Workplace making WFH difficult

[LadyGarcia]

Hello all!

I'm just after some advice/thoughts etc regarding recent changes at my workplace. I work from home on a remote contract and up until a few weeks ago everything was fine but now the following changes have been made and the atmosphere at work is going downhill:

(FYI, this is a Customer Service role meaning we deal with Customers via Email, Phone, WhatsApp or Live Chat).

1. We have a group on Google Hangouts and have to ask to go for a bathroom break, wait for a Team Leader to give us a 'ok' before we can head off - they also tell us we need to limit it to 2/3 minutes.
2. We have been told that if children are heard in the background during Phone calls, we face disciplinary action.
3. We are never encouraged to get up and have a break from our PC/Laptop EVER and if we do ask for one, we need to ask for permission and usually are told 'no' because we need to be on our platform assisting Customers - so we end up sitting on our PC for 8 hours, only moving if we need to head for lunch or use the bathroom.
4. I've never had a Risk Assessment for WFH in terms of making sure I've got a comfortable/correct chair, mousepad with wrist support etc

What I am asking is, is this normal? Does anyone else WFH in Customer Services with a similar set up?

1. Weird
2. Normal
3. Unacceptable
4. Unacceptable

How would they know you have gone to the toilet? Just don’t tell them

If you are worried about away status on teams/Google etc get a usb mouse jiggler for a few quid off Amazon. I use one to keep me as ‘Active’ on Teams it works a charm.

1. Toilet break - unreasonable

2. children - perfectly fine and acceptable

3. what the law says
   ”The law says employers must plan work so there are breaks or changes of activity for employees who are display screen equipment (DSE) users.
   There is no legal guidance about how long and how often breaks should be for DSE work. It depends on the kind of work you are doing. Take short breaks often, rather than longer ones less often. For example 5 to 10 minutes every hour is better than 20 minutes every 2 hours. Ideally, users should be able to choose when to take breaks.
   In most jobs it is possible to stop DSE work to do other tasks, such as going to meetings or making phone calls. If there are no natural changes of activity in a job, employers should plan rest breaks.
   Breaks or changes of activity should allow users to get up from their workstations and move around, or at least stretch and change posture.”

Wow, that is horrible. I started in the call centre at my insurance company. We had a rotating roster over 6 weeks. Start time moving gradually from early morning shift to an evening shift over the 6 eeeks then would cycle back.

2 10 minute paid tea breaks (now 15 mins) allocated and 1 x 30 minute lunch break.

Obviously you couldn't make breaks exactly on time so if you were off a call in the 5 minutes before your scheduled break you were to take it then, or as closely after the break as possible.

If you need the loo etc you code in as being in "personal time". I did the same when I had a really upsetting phone call (man distraught after his wife was killed in a car accident) and just sent my manager an explanation as to why I was in personal time. His response was to tell me to take as much time as I need and was there anything else he could do for me. But I rarely used personal time myself so my manager knew I really needed it.

We got a grading as to how well we managed to match our time codes to what is allocated and they have a permitted difference to allow for these discrepancies.

But we work either be working in the online chat group or on live phone calls. Not both. Going from one to the other would be seriously hard.

We were also given headsets with an Omni directional microphone. I once had a gardener with a lawnmower right outside my window when in a team meeting. I could barely hear what people were saying and yet none of them could hear the gardener. Some people used store bought headsets because they were more comfortable but you could hear everyone else in the background. If you had one of these no one would be able to hear the kids in the background.

Get yourself some keep warm mugs for tea/coffee so you always have a warm drink to hand. Don't drink gallons obviously otherwise you will need the loo constantly. That also meant that I could set the kettle to boil in my breaks, have a bit more of the tea I still had without waiting for the kettle to boil and make it back to my desk on time with fresh cups of tea in hand.

For lunch pre-prep some sandwich stuff eg slice the tomatoes, cut up some lettuce etc. you don't have to actually make your sandwich if you prefer a fresh sandwich but have the parts of the sandwich prepared. 30 minutes is enough if you do that.

