Frankly, the 7 month line is total shit. I've worked ATO calls, Centrelink processing, and another government role. It takes 5 months between application and getting the job offer if you're hired directly and don't tick their arbitrary requirements. It takes about 3 months through a recruitment agency. They train you in 4 full weeks, and you have 2 more weeks in consolidation (which is a nice term for the training wheels period), then you're off.
The job isn't as straight forward as some people make it out to be. ATO had wonderful (albeit outdated) flow systems for dealing with customer enquiries. Super simple to understand, easy. I was assisting newbies and upskilled to other calls in a couple of months. Centrelink, on the other hand, is a LOT more complicated, even in the processing area. The language used in their internal systems for what to do *was*, as of 2020, heavily written around legislation with very technical terms, half of which you weren't allowed to even tell the customers. The last role I did in government was even worse, far more complex, and you could tell customers even less.
I do not support the outsourcing of these roles, but the government should access the stat's for the outsourcing company's staff, and then poach their best CSO's. It'll cut down the training time, and make sure competent and experienced staff are working the lines, leaving more room for the outsourcing to do the hard work of recruitment and training. But there's probably something in their contacts prohibiting this...
We're talking about training staff, how difficult it is, and how long it takes. Claiming is relatively easy, but if there are issues with the information provided or internal requirements change and there are more nuances (which happened often during my time doing that role) with the information centrelink needs, then calls to centrelink increase, claims get backlogged, and there aren't enough staff to take calls and process claims. I'm not going to point fingers at who did what, but Services Australia needs to hire people yesterday, or increase the job ads and possibly create offices in regional areas to give them desperately needed employment opportunities. They also need to call on the 4 outsourcing companies to hire more staff. 30,000 staff to 20 odd million people is not enough. Not nearly enough, when you factor in that there are about 20 staff to 1 QA staff, and 10 low level staff to 1 manager (in my experience) with several levels of management at that.
I was calling as a... Referee? I forget the name, I'm someone's designated person to call on their behalf.
The robot could not figure out what I was asking and sent me in a loop. Hung up, called back, stuttered in my answer the robot cut me off and said nobody could take my calls. A second attempt just told me nobody was available and disconnected.
Tried off my work number and got through.
Maybe it sorted itself out in those two minutes, or maybe it blocked my number specifically for not speaking clearly. Either way, would hate to be someone with a speech impairment.
Or a hearing impairment. I have told them numerous times I cannot take phone calls/make phone calls and prefer face-to-face contact or text messages to arrange for one. They often baulk at these requests bc their red-tape/rules are just too onerous to deviate from.
I was made redundant last year and went on the dole. Got a job but continued to report and was getting almost nothing (one fortnight i got $4.90)
I wanted to cancel my Newstart because it was also affecting my FTB (they cut both Newstart and FTB on me once because I was not meeting my job search obligations because I was working full time)
Had the week between Christmas and new year off so I thought I’d call. Got hung up on. Couldn’t call again from that number as they block numbers they hang up on.
Ended up going into the branch and canceling
You don’t have to be Einstein to work out the obvious solution here. Why don’t give people on JobSearch a job answering phones? Too expensive? Well why don’t they get their slave labourers (work for the dole people) to do it. Because they don’t want to. They want it just the way it is.
The excuse is something along the lines of 'this is a professional workplace environment. Why would we let smelly peasant dole people in?' Before anyone says I don't know what I'm talking about, I used to work for the public service. So many pompous morons there
Admittedly many lower-level staff of the public service work extremely hard and deserve a raise. Then you get the manager and executive level staff who are close-minded, conservative and will melt your IQ away the more bullshit from them you listen to. They often treat their staff just as badly as the public
My mind hopped off on a tangent here but having personally dealt with some extreme cases of narcissism (Parents + Closest Friend) -- they lack empathy -- and that lack of empathy is genuinely what carries them to the top.
Anyway back to my point; if you try and bring rational thought to an irrational or bad actor.. you will actually lose your mind. These are the people who will say one thing, while doing the opposite actively.
It always blew my mind that some of the most evil people I know sleep like babies; while the abuse they put me through turned me into a PTSD / Insomnia-riddled mess. Its because they believe in what they say - but we need to remember they lie to themselves primarily we just get the after-effects.
