Salary -- notice in the "Pro" section, I commented strictly on the dollar rate you're paid. This does not include ancillary pay, such as bonuses. Why? Because they took them away from everyone -- except salaried employees. They made the change when they converted health assistance to non-exempt employees. They sold it that you can do some overtime to offset the loss in bonus, but the stewards (supervisors) will issue corrective action if you attempt overtime. Ask your steward about the logic about removing the bonuses from people who need them most, and you'll hear them stammer incoherently. Or they'll argue that most call centers don't offer bonuses, which is a pretty ignorant statement, considering every center I've worked with offers bonuses. BUT AT LEAST THE LEADERSHIP TEAM AND MULTI-MILLIONAIRE-PAID EXECUTIVE TEAM GET THEIR BONUSES.
Also, and this is important, although you get a lunch, THE COMPANY DOES NOT PROVIDE OFFICIAL BREAKS. What you get is 20 minutes of "personal time" that can only be used in five-minute increments, and even then the stewards may have questions if you start using it. Ask a steward why you don't get official breaks, and their response is, "One of the draws of having a presence in Arizona and Pennsylvania is that neither state mandates break and meal periods, so we're not required to give you one." They also argue that this is common in all call centers. Again, their understanding of call centers is woefully unsophisticated.
Leadership -- The executive team seems nice enough, but front-line leadership are poor communicators, lack vision, and despite their title of "steward," take very little interest in being stewards of their teams. They're pretty much cattle herders.
Diversity -- Embarrassing, although they are trying to bring in token people of color to throw off the white's-only scent. They have an Indian American CEO and a new CMO who is black. However, on the front line, health assistants are invariably white and women. When they brought in interns to our center recently, they were all white, mostly blond hair, and were practically indistinguishable from each other. Ask your steward about this, and the response is, "Well, we don't have a lot of men or people of color apply." Puhleaze.
Call-center culture -- They really stress out when you refer to health assistants as workers in a call center. They justify this by saying that call centers are transactional and that we aren't. They clearly have an unsophisticated understanding of call centers. Many call centers provide qualitative service like ours does. But the recent, massive process changes has us on the phones, really, for the entirety of the day, but we're also supposed to manage an array of tasks, customer e-mails, SMS messages, and follow-ups. Ask your steward about this, and the response is, "Oh, this is totally doable." Being doable and being reasonable are two different things. This is lost on them.
Raises and promotions -- nebulous, to say the least. Apparently, to move to a higher pay grade, e.g. "band," part of your review is based on feedback from other stewards and your own team members. If any of them have an issue, you will not be promoted. When you ask explicitly for the metrics surrounding peer and leadership feedback (so you know what you're gunning for in the future), the steward doesn't have an answer. The reality: They don't want to pay the money out to move people, so they apply the most nebulous, asinine review standards. (Conduct an informal survey among health assistants, and you'll see this is a big gripe for most.)
Overwork -- They are bringing in several new clients who have employee bases, in some cases, in the thousands, BUT they refuse to hire other health assistants to help with the workload. Ask your steward about this, and they'll say, "We're trying to be profitable. Not hiring will save us money. You guys can just take on the extra work." In other words, "Get ready to work like an indentured servant -- AND NO BONUS FOR YOU!"
