To pull a sickie press #1...

I had the misfortune, a couple of weeks ago, to come down with a cold that's been doing the rounds. I could barely speak because of my sore throat. Reaching for the phone I called the absence line to hear things had changed since I last called in sick. "For this team press #1 and for that team press #2" the recording told me. Really? Are you going to put me on hold for five minutes as well just so you can say "Your call is important to us so please continue to hold"? I dutifully pressed the appropriate number and spoke to a random team manager from my floor. After making sure I sounded as ill as I felt I turned my phone off and went back to sleep.

It got me thinking later as I sat on the sofa surrounded by Lemsip and tissues. Watching daytime TV and wondering where Jeremy Kyle dredges his show participants up from leaves you time to ponder other things. Do Sitel really think this will make any difference to their levels of absence? First of all let's ignore the people who always go in to work unless they are properly ill. This is clearly aimed at the people who wake up and see, like this weekend, that the weather is far too nice and decide to replace speaking to people on the phones all day with a spot of sailing or something. Although I'm sure this measure, which has been in place for ages according to a colleague, wont hurt. I really don't see it doing any good either. After all if someone is swinging the lead then surely this isn't going to make any difference to the 'Sunbathing vs Office' equation. It strikes me as changing process and procedure to prove the site is 'doing something' about sick levels. There is sometimes a desperate need for improvements to be visible so that someone somewhere can point to it in a meeting and say "look what we did." The effectiveness of the idea doesn't always hold much sway.

If you have an idea, humorous or sensible, that you think would help improve the levels of absence on the site then drop me a line at sitelblogger@hushmail.com and I'll put any good ones up here in the next week or two. As always I'm as keen to protect your identity as you are. So rest assured you can contact me in absolute confidence with this or any other ideas you might have for this blog.

It's now what you know.

Did you hear about that senior police officer in North Yorkshire last month who nearly got himself sacked for nepotism? He was under a lot of pressure to resign and was given a final written warning for his conduct. Oh how different things would be at Sitel Exeter if management took such a severe line with nepotism and cronyism. For those of you unfamiliar with the terms. Nepotism is putting your family ahead when it comes to jobs and cronyism is sorting out your friends with jobs regardless of ability. Neither practice has any place in the modern workplace in my view. The recently departed operations manager Phil gave us a prime example of why this shouldn't happen. It's pretty common knowledge that Phil runs a Sunday league football team called Exeter Phoenix FC. That team has had around a third of its 30 man squad pass through the doors of Sitel at one point or another and to the best of my knowledge all but one of them has been given opportunities to climb the career ladder. What are the chances?

If you look at the performances of those who have both played for Phils team and been promoted at Sitel it's not all bad news. A couple of them have definitely deserved to get ahead. Richard on the second floor seems to be a capable and efficient team manager. On the other hand there have been a couple of horror stories too. Chris Clows time with Sitel has become the stuff of legend for all the wrong reasons. He left the company months ago and yet just a week ago out on smokers corner someone brought him and his abilities as a team manager up in conversation. How did he manage to get promoted and stay ahead if he was such a poor worker? Simple really. Played football with one operations manager, Phil. Best of friends with another operations manager, Shane, and was father to the HR managers grandson. Game, Set and Match.

It is my hope that as the new senior management structure works itself out we will see more promotions based on ability and less based on who you drink with or share your bed with. This does not mean you can't promote a friend. Quite the opposite. If you get on well with someone and they are genuinely capable that's a good thing. On the other hand if you promote a friend who say has a lot of late or sick over another more suitable candidate then people are, rightly, going to get annoyed.

Mounting attrition.

The bloodbath among team managers on the second floor continues. Amid all the gossip around our operations manager leaving without any warning it should not be overlooked that yet another team manager has decided it's time to move on. This time it was Martyn and that's no real surprise. He hasn't looked happy for some time. You have to question how seriously Sitel are taking the issue of team manager attrition. If my maths is correct that floor is losing a team manager every 45 days on average. Unfortunately this includes some good hard working people. Whats even worse is it's not simply a case of better work or pay luring these people away. Some are choosing to take worse pay within the company to not be team managers any more and the rest are just leaving. I only know of one case where a departing team manager has gone on to a better job straight away.