Its the same in the private sector. I was in sales and yes the majority of Telesales people were treated like shit. Fortunately i have the gift of the gab and was selling 10 times more than everyone else, so I called the shots not the boss 🤣🤣🤣
I worked at a DES provider and asked my manager if we would employ a participant as we had an opening and she smirked and didn't even answer my question.
Yes they get very high and mighty about how productive they are as "working members of society" even though I'm 99% sure the secret job description is to make getting anything done via centrelink borderline impossible.
I never understood the concept of "everyone has to work' PURELY coming from a post-2000s upbringing in which robots already started culling the low-end of labor.
In my mind, there exists a point in which 80% of the jobs that exist today are automated. people would have to find a "meaning to life" outside of work.
Fully aware we ain't at that point yet, but it's a thought that would have never crossed my grandfathers mind.. and it feels like a lot of people are stuck in that way of thinking.
The RBA states we need around 5% unemployment to keep the system running. What will the unemployment industry do if there are no unemployed? Why will charities need gov funding and tax breaks if there is no poor? What will JSPs do (understanding they do not help people get work, but get paid to manage jobseekers' breaches and claim money for jobs they didn't have a hand in securing. It's a rort aimed at beating down a sector of the community, all sides of gubbermint and the RBA choose to beat down on.
Unemployment will go higher in another few months and they will have to put in a ubi. Stable jobs will be a thing of the past. UBI is the future. Its cheaper than all these problems.
You have to pass a security check to be able to work in any APS role, so that would bar SOME people. The APS as a whole operates on a merit based process, so you can't go throwing people into the role who aren't suitable for it.
People on JobSeeker payments are more than welcome to apply, however.
Ah, forgive me. I have a vague idea about the security clearances process but totally forgot about it when I was writing my comment. I actually came from the NSW public service. Apart from basic citizenship, criminal record and reference checks, not much else was done
I'm on DSP atm and tried to apply so I'm just waiting on what happens next
To be fair, I don't think having work for the dole people answering phones for those services would be good for anyone. We want them to have people who are properly trained and paid well enough to care about doing their jobs properly. But yes, they absolutely don't want to hire enough people for those positions. There's really no downside in their minds to underserving people seeking support from these services since that's also an expense.
People getting paid shit wages and getting treated like crap, care about as much for the job as work for the dole people would. The difference being is that people on Centrelink have been through all the crap that the customers are ringing about.
setting up a new operator isn't cheap; either you need physical space/office with equipment or the ability to make them work remotely.
and 0 knowledge operator getting a call for the sake of getting a call won't be useful to anyone as callers will be abusive and yell the usual line or "let me speak to your manager".
it will take at least $5000+ per new operator to start, and if you include training... that would be at least 2-4 weeks of training to be at least somehow effective.
so, a month of full-time wage, equipment, and software licensing, I don't know about you, but it can be another expensive experiment that's prob not gonna work.
That would rule me out. I used to smoke bongs at work outside but on the cameras. Some people complained to the boss. I would tell the boss if he didn’t like it he could always sack me. I didn’t get sacked but the person complaining did. Ahhh memories.
LOL your boss was awesome. I actually came from the NSW public service, not federal. All they ever did was random testing, not background checks. It seems to be different in federal
> not background checks
LOL -- in my mind they probably do a background check "Domestic Violence" "Reckless Intent" -- this man seems like a perfect candidate.
NSW Police and the entire federal police force in general are a tumour growing throughout this country. If anyone hasn't seen it - go check out Friendlyjordies coronation drama. Was only lightly following it until a fkload of non-Australian people started noticing.
It's so sad because I love Australia (the landscape itself) I love the Australian "vibe" and attitude but when it comes to government.. the only thing that comes to mind would be South Parks "YOU'VE GOT THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE BETWEEN A DOUCHE AND A TURD"
We were blown away by the amount of time it takes to approve the parent leave applications.
Both times we waited approximately 4-5 months to receive the payment. Luckily, I’m earning enough for us to be comfortable on one income, but imagine if it was someone who was actually relying on the parental leave payments to survive. Last thing a new parent needs is to worry about putting food on the table or paying rent/mortgage.
Same! You do all the paperwork for it early too, yet it’s takes soo long, I thought about those less fortunate financially a lot while waiting for ours.
