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[Dave-C]

We had a meeting this week, we were told that our area had excessive staff and that there were no redundancies available!  We believe that they are streamlining for a sell off, so, how will the excessive staff be reduced?

We have been told that our performance is to be monitored for productivity, compliance (That's billing as many customers as necessary), regular quality checks will ensue and will too have a bearing.  Then, disciplinary action will be implimented accordingly for the lower performers.  There are PIP's "Performance Improvement Plans"  which allow you six weeks to buck up or you receive a warning.

BT / Openreach are turning us into Parking Attendants...

Don't you dare report your faulty phone line, or, you'll be billed

[Martin_1962]

If you are OpenReach there are plans to sell you off.

[TheBoy]

Being an ex-employee of BT, I tend to take a keen interest it the goings on there.

Every year for the last 15yrs, Openreach (and under previous names) has had reports of franchising or sell-offs.

This year, it seems to be a bit more than rumour, esp as Openreach has now pretty much completed its split from BT Group.  If it was BT's plan to offload openreach, and my own suspicsion it was, then Ofcom have played right into BT's hands.

Outside of Openreach, I see that BT are outsourcing some of its overseas networking, and networking infrastructure/design, to Lucent Alcatel. And who is the CEO of Lucen Alcatel? Yup, Ben Verwaayen, the ex CEO of BT.

Ben Verwaayen (then BT CEO) and Carly Fionrina (then HP CEO) worked together previously, and it was no surprise when BT outsourced its entire computing infrastructure out to HP.

Most of the application support/design/development, buts to be looked after by the computing department of BT called Exact, was outsourced and offshored to an Asian company called Tech Mahindra.  Guess who was on the board of Tech Mahindra? Yes, the head of Exact, Al-Noor Ramji.


I know its a big company, but can't help feeling there is a little too much corruption going on in upper management.

[TheBoy]

Oddly, one of the rumoured front runners for taking on Openreach (if its outsourced rather than sold off) is EDS.  And who owns the computing firm EDS?.....

[Lizzie_Zoom]

We had a meeting this week, we were told that our area had excessive staff and that there were no redundancies available!  We believe that they are streamlining for a sell off, so, how will the excessive staff be reduced?

We have been told that our performance is to be monitored for productivity, compliance (That's billing as many customers as necessary), regular quality checks will ensue and will too have a bearing.  Then, disciplinary action will be implimented accordingly for the lower performers.  There are PIP's "Performance Improvement Plans"  which allow you six weeks to buck up or you receive a warning.

BT / Openreach are turning us into Parking Attendants...

Don't you dare report your faulty phone line, or, you'll be billed

This is a terrible situation Dave of placing undue pressure on employees with the certain fact that if you fail even slightly you could be sacked.

With these facts it strikes me this is unfair and therefore in any Industrial Tribunal case, that could transpire following the dismissal of any one of your colleagues, this would be viewed in a very poor light as BT has set themselves the task of sacking employees by deliberately finding fault, with the fast route to dismissal being taken, and no consideration being given to re-training!    

This also places unreasonable pressure on the employees, causing stress and emotional distress that is considered by any court I have attended professionally as extremely unfair.  Once more BT could easily find themselmes on the receiving end of legal action against them, not only in a Tribune hearing but generally with civil action. 8-) 8-) 8-)  BT have afterall made it very clear that their intention is to dismiss staff, and to do this they are going to create situations to make this possible; another infringement of employees rights!

If I was an employee in your position I would certainly seek legal advise now.

[TheBoy]

We had a meeting this week, we were told that our area had excessive staff and that there were no redundancies available!  We believe that they are streamlining for a sell off, so, how will the excessive staff be reduced?

We have been told that our performance is to be monitored for productivity, compliance (That's billing as many customers as necessary), regular quality checks will ensue and will too have a bearing.  Then, disciplinary action will be implimented accordingly for the lower performers.  There are PIP's "Performance Improvement Plans"  which allow you six weeks to buck up or you receive a warning.

BT / Openreach are turning us into Parking Attendants...

Don't you dare report your faulty phone line, or, you'll be billed

This is a terrible situation Dave of placing undue pressure on employees with the certain fact that if you fail even slightly you could be sacked.

