My God. Where to start? Some of these points may only be applicable to the Gosforth site, but I highly doubt it and expect this to be the same across the board.
The Building
A filthy, poorly maintained, pre-fabricated office block on a business park in the northeast. Make sure you look into the windows of neighbouring offices to see what true luxury looks like. Wouldn't you love to work at Greggs HQ instead?
The toilets are filthy, usually blocked, always smelly and the floor is guaranteed to be wet with the urine of someone who must have given up on life, beat down by the omnipresence of Concentrix. On two occasions I found the scorched remnants of someones drug spoon that they kindly left behind in the toilet. I don't blame them. It possibly made working here bearable.
On another occasion my trainer fell through an exposed air duct in the floor that had loosely been covered with carpet. That was the second accident that day involving the air duct. Classic Concentrix.
Overall a disgusting, poorly maintained premises. The levels of cleaning that were taking place were unfit for the sheer volume of staff working in the building.
The Job Itself
I worked on the BT campaign. Training was patchwork, boring, stuck in the early 2000s and my trainer was incompetent at best. Probably not his fault, he was no doubt trying his best. However I doubt that he had any training on how to train people and the tools he was provided with were inadequate. At least they pay you for it I guess. Easiest 4 weeks of money I ever made.
However, expect to be given 0 training or explanations on the etiquette of working in a call centre. On one occasion a trainer threatened to "fire us and escort us out the building" if we didn't take a call 1 minute to our finish time. We were under the impression that if a call ended within 5 minutes of your shift ending, you wouldn't have to take another call. We had worked there for 3 weeks. Dont worry guys, I called him a rude word and he got upset. Poor guy.
Once you are on the phones expect the pressure to instantly become insurmountable. My target for After Call Work was 90 seconds. That is 90 seconds to ensure the customers job has been properly closed down with sufficient notes for the next agent that has to deal with them. This is if the computer systems play ball. Which they wont. Because they are old and not fit for purpose. Expect to be pressured into doing your After Call Work during the call itself, effectively making it During Call Work. Management will be on your back like a modern day slave driver if this creeps above 90s.
Expect to have your pay docked if you need to take a leak outside of your designated break times. Seriously. You are expected to log your personal breaks on your clocking in system so that they can take that time off of your hours worked. Needless to say I didn't do this, and would relish taking a dump on Concentrixs dime. Made it all the more satisfying. However if they catch you doing this, expect to have a "documented discussion". I always wanted one so they could document me calling them out on their terrible practices.
Overall the job itself was easy, I could sit on the phone to 95 year old Doris all day helping her get her BT TV box to work. I didn't even mind the angry and annoyed customers, they have every right to be angry and annoyed, their internet/phoneline is broken, of course I wanted to help them fix it. However, no one wants to put up with Concentrixs horrific business practices and disgusting work areas whilst trying to help Doris out. Sorry Doris.
I could list an endless amount of things that are wrong with the place but I hope I have gotten my point across here. Its a mess of dystopian, possibly illegal business practices, designed to make you fear management and force you into line. Sitting on a phone holding your bladder for fear of the £2.50 that will deducted from your payslip. I dread to think what this place will be like in a post covid world and I pity anyone forced to work in these places.
Do yourself a favour and find something else. This place will destroy your mind, body and soul. Get out! Find anything else! Flip burgers, do care work, work on a production line! Anything but subjecting yourself to this meat grinder of human emotions.
