Why are major companies just pushing staff & customers away?

hollydays

It's a fact of life companies use agencies .
I'd focus on getting a job directly with a company rather than with an agency, and consider you've learnt a valuable lesson about employment.
You can also be thankful for the money you earned from that job.

custardy

Mrs_Ryan wrote: »

My other half has worked for Royal Mail for 30 years this year. He comes home at night (he works permanent late shift) exhausted and quite often in pain. He works extremely hard and going on what he says doesn't get a great amount of thanks for it, he certainly doesn't get treated like royalty and neither does he do anything that would jeopardise his job in any way i.e slacking off! He was headhunted to his current role which will tell you how good he is, and when he does go on leave he says the managers are always relieved when he comes back as he is their best worker (I've seen his appraisals by the way and they all say the same thing)
He does get a certain amount of 'perks' (mainly to do with leave dates) but when you've done a job anywhere for 30 years of your life it's only to be expected. You can't just swan into somewhere in a temp role and expect to get preferential treatment as it ain't going to happen! Yes you should be treated politely, professionally and with respect as any employee should be but permanent employees will always be treated differently to temps!
I've done temp jobs where I've been treated like dirt- it's life! Get over it!

Is this in a mail centre?
Sorry but in my experience MC staff are treated pretty well.
Breaks are paid and taken fully (all good) and there is very little in the way of performance management.

custardy

Jlawson118 wrote: »

It's something that I've been wondering recently after seeing the way the industry are treating people, whether it be employees or even customers.

I find First Direct's customer service absolutely outstanding! Their staff treat customers with respect and like loyalty, and from what I hear, even the staff are treat like that too. That's what makes a business run well. It's what keeps the staff motivated and it's what keeps and brings in new customers.

Although I was recently working as a Christmas temp at Royal Mail, where temps and agency staff were treat like dirt on the floor, and official Royal Mail staff were allowed to get away with anything. They rarely employ official staff, they use an agency in which the agency take too many people on and so workers feel unwanted and are forever complaining. Although I was working with some guys who were temps like me, and they were so hard working, so were the agency staff, we were all working our backsides off whilst official staff were sneaking off for unscheduled breaks and leaving us to do all of their work!

To be fair to you. I would say this is (sadly) a fair reflection of some staff in MC's.


I was talking to a man who helped unload the trucks and he was pointing out management to me and staff and telling me all sorts about them, he pointed out to a particular guy, he told me he got fired from another Royal Mail job due to laziness, but they took him on at this point. But even without this guy telling me, I saw it with my own eyes. He was constantly telling us where we can sneak off and have a smoke without anybody knowing. I'm not a smoker but the guys I worked with were, and I'm there thinking that I couldn't get a proper job there because they're all taken by people who don't lift a finger, whilst they get treat like royalty by management, whilst temps and agency get treat like dirt. So that's one company I feel is failing from a worker's point of view.

Well really its failing from a management point of view. However this is down to many historical issues.
I have an ex colleague who has moved from deliveries to mail centre work.
He is amazed at what goes on vs deliveries. The workload,the pay( he is on nights and gets £100+ extra per week) vs deliveries and hours. He gets a 'time bonus' every shift.basically finishing 30 minutes early every shift.
Workload vs deliveries is a fraction.

From a customer's point of view, I want to discuss JCT600. They're a leading car dealership in which have sold me a car that is absolutely riddled with problems. When selling the car, they'd promised me it had been services and was like new, and shortly after buying I've had nothing but issues with it. But I was thinking this afternoon that it isn't necessarily JCT's fault, it's either Vauxhall as a manufacturer, or the previous owner of the car, and from the issues I'm having, it does seems like the previous owner has battered it around. But after slow and poor assistance from JCT in this matter, they've lost me as a customer. If they were to actually maintain their cars and make sure they are fit for customers before selling them, surely that brings in more good feedback and more customers and customer satisfaction. I know my issues will have been a minority amount compared to most cars that they will sell, but had they checked the car over prior to purchase, it might have cost a little, but it'd have paid off for them. But instead, it's more of a profit to just buy a car from auction and sell it straight off. And that is a company that's failing from a customer's point of view.

So these companies just don't care about customers and staff, and it's a shame they just want to turn over a profit. Surely they'd turn in more of a profit if customers returned, or if they kept an eye on their staff and get in people who will do their job.

however I cant support the rest of your post as we have had,what? a dozen threads on this subject now?

Mrs_Ryan

custardy wrote: »

Is this in a mail centre?
Sorry but in my experience MC staff are treated pretty well.
Breaks are paid and taken fully (all good) and there is very little in the way of performance management.

Yes it is (although I'm sure you will understand I'm not going to indicate which one)
He does get performance management or he has had it- I've seen it.
He is lucky with his shifts but that's to do with his disability and them having to make reasonable adjustments. He has had a lot of problems in the past though with poor treatment.

Jlawson118

hollydays wrote: »

It's a fact of life companies use agencies .
I'd focus on getting a job directly with a company rather than with an agency, and consider you've learnt a valuable lesson about employment.
You can also be thankful for the money you earned from that job.

I am thankful for the money and I've found myself a better job that's permanent, the pay is better and it's pretty much right on my doorstep

Jlawson118

custardy wrote: »

however I cant support the rest of your post as we have had,what? a dozen threads on this subject now?

I completely get that, but that wasn't specifically regarding my car, I just used those two as major examples as things I've seen pretty recently in terms of views as a customer in one place, and a worker in another. I could write a list as long as my arm about these kind of things but obviously that would cause pain to users on this site :rotfl:

custardy

Mrs_Ryan wrote: »

Yes it is (although I'm sure you will understand I'm not going to indicate which one)
He does get performance management or he has had it- I've seen it.
He is lucky with his shifts but that's to do with his disability and them having to make reasonable adjustments. He has had a lot of problems in the past though with poor treatment.

Well you may feel he has had performance management. However (you will have to trust me) there are far fewer set levels in the MCs vs deliveries for example.
An example of this is no set standard for manual packet sorting rates.so you have postie A sorting 1 'hood' of packet in an hours and postie B sorting 3 times more.
yet postie A has no standard to be measured against.