V+ : Question for VM (or other) Call Centre staff.

[andrewbrown]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

So while your busy pressing buttons running your 'phone bill up, the surgery is making money from you

I have just watched a programme from the 1960's that featured call centres. It said that each employee was given a 15 min break every 2 or 2 and a half hours.

What is the system today? Have modern health and safety requirements meant that staff get more breaks than staff in the 1960's, or have breaks decreased with the desire for "efficiency" and to meet targets?

I work in a call centre, although thankfully no longer on the phones. We currently offer 2 x 10 minute paid breaks, plus 1/2 hour (unpaid) lunch in a 7 1/2 hour working day. We also operate on 16-37.5 flexi contracts, which means that you can be rostered in for 7.5 hours per day, but you can be sent home early unpaid if it is quiet.

[RichardCoulter]

So if you work a 7.5 hour day and have a morning break, a lunch of half an hour and an afternoon break, that's a break, on average, every 2 and a bit hours, so about the same as the 1960's??

[andrewbrown]

Yes.

Originally Posted by Chris

I've found repeatedly pressing '0' usually makes the machine give up and simply put you in a queue to talk to a human.

[Qtx]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I have just watched a programme from the 1960's that featured call centres. It said that each employee was given a 15 min break every 2 or 2 and a half hours.

Was very similar at an insurance company I worked for about 15 years ago. Apart from their 45 minute lunch break I believe it was one 10 or 15 minute break in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each group of staff was treated as a cell and some cells (or maybe it was just some people in those cells) could cover more than one area of business other than sales. They were always rushing around as in their short break they had to use the loo, grab a snack and anything else they had to get done.

The cell layout and how they were treated made me think of poorly treated cattle.

[danborini86]

I work in a call centre for Virgin Media, we work 8.5 hour days but within that we get 2 x 15minute breaks and a 1 hour lunch in the middle, it can vary slightly if we work a Saturday but mostly it's as I've written above.

Edit: a Saturday or a Sunday

[RichardCoulter]

Interesting, I had thought that working conditions would have worsened with the passage of time as companies strive for greater efficiency and cost savings etc.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Interesting, I had thought that working conditions would have worsened with the passage of time as companies strive for greater efficiency and cost savings etc.

Some things are set out in the Working Time Regulations http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1373

In general the Working Time Regulations provide rights to:

a limit of an average 48 hours a week on the hours a worker can be required to work, though individuals may choose to work longer by "opting out"
5.6 weeks' paid leave a year
11 consecutive hours' rest in any 24-hour period
a 20-minute rest break if the working day is longer than six hours
one day off each week
a limit on the normal working hours of night workers to an average eight hours in any 24-hour period, and an entitlement for night workers to receive regular health assessments.

Most companies do an unpaid lunch break so that is 'extra'