment.

• Proven success in managing BPO or outsourced operations. This includes overseeing performance based on SLAs and KPIs. You will also be in charge of contract and commercial accountability.

• Experience in a healthcare, health benefits, or highly regulated service environment strongly preferred.

• Track record of using data and analytics to drive staffing, routing, and vendor decisions that improve both experience and financial performance.

• Deep knowledge of workforce management. This includes practices and tools such as capacity planning, scheduling optimization, adherence management, real-time monitoring, and skills-based routing.

• Solid vendor management skills, with a history of directing high performance and continuous improvement with outsourced partners.

• Exceptional strategic thinking and systems thinking, with the ability to connect demand forecasts, staffing levers, and operational outcomes.

• Exemplary people leadership and coaching skills, with a track record of building and empowering high‑performing, cross‑functional teams.

• Advanced analytical and problem‑solving skills; comfortable working with complex datasets and partnering with analytics teams to generate insights and recommendations.

• Robust cross‑functional collaboration and influence skills; able to align diverse stakeholders around a shared staffing strategy.

• Clear, confident verbal and written communication, including experience presenting to senior leadership and (ideally) external clients.

• High comfort with ambiguity and change, with the ability to provide clarity and direction in a dynamic environment.

• A Bachelor’s degree is required. A degree in Business, Operations Research, Statistics, Industrial Engineering, Healthcare Administration, or a similar field is preferred.

• Advanced degree (e.g., MBA, MHA, MS in Operations Research or Analytics) is a plus.

• Ability to work in a fast‑paced, dynamic environment with competing priorities and tight timelines.

• Interest for Included Health’s mission to raise the standard of healthcare for everyone.

• Willingness to travel up to 10–20% as needed for key internal meetings, site visits, and vendor/client engagements.

$149,450.00 - $200,000 + bonus + equity + benefits

Included Health is a new kind of healthcare company, delivering integrated virtual care and navigation. We’re on a mission to raise the standard of healthcare for everyone. We break down barriers to provide high-quality care for every person in every community — no matter where they are in their health journey or what type of care they need, from acute to chronic, behavioral to physical. We offer our members care guidance, advocacy, and access to personalized virtual and in-person care for everyday and urgent care, primary care, behavioral health, and specialty care. It’s all included. Learn more at includedhealth.com.