The latest TU meeting with Andy Ralphs, DWP Head of Contact Centres, took place. This circular provides an update of that meeting.
Satellite Sites
Management reported that staff in all sites were enjoying the work! They stated that the sites were currently working 9 to 5, with no pressure to work beyond that time. They stated that one site had requested to do a 6pm finish and that this had been agreed. We stated that we were aware of ongoing issues in the sites and that we were not confident that these were being passed up the management line. We also questioned the wisdom of the Skegness satellite being managed by a contact centre, Grimsby, in a different OSN. They agreed to review this. We have now been told that Skegness will be managed from Lincoln CC in the future, as Grimsby CC is becoming a UC site.
80% Preferences
After our last meeting we sent management several examples from Chorlton CC, showing staff that were still not getting 80% preferences. Management confirmed that they had spoken to the site and agreed a process to make sure that these anomalies were sorted out.
Break Monitoring
We raised concerns about an overzealous approach to monitoring breaks, citing examples of members being pulled up for being less than a minute late from their breaks. Management remain concerned about the massive impact on the network if everyone takes 30 seconds longer on their break. Members should continue to raise with their reps if management are not taking a proportionate approach to this as stated in the contact centre agreement. Reps can also escalate problems with this issue to PCS at national level.
After Call Work
There was a lengthy discussion about pressure being put on members about after call work. We told management that we had been presented with a considerable amount of anecdotal evidence, where members were being questioned about the amount of time spent in after call work, told to keep customers on the phone whilst writing envelopes or inputting information on the system and generally being told that after call work was not acceptable. We made it clear that we didn’t think this was the right approach. It can lead to perverse behavior and means that customers are being kept on the phone longer than necessary, which is particularly unacceptable when, as on the vast majority of service lines, they are paying for the call. Again, the management view was somewhat surprising. We were told that doing as much as you can whilst on the phone was the “industry standard”. They also maintained that it cost no more than a couple of pence for the extra time on the phone, as claimants calling us probably had bundles of free minutes in their phone contracts: A response that demonstrated a lack of understanding about the circumstances that many of our customers find themselves in. Even more shockingly, Andy Ralphs’ stated that he believed that staff were using after call work to do things that were not appropriate, although he did not provide any evidence to support this assertion. They maintained the position that they wanted as much of the work done in-call as possible, but accepted that some after call work was necessary. We re-iterated our disagreement to this approach, making it clear that trying to input details on the system whilst the caller is still talking can lead to mistakes being made. We re-stated that the message being delivered to our members by most contact centres was that after call work was to be avoided. They said that the message that should have gone out was that there should be after call work where appropriate, alongside spending the appropriate time in call.
Recruitment
Management confirmed they had recruited 396 Fixed Term Appointments, which came to an FTE of 296. They have all been recruited on fixed hours, but they have not succeeded in getting as many FTAs to cover the end of the day as they were initially looking for. All of the new recruits have been offered extra hours from now until the end of March 2015, by which time they will have reviewed the staffing need across CCS. Their belief is that the network is slightly over resourced at the moment, as they have recruited in advance of sites moving to FES and UC. They agreed to provide us with a site by site breakdown of the numbers recruited.
They confirmed that any existing apprentices who had been successful in the external recruitment will be allowed to continue their apprenticeship and work their full 37 hours for the period of that apprenticeship. They will also have a full 12 months employment from the date of the FTA take on.
We re-stated our opposition to the use of Agency staff and our dismay at the fact that the Department had put itself in the position where it was quicker and easier to recruit this way because of restrictions it had placed on casual recruitment. Management confirmed that Strategic Resourcing were looking at how DWP could move to recruiting casuals again, but Andy Ralphs made it clear that he believes Agency staff should remain as a recruitment option. There should be a planned approach to recruit new staff in advance through fair and open competition with the considerable amount of change ahead to offices in the Network.
CCM Vacancies
Management confirmed that there were a number of CCM vacancies at the moment and that action was being taken to fill these substantively. In addition they would take the opportunity to get the grading of the CCMs more correctly balanced. They also flagged up an intention to fill at least one vacancy with someone on secondment.
Leave
We said we believed that members were unhappy about the level of leave over the festive period and that the approach to the 2nd of January was particularly unwelcome. We asked if they could do some analysis of the types of calls we receive as our belief is that many people will be calling simply because we are open, not because they have an urgent query that needs sorting on that day. Management believed that they had moved to try and meet us halfway, in terms of festive leave. They said that final selection was left to sites. They agreed that “names in a hat” was not a desirable option but did not rule out that some sites had resorted to that method. Andy Ralphs said only one member of staff had written directly to him to complain, and that he would respond.
We highlighted our concern about the imposition of a 15% threshold on leave throughout the period March to October 2015. Our belief was this was exactly the sort of problem we would be faced with when OET made the decision to remove the previous 18% to 25% parameters on leave levels. We made it clear that we did not believe that this percentage would be enough to accommodate everyone’s leave. Management stated that 15% was a starting point and that they would rather “under commit” and then increase where they can. They confirmed that they had no intention to breach the Departmental agreement on everyone being allowed 2 consecutive week’s leave in the summer. They wanted to sit down and talk to us separately about peak leave periods and how they maximise leave. Andy Ralphs, again, re-iterated his belief in being able to bring in people for short periods and that if he could offer different types of contracts it would solve many other problems. We made it clear that we were willing to talk to them about “reverse term-time” recruitment, as this had been done successfully in the past and would help alleviate some of the peak leave issues.
Conclusion
We also had a brief discussion about Service Centre One, which we subsequently visited on 09 December, and have issued a separate circular on this. We have also issued a circular covering the issues discussed at the recent meetings of Contact Centre Reps.
Remember to raise any issues or problems with you local reps to take forward, as we want to ensure that the contact centre agreement continues to be enforced at local level and the measures to improve working conditions are being adhered to. We also want examples of issues which affect the quality of the service to the public or where emphasis on targets creates perverse behavior. So please feed these into your local reps for them to raise with PCS Group office.
We will be pressing for an urgent meeting to discuss leave, which is likely to be an issue across Operations and have asked for a meeting with Network Services Director, Myrtle Lloyd.