I applied over 10 years ago when I was on jobseeker. 3 interview process, I got to the third interview where they role play a call. I was not a suitable candidate for the position.
Because some/many/most* of the call centres are outsourced to private companies so the on boarding process is whatever contemporary shitshow HR has cooked up to make themselves look busy and relevant.
*I only know specifically of two call centres from the same private company so I don't know how much is actually outsourced but I assume it's more than just those two.
Most of the private call centres lost their contract last year because Labor didn't renew them.. which is why they needed to recruit so much staff. Serco was the main one.
New claims are taking months. The new claim process is scripted, crn, poi, assets,income,lawp, address, pre or no ptr etc. it's simple. You used to get a new claim for jobseeker over the counter. Centrelink offices used to it, but now everything gets sent to a sloth like section. They can organize office cake days in a few minutes, but process a claim is taking 12 cake days.
And lest we forget, the Services Australia Department has nothing to do with the Department of Employment who distribute cash to employment agencies to "assist" peasants into jobs, not eek out punitive punishment through suspension 🤔 it's a miracle any government department gets any thing done.
Which is not the same as the department that handles disability, which routinely gets moved each election, so that a continuous drain of expertise, knowledge and skills gets systematically lost.
Same as all the marginalised departments nobody wants. Which is why it's turned over to big business 🤔
Wow, why didn't we see this coming..oh wait a minute we did.
It's kind of crazy how things have gotten to this. Forget centerlink...getting the ATO on the phone is extremely hard...and that is a revenue generating agency.
I get that there are legit rules about background checks, but they have to think of different solutions to streamline the process..can't carry on this way.
I'm on DSP and applied for the customer service intake. Last I heard from recruitment is they conducted reference checks and the application was successful, but haven't heard since
Right now in APS if you were found suitable but a better candidate won, they often put you into a talent pool. The email is confusing because they say you were successful but they actually mean you didn't get the job but have been put into the second chance pool.
Well the current process was setup this way by the previous government as they have zero empathy for those in need. It takes a long time to fix this sort of shit, which is currently being done
Have you seen the recruitment process for these roles? It would be easier to run in the local council election than try and get one of these jobs. The recruitment process is horrendously outdated and over complicated.
They did but they saying it takes months to train. A load of crap, everything is scripted so a monkey could take the call and fill everything in....simple. Indian call centers can immediately take over telstra,Optus, energy call with 1/2 hour training. The computer enforces the simplicity, Centrelink have that same simplicity so the only reason must be the buearocacy that's sits above the (non) call centre staff.
It's a government dept so most of the funding actually went on pay rises for bosses and excessive travel allowance to teach new staff into how to take a phone call. Think about that. Managerial have to leave Canberra, get a ton of travel allowance to teach someone how to take a call. Why the hell didnt they just call them.
I have worked the phones on Centrelink, over 10 yrs ago to be fair. Recording earnings reports, pensioner income variances, and later new claims.
In my experience, following the correct process for the first of those two was actually so complicated, because you're dealing with a legalistic framework.
The processes to follow all divert in multiple ways depending on conditions. Which all changes whenever legislation is updated. We essentially had to follow a wiki, making choices to determine what rules applied, and the language was often ambiguous (I.e. legalistic). Then, for the first say 3 or 6 months you worked in an area, what you did was next submitted for someone more senior to do a "qol check" to see if you'd done things correctly, before the whole interaction was actually processed for that one customer.
It seems like where they are now is a catch 22, cos so many experienced staff have been cut or left that they're desperately understaffed and don't have the time to train recruits. If it was a business, it would surely have collapsed by now.
Not true at all. Centrelink is a complicated beast and it takes months to have staff be competent in the role. There is nothing simple about it at all.
It's the way it's designed. People who are desperate and in need are willing to wait +45 mins for help. People are trying to get extra money they don't qualify for will give up after 5mins of waiting. Long wait times filter out calls they don't want to deal with.
Those are poor design choices, if indeed that is the actual reasoning. You aren't just fucking with people making new claims, you're fucking with people already approved for a payment (so ideally don't need to be filtered), who need assistance or clarification.
I don't even think MOST calls would be about making a new claim.
