Question relating to employment from QubeGB

Azaru

I have been an engineer for Qube for some time now, working on behalf of both Talk Talk and BT. There are some good points and bad points to the job, but enough bad points that I am currently looking for another job.

If you are going to be working for BT through Qube, expect some ladder work, and a lot of cabling. I have seen fibre installs in some really dumb places, and you will be expected to cable from there to set top boxes.

Good Points:
You have a reasonable level of autonomy. As long as you get your jobs done, you don't really have people looking over your shoulder. This is changing, though, with the recent addition of gps monitoring on vehicles.

You get to meet a lot of people (mostly nice), and fixing their faults is somewhat rewarding.

Pay is passable. Days are occasionally short (see bad points too).

Good for your resume. The training is not wonderful (putting it mildly), but you will learn a lot on the job in a short time, and the experience is useful in other jobs/companies.

Bad points:
Poor training and support mean you are very much on your own. If you learn fast or are IT/telecom orientated, great. If not, then you will be frustrated, and find you have unhappy customers too.

Long days. While you will get the occasional short day where you only do 4-5 hours of work, you will find you also get a lot of 10-14 hour days.

Your diesel usage is not fully covered. Qube will pay for some of your diesel, but it never covers it fully, and you will always be at a loss.

As a contractor you will be expected to pay 20 pound per day for 'van coverage'. This is supposed to be the cost of van and tool rental, but seems to be a way of inflating the pay for recruitment purposes. There is no option to use your own insurance, van and tools, despite the fact this would work out significantly less than 20 pound a day. The 20 pound a day will also be applied to you whether or not you are routed for work. If they have a dry spell and you only work 3 days a week, you will still be charged 120 pound a week for the van.

After a while you will be offered to be taken on full-time by Qube. This means you are covered on days with no jobs, but the lower wage and the hassle with expenses means it is barely worth it.

If you damage/lose any of your equipment or take damage to the van, you will normally be expected to pay for it, this includes scratches to the paintwork of your van from small stones and grit while driving.

Dispatch needs improvement. There are some decent people in dispatch, but sadly a fair number seem to have been hired with no geographical awareness, which can lead to some 6-7 hours driving on some days.
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To sum it up. The job is just ok. It involves a lot of hard work, a lot of driving and can be long hours. While the pay initially seems not bad, the amount of things that can deduct from it makes it barely passable when you work out the amount you get per hour on the average working week.

It is a useful stepping stone job to move on to other things, but until they address some key problems, it not a job you are going to want to stay in for several years.

british26

I came to MSE in search of something else and stumbled on this thread about the 'company' I have worked for since late 2012.

Some good honest posts from actual employee's and some disgruntled posters who probably weren't up to the task.

Anyone thinking of joining Qube should do their maths, research the company and gain advice from myself or Azaru (actual employees) who have experienced the ups and downs of TalkTalk, BT, QAO's, Stores, Dispatch, Routing, Tablet Issues, Returns, Paperwork, Jeopardy, Customers and so on.

There are good and bad in all employers and in all employees. Make an informed decision before joining Qube and you've only got yourself to blame!!

All the points mentioned previously are valid.

I'm currently on the BT contract. I will offer honest advice to anyone who requires it.

Emmorcamel

Hello everyone.


I've spent about half an hour, scrolling through these posts, and it's amazing the comments I have seen written about Qube GB.


Would anyone be willing to talk to me on the phone or via email about their personal experience they have had with Qube? I'm looking to talk to someone who has either been a previous field engineer or is currently working as one, with Qube. I'm trying to get a picture of what Qube is really like, and I would appreciate this so much. I can call you, and will only take a short amount of your time..


I have some questions that I would like answered. If you are interested in this, please message me or write back on this forum. Many thanks, and I look forward to your responses!


Emma

Rippet

Hi
I've recently finished working for QubeGB as a self employed engineer. They worked out all the outstanding money they owe me, and taken off charges and after a long period of hearing nothing from them they have finally settled my bill, but they've added a charge for £30. This they claim is for a, Quote "Traffic Offense. Advised by fleet." I have repeatedly asked them to provide details of this alleged traffic offense, but have had no answer. So they are charging for something which they have no proof of. How can I challenge this? Any ideas.

toasty_banjo

As a recent ex Qube employee i concur with the statements here.Long hours, impossible routes with jobs miles away from home, and miles away from each other. No allowances made for traffic.Calls from dispatch/QAO's or loads of emails to read which are basically just about the "wonderful" things Talk Talk are bringing out.

