Pros
Competitive pension
Friendly colleagues in the trenches
Cons
Since Debbie Crosbie took over as CEO, the workplace has noticeably declined, especially within the contact centre.
Speaking specifically to my experience with the Sheffield division, the issues with management are glaring.
The Sheffield managers are blunt, dictatorial, and lack empathy. They often seem more interested in checking football or cricket scores (seriously, close those windows before screen-sharing!) than in supporting their teams. When you ask for help, they either have no solutions, push the problem back to you, or offer the bare minimum, or make you feel incompetent for even reaching out. It’s baffling how they're paid manager salaries given this lack of responsibility. The overall management style is uninspiring, confrontational, and discouraging.
Aside from this, managers simply never channel feedback upwards. Contact centre employee voices are never heard. If you resort to providing feedback through the so-called "anonymous" employee sentiment survey, retaliation seems inevitable. After submitting anonymous feedback, my manager immediately called me demanding to know if it was from me, and thereon began nitpicking every minor detail of my work and documenting all our interactions via email —despite me consistently receiving positive feedback from customers.
When I expressed a desire to progress within the company and mentioned feeling burnt out by contact centre work, instead of offering support or guidance, they doubled down on the petty criticisms and continued to document every minor thing. This felt more like they were covering themselves rather than supporting me or helping me advance. They also seem to actively gatekeep contact centre staff to keep bums on seats - blocking contact centre employees from taking advantage of career development opportunities within the company.
For example, when contact centre employees were invited to a Nationwide networking event held during work hours, I was forced to use a day's holiday to attend. At face value, it seems like contact centre employees are offered the same opportunities as other departments, but in all reality, they're consistently challenged for time off the phones to participate, making it incredibly difficult to contribute or develop one self leaving you with a stagnated feeling of lack of growth. If you'd like to take advantage of an opportunity you've been given - get your gloves on and prepare to fight. This also leaves the contact centre extremely underrepresented and silenced while other business areas are far better supported, which only contributes to the contact centre's ongoing challenges.
Ok, so... it doesn't get much better. There's virtually no time allocated for personal development or compliance. We were lucky if we got an hour every two weeks to complete mandatory training and compliance. Ironically, the training modules specify the expected time required to complete them, yet we were never given anywhere near that amount of time.
Employees are also expected to read important company communications regarding process changes and other critical updates while actively speaking with customers on the phone. I once requested my manager for just 15 minutes per week—yes, per week—to read these crucial updates, as I found it challenging to hold a phone conversation and digest company briefings simultaneously. What was the answer? You probably don't need to guess - no. The irony here is that if you don’t keep up with these updates, you're at risk of non-compliance and will still be held accountable for not following the correct processes. My manager's solution to this was to start work before my official start time to allow me time to read company communications. A fantastic solution to a well-known issue that all colleagues contact centre colleagues also recognised as a problem.
Finally, a member of my team publicly accused my manager in our Teams chat of bullying someone, which allegedly led to their departure from the company, and I find the claim quite believable
The epitome of awful management. Allergic to touching a phone, and completely out of touch with their work force.