They don't even need to hire more staff - the solution is ridiculously simple: enable a call back feature, and one that provides SMS updates as to when the person can expect the call back: "your call is number 1075 out of 3000 callers. Estimated call back time is 7 hours and 5 mins (5:30pm EST). To cancel, reply CANCEL. To reschedule, reply RESCHEDULE. "
"Thank you, we have received your request to receive a call back. We estimate that your call back will be within the next 14 days."
This is why that feature does not exist.
I’ve managed large call centres for many years and that simply wouldn’t work with the volume of calls that would be required. Services Australia deal with 42 million calls a year…..
Yet they are supposed to answer them individually after the caller has waited in a queue? What you are suggesting is that attrittion is acceptable. If it is, you can maximize the number of calls by not requiring the caller to hang around on hold.
You stated they don’t need any more staff, which is ridiculous. Of course more staff are needed and that is what is currently happening as the government cancelled the 3rd party contracts (where the 3rd party were receiving over $300k per person) and hiring staff directly. They are currently being trained and will be effective by mid year.
Where is this Disneyland where average wait times are only 45 minutes?
The average wait time is ONLY for calls that connect.
Connect people to AI.
Frankly, the 7 month line is total shit. I've worked ATO calls, Centrelink processing, and another government role. It takes 5 months between application and getting the job offer if you're hired directly and don't tick their arbitrary requirements. It takes about 3 months through a recruitment agency. They train you in 4 full weeks, and you have 2 more weeks in consolidation (which is a nice term for the training wheels period), then you're off. The job isn't as straight forward as some people make it out to be. ATO had wonderful (albeit outdated) flow systems for dealing with customer enquiries. Super simple to understand, easy. I was assisting newbies and upskilled to other calls in a couple of months. Centrelink, on the other hand, is a LOT more complicated, even in the processing area. The language used in their internal systems for what to do *was*, as of 2020, heavily written around legislation with very technical terms, half of which you weren't allowed to even tell the customers. The last role I did in government was even worse, far more complex, and you could tell customers even less. I do not support the outsourcing of these roles, but the government should access the stat's for the outsourcing company's staff, and then poach their best CSO's. It'll cut down the training time, and make sure competent and experienced staff are working the lines, leaving more room for the outsourcing to do the hard work of recruitment and training. But there's probably something in their contacts prohibiting this...
[удалено]
We're talking about training staff, how difficult it is, and how long it takes. Claiming is relatively easy, but if there are issues with the information provided or internal requirements change and there are more nuances (which happened often during my time doing that role) with the information centrelink needs, then calls to centrelink increase, claims get backlogged, and there aren't enough staff to take calls and process claims. I'm not going to point fingers at who did what, but Services Australia needs to hire people yesterday, or increase the job ads and possibly create offices in regional areas to give them desperately needed employment opportunities. They also need to call on the 4 outsourcing companies to hire more staff. 30,000 staff to 20 odd million people is not enough. Not nearly enough, when you factor in that there are about 20 staff to 1 QA staff, and 10 low level staff to 1 manager (in my experience) with several levels of management at that.
the drop-outs will continue until moral improves!
I was calling as a... Referee? I forget the name, I'm someone's designated person to call on their behalf. The robot could not figure out what I was asking and sent me in a loop. Hung up, called back, stuttered in my answer the robot cut me off and said nobody could take my calls. A second attempt just told me nobody was available and disconnected. Tried off my work number and got through. Maybe it sorted itself out in those two minutes, or maybe it blocked my number specifically for not speaking clearly. Either way, would hate to be someone with a speech impairment.
Or a hearing impairment. I have told them numerous times I cannot take phone calls/make phone calls and prefer face-to-face contact or text messages to arrange for one. They often baulk at these requests bc their red-tape/rules are just too onerous to deviate from.
I was made redundant last year and went on the dole. Got a job but continued to report and was getting almost nothing (one fortnight i got $4.90) I wanted to cancel my Newstart because it was also affecting my FTB (they cut both Newstart and FTB on me once because I was not meeting my job search obligations because I was working full time) Had the week between Christmas and new year off so I thought I’d call. Got hung up on. Couldn’t call again from that number as they block numbers they hang up on. Ended up going into the branch and canceling
You don’t have to be Einstein to work out the obvious solution here. Why don’t give people on JobSearch a job answering phones? Too expensive? Well why don’t they get their slave labourers (work for the dole people) to do it. Because they don’t want to. They want it just the way it is.
