brain storming help

Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
10,085
Location
Stoke area
Hi all,

Hoping that you lot can use your collective knowledge and help me with an issue.

The business I work for is an online gambling company, we run several bingo and casino sites and we employ hosts to sit in the chat rooms and talk.

Now 1/2 of the hosts are home hosts and I have NEVER heard such a small group of people have so many issues with routers, internet connections etc.

So, we need to start monitoring the issues, we are already monitoring instances and times of these technical issues happen but we were wondering if there is anyway we can ask for proof?

Which is where I need your help, how would you in this case ask they prove the different issues? Can they be proven?

I was thinking logs for computer/router issues but they can be faked (although some can't change resolution on the PC), internet issues - could the ISP provide a document proving it?

My only other suggestion was that we buy them dongles and they must use those to chat with.
 
This is going to be a tricky one... as they could just unplug their router/modem and say the internet has gone down.
You could ring the ISP and find out how many faults they've had and when they've had faults, and then try and link them to when the staff have went offline.
Even if you buy them dongles, what's stopping them from saying the reception dropped out and I couldn't connect to the internet? Or them just simply unplugging it?

If I had the power, I'd dock their weekly salary by £50 and use that as a bonus for when they're actually working, if they go offline when they should be working; no bonus for them, therefore they don't get their complete salary they're used to. If they are working when they're supposed to however, they will get their bonus and their complete salary.
 
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If it was up to me I would offer office positions or tell them to jog on ;) Nothing but a complete pain in the backside.

Thanks for the feedback, you've pretty much covered exactly what I thought, that it would be near impossible to police properly. Even with a dongle in the business name it would be too much work contacting isp etc.
 
I’d guess that these homeworkers have to provide their own internet connection? If they do then why is it your problem?

Treat it like a car, if they don’t turn up to work because their car/internet has broken down they don’t get paid. If they don’t turn up on a regular basis they get their marching orders.

If it is a company supplied connection then there are some things you could do (budget allowing).

@Van Hellseek
I seem to think that you're trying to get your broadband connection to Sky working. I'm also sure that one part of Sky involves online gambling and bingo. If you're that offended by the concept you should probably start your own personal boycott of all such companies.:)

Ps did you check when your Sky activation date was?
 
The only real way it could work would be to adopt a flexi strategy.

Let them go down to -7.5 hours below contract and no more - Any less and they lose pay. Any negative hours when they leave the business to be deducted from final pay.

Their internet will probably start working all of a sudden when they don't get paid :D
 
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I’d guess that these people are getting paid peanuts, and we all know what that leads to…

I apologise in advance if this isn’t the case.

Actually, I am pretty certain we pay a hell of a lot more for our hosts than any other site in the UK. Some hosts are just glorified players that get bingo tickets in exchange for their time! :o Standard host salary for us is around £18k which isn't bad considering the job is to sit and chat to people.

However, it's not the money, its the type of job, it attracts the a certain type of person and it can take a while to get someone that actually has a decent out look!

Thanks for the feedback of everyone, a few good suggestions.
 
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