Pretty much, they operate by using the bare minimum number of employees to get things done. However, that backs up what amiga is saying as the workload gets shifted onto employees that already had a full days work to do, so stress levels increase.
Off sick, calls from manager
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Pretty much, they operate by using the bare minimum number of employees to get things done. However, that backs up what amiga is saying as the workload gets shifted onto employees that already had a full days work to do, so stress levels increase.
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Indeed.
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Yeah, but cashflow and profitability is also a management issue.
What I'd like to see is a companies sickness absence data available to potential recruits so they can better make a decision on who they apply for. I know sites like glassdoor are a great resource for potential recruits.
I used to run call centre resourcing departments so have spent most of my life dealing with sickness levels.
Enforcing the policy of making employees call in absolutely does reduce single day and post weekend sickness amongst the agent population.
However the best call centres used a combination of carrot and stick, so duvet days etc generated goodwill that meant sickness tended to be more genuine.
It's easier to deal with that sort of thing if you're working with a large workforce though as the law of averages works in your favour, it doesn't always work in all cases and might have to be suspended if other things start to impact on the ability to forecast supply and demand.
It's a balancing exercise, if people are sick you want them to take the time off. The number of times I've told people off for being sick and then answering emails/making calls etc. is quite high. Although I end up doing the same myself!
If you're sick then stop it, whatever it is can wait, or it can be dealt with by someone else.Equally what you don't want to happen is people abusing sick leave and treating it like additional holiday entitlement.
Another good policy, again in call centres, is actually publishing the holiday availability so agents can see what days there are holidays available.
That, combined with a commitment to the agents to process all requests within 24 hours meant people were more likely to use holidays that they knew they would get rather than just not bother and call in sick.
That, combined with a commitment to the agents to process all requests within 24 hours meant people were more likely to use holidays that they knew they would get rather than just not bother and call in sick.
Nah, the boss shouldn’t be phoning you. That makes no sense.
I've never had one where they do, you let them know in the morning and that's that. Obviously long term sick is a little different and they may call just for a catchup/update but for normal sickness any discussions are had when you're back in the office.
For my team (I am a supervisor, but I deal with all the staff crap), we often cannot always complete jobs in full so a heads up the next day on the phone is helpful to see where people were. I enforce our company policy to phone because I was sick to death of two of my colleagues (now left, thankfully) abusing the full pay sick leave and 'child care' days and they would text me out of hours. I don't need to hear or worry about work when I am at home... !
My manager starts about 2 hours after me so I don't call him, I email him and say I will call him later in the day but he can call me if he needs to speak to me. I am rarely off sick.
My manager starts about 2 hours after me so I don't call him, I email him and say I will call him later in the day but he can call me if he needs to speak to me. I am rarely off sick.
It depends on the business.
For example, when we're planning for 400 concurrent agents sitting down, as a resourcing function, knowing asap what is happening is imperative.
Therefore the process for agents was to ring a central sickness line that I had to staff 8:00-22:00 using up to 3 people fielding the calls.
We would take basic details, input that to the systems and work out how screwed we were given the sickness levels so we had time to mitigate it. Using direct line management to field calls isn't practical on that scale.
As part of that process we would generate reports every hour that would provide management with details of all sickness in the system. They would then, as part of the duty of care to the employee, make the appropriate contact to resolve the sickness from a people management perspective. It was however, part of the employees contractual agreement that they made themselves available for follow up calls except in exceptional circumstances.
And I have a major issue with that, calling IN - I have no issue, but why would I want somebody interrupting me while I’m asleep/recovering? Let’s be honest, it’s not a duty of care - in the main I’m almost certain it’s the standard lack of trust in an employee that drives this.
It is a lack of trust.
You're naive if you think the majority of 18-whatever year old call centre workers give 2 hoots about being conscientious.
If they want to treat people like idiots (for example most of a team calling in with 'sickness and diarrhea' the day after we know they had a team night out), they get managed to mitigate that.
TBF, It's a race to the bottom, consumers want everything for nothing, companies try and run to that budget, they end up running too lean and paying peanuts, nobody cares about their job.
I've never had a job where they do, and I've worked in all sorts of environments.
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dunno then.
Bearing in mind I started working for a major bank when they processed zip zap credit card slips manually and we used to have to rekey sheets of green and white dot matrix financial figures sent to a secure printer in Leicester from Head Office in London rather than just send emails with data.....
The call centre, on average, has really dropped as a 'nice' place to work IME. When I first started attrition rates were far lower than I see 20 odd years later.
Agents are most definitely treated more as, and therefore behave like, disposable or transient members of the company.
What a brilliant idea.
I worked in a call centre about 17 years ago, i was there for 5 years to the day. It got noticeably worse in the 5 years I was there in terms of staff just being a number & treat like ####, the more I felt like that was the case the less I gave a damn and in year 5 i'd just wake up some mornings & just think stuff it. But because they had a silly 3 strikes and you get into bother policy there was no point in having just the day off so that "Stuff it" morning usually ended up being 10 days as it was only 1 case of absence still. You'd still get a strike against you for being 3 minutes late late regardless of reason so there was more than one occasion the bus would be stuck in traffic or something so i'd get off, go into a shop where it's quiet & phone in sick instead of being late, and as above, no point having one day off, may as well have a week or so.
When you start treating staff like a statistic then staff start treating a job with complete apathy.
Even if genuinely ill, why only have 2 days and risk going back when not 100% to potentially get two "strikes" if you start to feel worse again and go home for the afternoon? The sensible option was to take a full two weeks off, everyone did the same, all the staff were doing it.
In the end I got a job elsewhere lined up & carefully got myself down the disciplinary path by purposefully being a minute late off my breaks at specific points so that they would give me the boot on the day i'd been there 5 years & have to pay me 5 weeks notice, I had a week gap then started a new role, I went on holiday to Crete for 16 days with the extra months wages that summer.
As a Teacher we're expected to call in first thing to allow them to arrange cover.
Not just that, I have to send in up to 5 lessons worth of cover work. It's expected. Unless I'm physically unable to move my fingers... I have to send in cover work. If I was able to use my phone, it was expected.
When I was signed off due to mental health, I still sent in work. It takes hours to plan lessons
Some work places are different I suppose.