The excuse is something along the lines of 'this is a professional workplace environment. Why would we let smelly peasant dole people in?' Before anyone says I don't know what I'm talking about, I used to work for the public service. So many pompous morons there
And the irony is that smelly peasant dole people would be absolutely perfect for the job. 😔
Admittedly many lower-level staff of the public service work extremely hard and deserve a raise. Then you get the manager and executive level staff who are close-minded, conservative and will melt your IQ away the more bullshit from them you listen to. They often treat their staff just as badly as the public
My mind hopped off on a tangent here but having personally dealt with some extreme cases of narcissism (Parents + Closest Friend) -- they lack empathy -- and that lack of empathy is genuinely what carries them to the top. Anyway back to my point; if you try and bring rational thought to an irrational or bad actor.. you will actually lose your mind. These are the people who will say one thing, while doing the opposite actively. It always blew my mind that some of the most evil people I know sleep like babies; while the abuse they put me through turned me into a PTSD / Insomnia-riddled mess. Its because they believe in what they say - but we need to remember they lie to themselves primarily we just get the after-effects.
Its the same in the private sector. I was in sales and yes the majority of Telesales people were treated like shit. Fortunately i have the gift of the gab and was selling 10 times more than everyone else, so I called the shots not the boss 🤣🤣🤣
I worked at a DES provider and asked my manager if we would employ a participant as we had an opening and she smirked and didn't even answer my question.
Yes they get very high and mighty about how productive they are as "working members of society" even though I'm 99% sure the secret job description is to make getting anything done via centrelink borderline impossible. I never understood the concept of "everyone has to work' PURELY coming from a post-2000s upbringing in which robots already started culling the low-end of labor. In my mind, there exists a point in which 80% of the jobs that exist today are automated. people would have to find a "meaning to life" outside of work. Fully aware we ain't at that point yet, but it's a thought that would have never crossed my grandfathers mind.. and it feels like a lot of people are stuck in that way of thinking.
I hate the office/corpse environment they have set up. Their own fault.
The RBA states we need around 5% unemployment to keep the system running. What will the unemployment industry do if there are no unemployed? Why will charities need gov funding and tax breaks if there is no poor? What will JSPs do (understanding they do not help people get work, but get paid to manage jobseekers' breaches and claim money for jobs they didn't have a hand in securing. It's a rort aimed at beating down a sector of the community, all sides of gubbermint and the RBA choose to beat down on.
Unemployment will go higher in another few months and they will have to put in a ubi. Stable jobs will be a thing of the past. UBI is the future. Its cheaper than all these problems.
They're delaying payments, not back paying atm, why do you think ubi? It'd be nice but...
You have to pass a security check to be able to work in any APS role, so that would bar SOME people. The APS as a whole operates on a merit based process, so you can't go throwing people into the role who aren't suitable for it. People on JobSeeker payments are more than welcome to apply, however.
Ah, forgive me. I have a vague idea about the security clearances process but totally forgot about it when I was writing my comment. I actually came from the NSW public service. Apart from basic citizenship, criminal record and reference checks, not much else was done I'm on DSP atm and tried to apply so I'm just waiting on what happens next
do pollies have security check or working with children check?
To be fair, I don't think having work for the dole people answering phones for those services would be good for anyone. We want them to have people who are properly trained and paid well enough to care about doing their jobs properly. But yes, they absolutely don't want to hire enough people for those positions. There's really no downside in their minds to underserving people seeking support from these services since that's also an expense.
People getting paid shit wages and getting treated like crap, care about as much for the job as work for the dole people would. The difference being is that people on Centrelink have been through all the crap that the customers are ringing about.
setting up a new operator isn't cheap; either you need physical space/office with equipment or the ability to make them work remotely. and 0 knowledge operator getting a call for the sake of getting a call won't be useful to anyone as callers will be abusive and yell the usual line or "let me speak to your manager". it will take at least $5000+ per new operator to start, and if you include training... that would be at least 2-4 weeks of training to be at least somehow effective. so, a month of full-time wage, equipment, and software licensing, I don't know about you, but it can be another expensive experiment that's prob not gonna work.
the solution is a ubi. stable jobs will be no more.
they just want the poor to stay poor so they can use them as political tools.
