Jester, Gemma and Overtime Incentives

There have been rumblings of discontent at the Dark Satanic Mill over the last couple of days. Perhaps I should be more specific and state that rumblings have broken out in the complaints department, of which I am proud to be a member.

December, January and February are very busy months for us and we always have higher levels of sickness absence at this time of the year that at others. This leaves us with ridiculous workloads, not enough staff and complaints getting older and older.

In time-honoured fashion, our directors have come up with a great idea to help us get over this annual hiccup in our performance: they pay us to come in and do overtime. Their first hurdle is the part-time staff. You do not become eligible for overtime rates until you have worked 40 hours in a week. When I was a part-timer, I would not work overtime because I did not want to give up my spare time for no extra reward.

They managed to get over that hurdle this year by agreeing to pay overtime rates to part-time staff who did overtime and thereby got me to agree to come in on a couple of my precious Saturdays. The workload did not decrease significantly so they needed us to work more overtime and so they agreed to pay double-time instead of the usual time and a half. One of our managers sent an e-mail to the department as a whole saying that any overtime worked would be paid at double time while we were in this sticky position.

Time for more explanations. Our department comprises Complaints Handlers, including me, and Support Staff. I don't need to explain what Complaints Handlers do but our Support Staff log the post, set up complaints on our computer system, send out letters to our customers (we acknowledge their complaints and then let them know periodically that we have not forgotten about them and then confirm in writing any complaints closed over the phone) and do myriad other administrative tasks.

We wouldn't grind to a halt without our Support Staff but the department would not run anywhere near as efficiently as it does now. I think they do a wonderful job and they have exactly the same problems as the Complaints Handlers, too much work and not enough people to do it.

Well, it transpired two days ago that this wonderful incentive of double time applies to Complaints Handlers only. Support Staff would only get the more usual time and a half. It was unfortunate that they had already come in to do some overtime and were finding out for the first time that they would not getting double time. Of course, this caused a furore and I, not wishing to stand by and do nothing, sent an e-mail to our top manager explaining how valuable a job our Support Staff do, how their workloads are at ridiculous levels too and how it is simply not fair to treat them differently.

The answer came back saying that the double time incentive had been approved at Director Level and all they were interested in was how many complaints get closed. Administrative Tasks are below the radar.

We then pointed out that the e-mail had gone to every member of the Department and had not specified that the double time is for Complaints Handlers only. The reply was that this would be fed back to the manager who sent the e-mail. The first concession was that Support Staff would get paid double time if they closed complaints. The second was that any overtime they had worked up to that point would be paid double-time regardless of what they had been doing.

This left my friend and colleague Goodwill Gemma still out in the cold. She is registered disabled and part of her disability is that she cannot handle angry customers over the telephone. This would inevitably lead to panic attacks and she would most likely need to go home or even need medical attention. She asked me if she should e-mail the managers and use the word discrimination in her message. I advised her to use it liberally, I was still fuming on their behalf.

She got her reply. She can close complaints in writing and get paid double time like the rest of us. So the mutiny was over.

It still leaves the problem and it is well recognised by everybody in the department. We are chronically understaffed, over-worked and worst of all under-valued. Sometimes I really hate Directors.