Listening to customer after customer complain about the service, and trying to explain we don't actually work for Talk Talk but to them we are the face of the company and the only ones they actually get to blow steam off at.

Then there is the " training"...

Training with a small t, info and training done, on line.Watch the videos and then an online test, which most of the time you have to do in your own time,or just an email from your QAO that you may get time in your 14hr day ,to actually read or reply to or not.

Getting hold of a QAO another sore point, most of the time you have to go through a list and hope one of them answers the phone,i can't blame them though as they must get dozens of calls a day. They are stuck in the middle between engineers and managers.Some are better than others, some really help some don't.

All communication seems to be done by email, and waiting for a reply is a long process,. Trying to get anything resolved is an uphill process QAO then Manager etc.Trying to get any reply or information is frustrating.Then if you need to get through to fleet, that is even more of a struggle. It's almost like no one wants to answer a phone. Ironic for a telecoms company.

I don't think Qube have even got their own premises ( possibly apart from a head office and dispatch) as whenever i have beeen sent anywhere to do with Qube it has been rented offices, and those were not exactly plush.

All in all by the time you work out your hours/mileage/fuel costs, and the deductions from Qube ( btw when you go on the books you won't see a pay slip so you won't know what's being taken off you in tax,N.I etc).You may think twice.

leithkemon

I am currently a Field Engineer for Qube GB so I can give you a good idea of what this company is like to work for if anybody is still wondering. I can confirm that most of what has been said by the other employees is pretty much exactly what I have experienced.

I have worked with them for 16 months now. I am actively seeking a new job. I loved the job for a long time, I thought it was great and was taking home a much better wage than I ever had at any other job. As long as you are happy to work hard then you can really enjoy this job. Some days you can have a great local route and be home for 2pm. Some days you will get a later route and maybe get home at 8/9pm (rarely, just call your last jobs and ask them to move to morning/afternoon. 70% can do unless they are at work)

The job went really well until their was a very quiet period with very little Talk Talk work around January 14. I went almost two full weeks with no jobs what so ever. That becomes difficult with bills/rent/food to buy. The following weeks I was sometimes working only 2-4 days, they began to reduce the van rental accordingly to how many days off they have given you. I complained saying your giving me only two days work (£205) but charging me £120 for the van, and I spent £40 on fuel. Work picked up again within the following weeks and I am currently back to doing 6 days.

The main reason I am leaving is that they are "blending" all of the engineers. Meaning, we will work for both TalkTalk and BT. To me this only means more stress, hassle, confusion, driving, van stock/returns. No pay increase. It is enough stress just working for Talktalk.

Here is a quick run down of the good/bad things from the top of my head.

Good Points

Out on your own with no-one overlooking you. You will get the odd call from your QAO or dispatch just checking up on the odd detail every now and again.

Not a 9-5 job. I rarely leave the house before 8am. Average days I leave at 8.30 and finish at 4.

Meet some cool people. Offered tea/coffee all day. All TalkTalk work is internal, usually in an elderly customers living room with a coffee.

Some early finishes. Never done a 12-14hr day. I've never done more than 11 hours in a day. The first couple of weeks of 7 jobs will be your longest days. After that you pick up speed and start having earlier finishes.

Always paid on time every time. About 10am every Friday its in your bank.


Bad Points

Training was a bit rubbish. 5 days could have been crammed into 3. You have to share a hotel room with a random bloke. I got very unlucky and had a bloke who snored like a slowly dying hippo. I got very little sleep, I honestly could have killed him.

Too much driving. Not uncommon to have 4-5 hours driving a day. 1hr+ drive to jobs etc. (And thats after re-arranging jobs with customers the night before). I cover 2000+ miles a month. Most days I have to fly through jobs just so im not running late.

Too much fuel costs. I'm currently put in the van £100-£120 a week. This is from your own bank account, from your own wages. If you cant put fuel in the van, you cant work. Simple as that, you MUST keep money aside. I can claim about £30-40 back a week.

Routing. Some days are beyond a joke and you will be expected to complete 7 jobs by 12pm. With 4 hours drving. Some days are impossible. The dispatch team who handle routing clearly dont have a clue about the vast scale of the country. This leads to spending 30-45mins some nights rearranging job time slots with customers to make your day even remotely possible.

You are the face of TalkTalk aka 'Cannon Fodder'. Day in day out the same conversation about how bad TalkTalk is, how terrible the call centers are etc.

No lunch breaks. Some days your best bet of any form of break is stopping on the way to a job at a shop and munching a £3 meal deal in your van while you bull**** your next customer why youre running late. Very common to have no break at all in my case.

