Tax return calculation differences..?

dori2o

Pennywise wrote: »

It's not quantity but quality that matters. They could easily manage with half the staff if everyone was properly trained/experienced. There must be a massive amount of wasted productivity in correcting mistakes made by the untrained staff. By putting untrained staff in the front line, they're wasting everyone's time. The trouble is that a lot of the front line staff "don't know what they don't know" and instead of saying that they don't know, they're giving advice on the cuff and far too many times are getting it wrong. As an accountant, this year to date, I've had to make more formal complaints than ever before - that's not because of lack of front line staff - it's not because of delays in answering correspondence or phone calls - it's because well over half the time, the response from HMRC is wrong, i.e. completing ignoring what's said in a letter and doing something completely different, incorrectly entering data onto their systems, quoting the wrong law/regulation, etc. The answer is to have fewer, better staff, rather than flooding their offices with people who really aren't capable of being on the front line.

The problem is that they have cut corners so much that is never going to happen. When I started the training period was 16 weeks, this meant we had enough time to learn the various subjects, digest what we had been taught, and get the chance to listen in to live calls with other experienced advisors.

Now the training is about 6 weeks, all crammed into one short block with no time to digest it, so that meant more and more new advisors going on the phone without the proper knowledge.

I'm not saying that when I came out of training I was an expert, but I had more of a chance then the newer advisors did.

We know that the service is crap, most of the advisors have brought this up with management but they are unwilling to change their processes, and their latest big idea is that anyone who does not show a positive attitude to all aspectys of work may be subject to a formal review. When you are being forced to lie to people and undertake processes that we know are incorrect, it is hard to be positive.