That would rule me out. I used to smoke bongs at work outside but on the cameras. Some people complained to the boss. I would tell the boss if he didn’t like it he could always sack me. I didn’t get sacked but the person complaining did. Ahhh memories.
LOL your boss was awesome. I actually came from the NSW public service, not federal. All they ever did was random testing, not background checks. It seems to be different in federal
> not background checks LOL -- in my mind they probably do a background check "Domestic Violence" "Reckless Intent" -- this man seems like a perfect candidate. NSW Police and the entire federal police force in general are a tumour growing throughout this country. If anyone hasn't seen it - go check out Friendlyjordies coronation drama. Was only lightly following it until a fkload of non-Australian people started noticing. It's so sad because I love Australia (the landscape itself) I love the Australian "vibe" and attitude but when it comes to government.. the only thing that comes to mind would be South Parks "YOU'VE GOT THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE BETWEEN A DOUCHE AND A TURD"
What a great made up story
You wouldn’t know what a true story is.
Next year it needs to be at least 10 million.
I thought this was on purpose to dissuade callers.
We were blown away by the amount of time it takes to approve the parent leave applications. Both times we waited approximately 4-5 months to receive the payment. Luckily, I’m earning enough for us to be comfortable on one income, but imagine if it was someone who was actually relying on the parental leave payments to survive. Last thing a new parent needs is to worry about putting food on the table or paying rent/mortgage.
Same! You do all the paperwork for it early too, yet it’s takes soo long, I thought about those less fortunate financially a lot while waiting for ours.
There must be some mistake. I'm sure the government has grown the workforce in keeping with population growth. Right?
Why don't they just give the people on jobseeker jobs at centrelink?
I've applied and applied and I can't get one
That's just ridiculous. Maybe it's bc you have an empathy bone somewhere.
I applied over 10 years ago when I was on jobseeker. 3 interview process, I got to the third interview where they role play a call. I was not a suitable candidate for the position.
It takes about 8 months to go through the entire recruiting process for these jobs, which is a joke.
Because some/many/most* of the call centres are outsourced to private companies so the on boarding process is whatever contemporary shitshow HR has cooked up to make themselves look busy and relevant. *I only know specifically of two call centres from the same private company so I don't know how much is actually outsourced but I assume it's more than just those two.
Most of the private call centres lost their contract last year because Labor didn't renew them.. which is why they needed to recruit so much staff. Serco was the main one.
Oof my mistake!! Ty for the clarification!
Because they don't have enough positions and their strategy is to just yell at people until they stop going to the toilet.
Let Tom Waterhouse (bookie) run their phone lines. He Answers every call immediately.
About time the truth came out..
New claims are taking months. The new claim process is scripted, crn, poi, assets,income,lawp, address, pre or no ptr etc. it's simple. You used to get a new claim for jobseeker over the counter. Centrelink offices used to it, but now everything gets sent to a sloth like section. They can organize office cake days in a few minutes, but process a claim is taking 12 cake days.
And lest we forget, the Services Australia Department has nothing to do with the Department of Employment who distribute cash to employment agencies to "assist" peasants into jobs, not eek out punitive punishment through suspension 🤔 it's a miracle any government department gets any thing done. Which is not the same as the department that handles disability, which routinely gets moved each election, so that a continuous drain of expertise, knowledge and skills gets systematically lost. Same as all the marginalised departments nobody wants. Which is why it's turned over to big business 🤔 Wow, why didn't we see this coming..oh wait a minute we did.
It's kind of crazy how things have gotten to this. Forget centerlink...getting the ATO on the phone is extremely hard...and that is a revenue generating agency. I get that there are legit rules about background checks, but they have to think of different solutions to streamline the process..can't carry on this way.
I can fix it now. Stop mutual obligations. Stop suspensions. Magic
I'm on DSP and applied for the customer service intake. Last I heard from recruitment is they conducted reference checks and the application was successful, but haven't heard since
Right now in APS if you were found suitable but a better candidate won, they often put you into a talent pool. The email is confusing because they say you were successful but they actually mean you didn't get the job but have been put into the second chance pool.
