Gene Marrano
STILL WORKING ON THE HR “EVOLUTION” By Gene Marrano Kelly Woolwine wants to “build a better mousetrap for all the companies in our area,” when it comes to the way they hire employees – especially the hourly ones. Several years ago, Kelly Woolwine sold Atlantic Credit & Finance to a publicly traded company and says, “we did real well with that.” One thing he learned over his 20 years at the helm of what was basically a credit/ debt collection company — not always at the top of the popularity list — is that if you hire the right people, providing the best encouragement and motivation, even those starting out at 9 dollars an hour or so can become superstars. They can make good money (six figures in many cases says Woolwine, who also started the non-profit Life Ring some years ago) and they stick around. In a call center environment where hundreds are employed and the turnover
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rate is usually quite high, that’s an anomaly. “What it really was, was the people business,” says Woolwine, “developing those people, retaining them, helping those people reach a higher potential.” After selling Atlantic, Woolwine started consulting worldwide on recruiting; but with young children he decided to stay closer to home more often and he launched EvolutionHR in southwest Roanoke County about four years ago. His dream scenario is to become true “partners” with the companies Evolution is recruiting for, at this point finding mostly wage workers who have the potential for greater things,