With these facts it strikes me this is unfair and therefore in any Industrial Tribunal case, that could transpire following the dismissal of any one of your colleagues, this would be viewed in a very poor light as BT has set themselves the task of sacking employees by deliberately finding fault, with the fast route to dismissal being taken, and no consideration being given to re-training!  

This also places unreasonable pressure on the employees, causing stress and emotional distress that is considered by any court I have attended professionally as extremely unfair.  Once more BT could easily find themselmes on the receiving end of legal action against them, not only in a Tribune hearing but generally with civil action. 8-) 8-) 8-)

If I was an employee in your position I would certainly seek legal advise now.

BT are certainly not alone in this.  The company I work for has a target of effectiveness, based on percentage of chargable time against paid time.  Now if I take all my leave in a year, that figure is unachievable! Factor in other unchargable time - team meetings, admin, etc, and not a hope of hitting that.

I've had this out with the most senior manager who will speak to me, just to be told the head of EMEA of our dept has set that target, it is not negotible, and its immaterial if its achievable.

[Lizzie_Zoom]

We had a meeting this week, we were told that our area had excessive staff and that there were no redundancies available!  We believe that they are streamlining for a sell off, so, how will the excessive staff be reduced?

We have been told that our performance is to be monitored for productivity, compliance (That's billing as many customers as necessary), regular quality checks will ensue and will too have a bearing.  Then, disciplinary action will be implimented accordingly for the lower performers.  There are PIP's "Performance Improvement Plans"  which allow you six weeks to buck up or you receive a warning.

BT / Openreach are turning us into Parking Attendants...

Don't you dare report your faulty phone line, or, you'll be billed

This is a terrible situation Dave of placing undue pressure on employees with the certain fact that if you fail even slightly you could be sacked.

With these facts it strikes me this is unfair and therefore in any Industrial Tribunal case, that could transpire following the dismissal of any one of your colleagues, this would be viewed in a very poor light as BT has set themselves the task of sacking employees by deliberately finding fault, with the fast route to dismissal being taken, and no consideration being given to re-training!  

This also places unreasonable pressure on the employees, causing stress and emotional distress that is considered by any court I have attended professionally as extremely unfair.  Once more BT could easily find themselmes on the receiving end of legal action against them, not only in a Tribune hearing but generally with civil action. 8-) 8-) 8-)

If I was an employee in your position I would certainly seek legal advise now.

BT are certainly not alone in this.  The company I work for has a target of effectiveness, based on percentage of chargable time against paid time.  Now if I take all my leave in a year, that figure is unachievable! Factor in other unchargable time - team meetings, admin, etc, and not a hope of hitting that.

I've had this out with the most senior manager who will speak to me, just to be told the head of EMEA of our dept has set that target, it is not negotible, and its immaterial if its achievable.

This is unreasonable TB and would be viewed as such in any legal action taken against your company, with indeed the admission, and that is what it is, that the target is unrealistic as it is unachievable, which would be used as evidence.

On this basis alone, with the threats being made and pressure being asserted unfairly, any employee could resign and claim constructive dismissal.  Alternatively if disciplinary action is commenced against any employee, the unreasonableness of the company action, including the affect of taking your legal holiday entitlement, would be exposed and used against them in any subsequent Industrial Tribune. 8-) 8-) 8-)

Companies like this are using bully boy tactics, in the hope that no one resorts to legal redress!!  They obviously believe that it is worth an employee being successful at tribunals every so often, and winning damages of thousands of pounds, to achieve their immediate goals that may save them millions!

Where are the unions when you want them??

[JonArgraig]

I would think all service based companys have some form of target SLA to hit.

I know I spend most of my day looking for way's of shaving minutes here and there...

[cem_devecioglu]

They are searching for reasons ..As usual..

In the past I worked for a big firm..Giving IT service for municipalities..As the workers become older their salaires increase..Technique they used was to send the old workers for the hardest and most far distances of country one after another..So you wont get some nights to sleep..

And they keep up the circulation..

So some of us (oldies) agreed to quit together..Wait for the correct moment that the sales and requests are at the highest point..And 9 of us quit at the same day..The face of the boss was worth to see..

ps: all the persons who quit at the same day found jobs after, good or bad..But we break their head ..