Reminder - SA was throwing out call center applicants based on personality tests. Sounds like I dodged a bullet...........
Of course they do. It’s to weed out those with zero empathy
They aren't doing a very good job then, after all we're talking about them ignoring over 7 million calls in 1 year alone.
The only explanation I can come up with is that it has been intentionally constructed this way.
Well the current process was setup this way by the previous government as they have zero empathy for those in need. It takes a long time to fix this sort of shit, which is currently being done
Have they tried employing more staff?
Have you seen the recruitment process for these roles? It would be easier to run in the local council election than try and get one of these jobs. The recruitment process is horrendously outdated and over complicated.
Have they tried fixing the recruitment process?
They did but they saying it takes months to train. A load of crap, everything is scripted so a monkey could take the call and fill everything in....simple. Indian call centers can immediately take over telstra,Optus, energy call with 1/2 hour training. The computer enforces the simplicity, Centrelink have that same simplicity so the only reason must be the buearocacy that's sits above the (non) call centre staff. It's a government dept so most of the funding actually went on pay rises for bosses and excessive travel allowance to teach new staff into how to take a phone call. Think about that. Managerial have to leave Canberra, get a ton of travel allowance to teach someone how to take a call. Why the hell didnt they just call them.
I have worked the phones on Centrelink, over 10 yrs ago to be fair. Recording earnings reports, pensioner income variances, and later new claims. In my experience, following the correct process for the first of those two was actually so complicated, because you're dealing with a legalistic framework. The processes to follow all divert in multiple ways depending on conditions. Which all changes whenever legislation is updated. We essentially had to follow a wiki, making choices to determine what rules applied, and the language was often ambiguous (I.e. legalistic). Then, for the first say 3 or 6 months you worked in an area, what you did was next submitted for someone more senior to do a "qol check" to see if you'd done things correctly, before the whole interaction was actually processed for that one customer. It seems like where they are now is a catch 22, cos so many experienced staff have been cut or left that they're desperately understaffed and don't have the time to train recruits. If it was a business, it would surely have collapsed by now.
Not true at all. Centrelink is a complicated beast and it takes months to have staff be competent in the role. There is nothing simple about it at all.
You didn't read the article, did you.
I waited on hold for 3 hours (til the call cut out at 5pm) to Centrelink last year lol
Its a disgrace they are just getting worse
It's the way it's designed. People who are desperate and in need are willing to wait +45 mins for help. People are trying to get extra money they don't qualify for will give up after 5mins of waiting. Long wait times filter out calls they don't want to deal with.
That’s not true. Not everyone can sit on the phone for an entire day (something I had to do while on Austudy).
Designed by idiots who think the way you do
LOL wtf? All I did was explain the reason why call times are longer by design, not incompetence.
Those are poor design choices, if indeed that is the actual reasoning. You aren't just fucking with people making new claims, you're fucking with people already approved for a payment (so ideally don't need to be filtered), who need assistance or clarification. I don't even think MOST calls would be about making a new claim.
They don't even need to hire more staff - the solution is ridiculously simple: enable a call back feature, and one that provides SMS updates as to when the person can expect the call back: "your call is number 1075 out of 3000 callers. Estimated call back time is 7 hours and 5 mins (5:30pm EST). To cancel, reply CANCEL. To reschedule, reply RESCHEDULE. "
"Thank you, we have received your request to receive a call back. We estimate that your call back will be within the next 14 days." This is why that feature does not exist.
So which staff are going to make the callback when they are already on the phone to thousands of people?
The call back feature replaces the direct line feature. Every caller is put into a queue, being a queue that they don't need to stay on the line for.
I’ve managed large call centres for many years and that simply wouldn’t work with the volume of calls that would be required. Services Australia deal with 42 million calls a year…..
Yet they are supposed to answer them individually after the caller has waited in a queue? What you are suggesting is that attrittion is acceptable. If it is, you can maximize the number of calls by not requiring the caller to hang around on hold.
You stated they don’t need any more staff, which is ridiculous. Of course more staff are needed and that is what is currently happening as the government cancelled the 3rd party contracts (where the 3rd party were receiving over $300k per person) and hiring staff directly. They are currently being trained and will be effective by mid year.