C4 01/07/13 Undercover Boss DHL 9pm

paulofessex

May be an interesting watch, although l wonder how much was edited by DHL legals Dept prior to the showing tonight.

bozzy4

If you think they are bad would love to see one on dpd now that would be a eye opener

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Looked more like an advert for DHL than anything else, especially the bit about the guy from Brazil getting a contract, most of the self employed drivers where I am are either European or from Brazil, they work hard for long hours and and have a decent ethic, with the added bonus of the big boss apparently caring about your family back home, the show looked set out as a nice recruitment ad.

End of the day everyone wants to pay as little as possible for their goods and the couriers will cut costs at the expense of their workers to attract business through a lower price point.

RFW

The call centre was fairly enlightening, they aren't really there to help anyone with a problem just to fob them off and move on to the next caller. I'd assume that is the policy of most of them, the ones that bother answering the phones at least.

sequence

I was more surprised that they didn't have sat navs.

SailorSam

How do they film these things ?
The boss is suppose to be just another ordinary worker and yet somebody is standing at his shoulder with a camera, wouldn't that make the other workers a little bit suspicious that things aren't quite right.

RFW

sequence wrote: »

I was more surprised that they didn't have sat navs.

Surprisingly quite a lot of courier drivers don't. I was out last week and a courier driver asked me where a street was and we were on it!

I guess if some do regular areas they shouldn't need them but can't imagine it would cost much to have them fitted as standard in all vehicles. If they're paying £20,000 for a van I'm sure it would still cost £20,000 if it had a sat-nav in it.

RHemmings

RFW wrote: »

The call centre was fairly enlightening, they aren't really there to help anyone with a problem just to fob them off and move on to the next caller. I'd assume that is the policy of most of them, the ones that bother answering the phones at least.

Very much so. It was a matter of telling the customers that they will be phoned back, and we know that rarely happens. Fobbing them off big time.

jackieblack

SailorSam wrote: »

How do they film these things ?
The boss is suppose to be just another ordinary worker and yet somebody is standing at his shoulder with a camera, wouldn't that make the other workers a little bit suspicious that things aren't quite right.

On the show, the voice over person explained that they pretend they're filming a documentary, following someone trying out different jobs

RFW

jackieblack wrote: »

On the show, the voice over person explained that they pretend they're filming a documentary, following someone trying out different jobs

The BBC did a series a few years ago that was called "Back to the Floor", essentially the same show with the big exception that all the staff knew it was the big boss. That was a much better format with staff getting the chance to tell the boss what they thought whilst showing him/her up how to do a 'proper' job.

I'd imagine on Undercover Boss the staff are put on a high alert that there will be a film crew coming round. The call centre staff at DHL were all beautifully uniformed and everywhere was very neat and tidy, I'd bet it isn't like that when the cameras aren't there.

vesper

Side stepping a little, but about Sat Nav's. My husband is a delivery driver and his company refuse to supply sat navs or blue tooth headsets for their drivers. They have to supply their own.
They're only on about minimum wage so most of them go without sat navs, as buying one would take a big chunk out of their wages, which they think the company should buy in the first place.