[Varche]

Shame. What went wrong with BT apart from being shackled by Oftel. It should have been a giant like Vodaphone, Telefonica, Carphone Warehouse..... I do not miss SLA led life one tiny bit.

varche

PS have you seen its share price too. Tenth of what it was and the chairman "crows" about how well they are doing dividend wise.

[Kevin Wood]

Hmm. Sounds pretty unreasonable to me, and, as Lizzie says, they're setting themselves up for some nasty tribunals if people start getting the chop for spending an extra 30 seconds in the bog every day.

Makes me glad I work for a company of 3. Just hope it stays that way. :-/

Kevin

[Martin_1962]

Being an ex-employee of BT, I tend to take a keen interest it the goings on there.

Every year for the last 15yrs, Openreach (and under previous names) has had reports of franchising or sell-offs.

This year, it seems to be a bit more than rumour, esp as Openreach has now pretty much completed its split from BT Group.  If it was BT's plan to offload openreach, and my own suspicsion it was, then Ofcom have played right into BT's hands.

Outside of Openreach, I see that BT are outsourcing some of its overseas networking, and networking infrastructure/design, to Lucent Alcatel. And who is the CEO of Lucen Alcatel? Yup, Ben Verwaayen, the ex CEO of BT.

Ben Verwaayen (then BT CEO) and Carly Fionrina (then HP CEO) worked together previously, and it was no surprise when BT outsourced its entire computing infrastructure out to HP.

Most of the application support/design/development, buts to be looked after by the computing department of BT called Exact, was outsourced and offshored to an Asian company called Tech Mahindra.  Guess who was on the board of Tech Mahindra? Yes, the head of Exact, Al-Noor Ramji.


I know its a big company, but can't help feeling there is a little too much corruption going on in upper management.

The ex BT person responsible for trialing Phorm spyware is now working for them!!

[Martin_1962]

We had a meeting this week, we were told that our area had excessive staff and that there were no redundancies available!  We believe that they are streamlining for a sell off, so, how will the excessive staff be reduced?

We have been told that our performance is to be monitored for productivity, compliance (That's billing as many customers as necessary), regular quality checks will ensue and will too have a bearing.  Then, disciplinary action will be implimented accordingly for the lower performers.  There are PIP's "Performance Improvement Plans"  which allow you six weeks to buck up or you receive a warning.

BT / Openreach are turning us into Parking Attendants...

Don't you dare report your faulty phone line, or, you'll be billed

This is a terrible situation Dave of placing undue pressure on employees with the certain fact that if you fail even slightly you could be sacked.

With these facts it strikes me this is unfair and therefore in any Industrial Tribunal case, that could transpire following the dismissal of any one of your colleagues, this would be viewed in a very poor light as BT has set themselves the task of sacking employees by deliberately finding fault, with the fast route to dismissal being taken, and no consideration being given to re-training!  

This also places unreasonable pressure on the employees, causing stress and emotional distress that is considered by any court I have attended professionally as extremely unfair.  Once more BT could easily find themselmes on the receiving end of legal action against them, not only in a Tribune hearing but generally with civil action. 8-) 8-) 8-)

If I was an employee in your position I would certainly seek legal advise now.

BT are certainly not alone in this.  The company I work for has a target of effectiveness, based on percentage of chargable time against paid time.  Now if I take all my leave in a year, that figure is unachievable! Factor in other unchargable time - team meetings, admin, etc, and not a hope of hitting that.

I've had this out with the most senior manager who will speak to me, just to be told the head of EMEA of our dept has set that target, it is not negotible, and its immaterial if its achievable.

This is where I would recommend contacting Captain Zok and investigate joining a union!

[Martin_1962]

Hmm. Sounds pretty unreasonable to me, and, as Lizzie says, they're setting themselves up for some nasty tribunals if people start getting the chop for spending an extra 30 seconds in the bog every day.

Makes me glad I work for a company of 3. Just hope it stays that way. :-/

Kevin
 

What do you do then Kevin?

[Bandit127]

Clearly:
Constructive dismissal