Some QAOs are completely useless, never answer their phones, return emails/messages. My QAO is decent. He has a fairly relaxed attitude to everything. Can always contact him when he is at work.

The Dell tablets they give you are a pile of SHI*E. Mine has been replaced twice. Constantly shut-down, crash, run slow. Stylus stops working.

Overall, if you fancy working hard for a half decent wage then this is a good job. Personally there are many more negatives than positives to the job. I am 25 and living with my girlfriend. I know a lot of the engineers have families, I do not know how they do it.

If they would keep the wage the same and issue us with fuel cards just like SKY, BT and Virgin engineers have and resolve the routing issues then I would stay as the wage for the work you do would be great.

Asking us to basically work for BT and TalkTalk is a bit much without increasing the wage.

leithkemon

In addition to the above...

Also they are now increasing the average number of jobs per to 8 jobs a day.

:wall:

AaahhNuts

I applied, then got the details in an email after a phone call.

I have run my own company for 35 years then sold it so I was looking for something to do.

But after looking through the email it works out that you earn less than £8 per hour, if you have jobs to do.

I can lease a Peugeot Partner van for £160 a month, or £40 a week! The van cost about £17,000. So the tools/phone/tablet/insurance etc have to be worth £34,000 to make it up to £120 per week!!! ya right.

They are making money from the techs!!!

In fact they "make money" by NOT giving you work!

She called me again today to ask if was going to start with them! I have not finished writing my reply, so I said I am still thinking about it... :rotfl:

FATBOY_SLIM

Happily some things have changed for the better, but not all. As a PAYE engineer you are now on a 5 day week, off Sundays plus one alternating day per week, eg Mon this week, Tues next week etc. If you undertake no private use of the vehicle then you are issued with a fuel card. No van/tool/ insurance charges. If you are doing Talktalk jobs you will be given up to 10 per day although this is rare (so far) on the expectation that at least 1 will be cancelled/not at home etc.. If you have several cancellations then you can expect top up jobs in your area if they are available. You are on a fixed wage based on a 48 hour week, averaged over 17 weeks. Currently your route is done by "humans" who sometimes would have you going back and forth all day, but you are free to call customers to rearrange appointment times to suit you and keep travelling down (as long as it's ok with the customer of course, most are ok) I am usually out of the house about 6 or 7 hours a day, sometimes only 4 on a good day! Rarely it can be 8 or 9 hours. We are about to start using a computer programme called Route Monkey which is supposed to optimise routes and keep your jobs close to home and with minimum mileage. If there are no jobs in your area we will work a few miles further away, within adjoining post code areas. Pay is based on a day rate so your monthly wages vary slightly with the number of working days in the month. The worst aspects of the job are the monthly van stock checks which you are only notified about the night before, this involves pretty much emptying all your stock out into the street and scanning it all back in to your tablet, irrespective of the weather.
If you have no signal on your tablet at the customers house you need to call despatch to run any tests you need doing, this can be a pain in the but, as it can take some time to get an answer at busy times, then you have to ring them back for the results, on hold 15 mins again! Next you have to "escalate" any fault to Talk talk to be passed on to BT. This can be a right pain, the call centres are not in the UK, they are often difficult to understand and, when you eventually work your way up the queue and get an answer, it can seem like an eternity to complete the call, up to 20 mins is not uncommon.
If you are "blended" ie doing a mix of Talktalk and BT jobs you are given 9 jobs, if on BT only it's 8, all with the expectation that one job will be "lost". Customers are now informed by TT that if they have any dogs, they must be placed in a room to which the engineer will not require access. Most dogs are ok, but if you have a dodgy one running loose then if the customer won't lock it up you can leave the house and close the job as cancelled for health and safety reasons. Hope this info helps.

antsduc

Hi I've just finished working for this appaulling company after being there for about 4 years in total self employed and paye , I was doing around 240-250 miles daily 10-11hrs being payed for 9.5, as for the routing monkey it doesn't work it's rubbish , if your living out in the sticks doing high mileage you should only be doing 5 jobs because of the high mileage with routing monkey but the company would never have that so they add in more jobs so what's the point having routing monkey . When I finished I was 7 weeks waiting for my final pay and then they charged over £600 for damage to the van when there was none , charged for missing stock when all my stock was clear with paperwork to prove also only payed me 0.5 days holiday when they owed me 2.5 days .They are the worst company I have ever worked for and would advise people not to join them they haven't got a clue how to run a business and how to treat engineers.