Also consider getting an up/down desk. Being able to stretch your legs by standing for a few minutes is really good for you.

Part of the reason they treat you badly is because call centres generally have a high staff turnover because it's a difficult job. Bad companies just accept that and use a churn and burn process. Good companies try to make it better for staff to try to retain them, and then giving them opportunities for progression. The majority of my company's recruitment to other positions is done internally. I did, however, take a slightly lower pay to go work for them but did so knowing that it would lead to other opportunities (which it has).

Exactly this...

I understand and agree with doing Childcare on the job, that's not ok and if I was a Customer I'd be pretty angry too if there was a kid screaming in the background while I was calling a Customer Service line for support.

What they have said is if a child is heard during a call to a Customer. Here are some examples of what has recently upset some mums at work:

1. Mum has come back from Maternity leave, her Mother in Law comes over to look after her kids (3y and 2y) and they stay downstairs/go out/play in the garden etc but when they are at home, the kids will play, run up and down the stairs etc but the Company has said to her if they listen back to a call and can hear her kids, she will face disciplinary action.
2. Another colleague has her nephew comes over every Wednesday and he is looked after by her retired parents but they live in a ground floor flat meaning there is no 'upstairs'. She works in a locked room but her 2y old nephew likes to run around as do children and they have said the same to her that if he's heard during a call she will face disciplinary action

I just don't understand, how do you tell a child under 5y old to stay quiet for 8 hour?

Are there any parents who WFH - what is your set up like?

If the children are being heard during calls the worker should either use technology to ensure this doesn't happen as described above or arrange for childcare where the children are not at home (nursery, childminder, relatives house). If neither of the above are possible I would think they should be considering an office-based role instead as their home isn't suitable for WFH.

the Company has said to her if they listen back to a call and can hear her kids, she will face disciplinary action

Deny all knowledge and say it was some kids playing outside.

While everything else you've noted is shit - a grown adult having to ask to use the toilet is a joke - the kids thing I get!

During covid it was understandable, as everyone kept saying it was unprecedented times but now there's absolutely no excuse for it. I work from home 2 days a week but if I had small kids in the house, whether there was someone else there to look after them or not, I wouldn't work from home.

With the best will in the world it's distracting for the person working & it's just plain irritating for the person on the other end of the phone - I don't expect to be discussing a clients PAYE while the guy on the phone at HMRC is trying to talk over the noise of his kids running up & down, shouting etc while his wife tries to keep them quiet in the background.

It's just not feasible to work with small kids in the house, simply because it's impossible to keep them quiet & they shouldn't have to have their lives curbed because daddy's working in the spare room - it's their home not a workplace.

I worked in a call centre for six months in the 90s, office based obviously and it was always the case then that you needed to ask permission to log out of the phones. Yes including for loo breaks, they do need to manage this.

I also think it is reasonable for there to be disciplinary processes if children are heard on a call. This would be very unprofessional for a customer to hear. I also do not see what the issue is over your lunch break.

I had The 'this morning' theme tune in the background of one company this week

Nope. Not engaging with someone half assing it!

2/3 minutes for toilet ? Washing and trying hands takes 30 seconds if done as it should be. 1 min to get there and back if assume it’s upstairs, leaving 1 min 30 seconds to

• pull down relevant clothing
• remove sanitary
• sit
• pee
• wipe
• replace sanitry
• get dressed again

please put that to them, and ask exactly how they think that’s possible. Or do they deduct time for sanitary needs 3 weeks in 4. Ask if they done a time and motion study to see if that’s easily possible

also point out that the rule is discriminatory to pregnant mothers (need loo more), peri and post menopausal women (fuck knows how they expect you to deal with flooding in that time - I some times had to change my bottom half entirely and do a full clean ) , IBS , or any other condition of the bowels

this should be against the law. It certainly is pushing hard on health and safety law.