Tamra Bragg has a passion for helping people reach their potential.
By Erin Rigik Del Conte, Senior Editor
If experience means anything, then Tamra Bragg knows human resources (HR).
Bragg has 40 years of total experience in the field and is celebrating her 20th anniversary this April with Sherman, Texas-based Douglass Distributing where she is the vice president of HR for the company and its c-store chain Lone Star Foods.
Convenience Store Decisions is honoring Bragg as an industry leader in human resources as part of our 2017 Human Resources Awards.
Bragg began working as an HR manager for Douglass Distributing in 1997. At the time, the company had six c-stores and 110 employees.
“After a few years, Bill Douglass (the owner of Douglass Distributing) approached me to be VP of HR and VP of Store Operations. I told him ‘Bill, I’ve never even touched a cash register!’ He said ‘You’ll do just fine,’” Bragg recalled.
After 10 years linking operations and HR, which she called a “great experience,” Bragg moved back into HR full time.
Today, the company has grown to 22 c-stores, eight quick-service restaurants and 406 employees. Bragg’s role involves recruiting, onboarding, workers’ compensation, benefits, organizational effectiveness, training, employee relations, compliance and team building.
While she recently hired an assistant, Bragg has primarily been an “HR of One.”
In 2015, Bragg spearheaded the automation of the HR process, partnering with People Matter/PDI for the role out of an applicant tracking system (ATS) and payroll interfaces. In 2017 she expects to rollout a new payroll and time tracking system to the entire company.
Under Bragg’s leadership, the company has also revamped its paid-time-off policy to make it more attractive for the younger generation, and plans to automate it into the payroll system. “This is a major change as we are still using the same system as we started with 36 years ago,” Bragg said.
LEARNING THE ROPES
Like most career paths, Bragg’s trajectory zigzagged on the way to the top of her field.
Bragg worked at a bank in high school and college. After completing two years of community college, she moved to Topeka, Kan. for a banking position. Following a record cold winter, the 21-year-old returned to sunny Texas and began working in human resources for Texas Instruments. For the next several years she worked in a variety of positions before taking a position at Folger Coffee Co./Procter & Gamble.
“During my 16 years with Folger Coffee, I held several positions in the HR team, ranging from compensation and benefits, safety, employee relations, product line startup, training and organizational effectiveness,” she said.
One day she received a call from Douglass. He was expanding and seeking his first “bona fide” HR manager. His friend had suggested her.
While retail was a “totally different animal” than her legal and manufacturing background, Bragg said she was up for the challenge.
Within her first six months, Douglass opened a 10,000-square-foot travel center with a Subway, Baskin Robbins, Burger King, convenience store and car wash. “I hired 75 new folks within a four-week period of time to be our start up team,” she said.
SHAPING TOMORROW
“What I enjoy most about my role is that I have a passion for seeing people rise to their potential. To have been a part of someone’s growth, development and achievement of their potential through opportunities we have available at our company provides provides me great satisfaction,” Bragg said. “A desire of mine from day one was to have processes in place to grow our people and provide them careers as opposed to just jobs.”
Bragg also serves as president of the local Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) chapter and spoke at the SHRM Volunteer Leaders’ Summit last November. “I have a passion for building the HR Brand in our community as well as in our company,” Bragg said.
In addition to celebrating 20 years with Douglass, Bragg is also celebrating 30 years of marriage and will soon welcome her ninth grandchild.
“My biggest goal is to train my replacement so that when I do finally retire somewhere down the road, the passion I have had for this position and Douglass Distributing will be in the heart of my successor, and the transition will be absolutely seamless,” Bragg said.