So answers on a postcard. Who's going to be our next team manager casualty. I could name who I think is leaving next but that would spoil the surprise for you.

Phil

So Phil has left the building. Apparently he has decided to seek opportunities outside of Sitel. We all know this is corporate lingo for "doesn't have another job to go to yet and only left because he was pressured in to doing so." Usually when a high profile person leaves a gushing email is sent out thanking everyone for being such amazing friends. A promise to stay in touch and an undertaking to go and get drunk soon are also pretty much de rigueur. For Phil the fanfare was conspicuously absent and instead we get a terse email from the site director two days after Phil left. All a bit cloak and dagger.

Back at the start of the year I wrote a piece suggesting that Phil had chosen to fall on his sword for the very evident problems setting up the new campaign on the second floor. I was as surprised as anyone when he returned from his sick leave and assumed I had horribly misjudged the situation. Now it's become clear that he is being made the fall guy after all and in my opinion there are some good reasons to do this. That being said Sitel should not think getting rid of Phil will solve anything other than the head on a platter to offer our, understandably annoyed, client. He only deserved around half the blame for the state of affairs that led to his demise and thus the other half has to be shared around a few other people. On his good days Phil was a great manager and always seemed to be a natural with the glad-handing of clients on site. Unfortunately he was also prone to some lapses of judgement and has paid a heavy price.

There has been a real culture of mediocrity in the office at times. A quick fix fire-fighting approach rather than taking a longer view. Outsourcing is a funny business. Just because six months can be a long time in this industry doesn't mean we should give in to short term thinking. Hopefully the changes that are happening in upper management on site will mean the company starts thinking a bit more about the next year or two as well as planning the next couple of weeks.

Making constant changes. UPDATED

Sometime it's hard to understand why Sitel shows such a lack of clear direction. It's almost like nobody takes the time to step back and think about things from a different perspective.

A quick note here. When I started this blog I promised myself I wouldn't name any of the clients directly. After all this is about Sitel not the companies who use our services. However if I were to talk about a team on the first floor that handles calls for a major high street fashion retailer you would all know who I was talking about.

This team has had several changes of team manager over the past few months. Andy who took over the reins of that team some time ago was moved sideways to another position in the middle of last year. Sian was asked to move up from her senior agent role to manage the team. Then, as many retailers do, there was an increased workload over the Christmas period and Greg was brought in from another campaign to help with the managers workload. So far so good. So why have the company brought in a new manager from outside the company and moved Sian back down to her senior agent position?

Was it a mistake to move Andy off to the other team? He had been running it for a couple of years. Were both Sian and Greg unable to run the team  properly? That would show a worrying lack of diligence in selecting candidates to move up the career ladder. How about a clash of personality with senior management? A lack of ass kissing? The truth is I don't know the reasons for such volatility.

I'm not sure I would want to be the new team manager. If the team is on their fourth manager in less than a year then that would have me looking over my shoulder all the time. Either the team is a poison chalice or more likely Sitel dont know what they want and then complain when they don't get it. Hopefully we're now moving into a period of stabilty because constant changes are not good for the agents and are not good for the client.

Update 15th June 2011

Since I wrote this entry someone has been in touch anonymously. This person has suggested that Sian was removed from team manager duties due to a serious lapse of judgement. As I haven't been able to verify the allegation yet I wont repeat it here. Suffice to say if true then the decision to remove her appears justified.

One thing bothers me though. we have a Team Manager Track aimed at identifying candidates for promotion internally. Why not recruit a suitable internal candidate if they were forced to replace Sian?

One baby and a funeral

On Friday Paul Smith got his final send off from this world at a funeral held in Exeters Crematorium. Although I didn't attend I'm told both Sitel and our client from the second floor sent flowers. It's also nice to hear we had an "Official Delegation" in the form of Dan and Richard from management. Some agents who were close to him were allowed time off to attend the funeral and Sitel seem to have dealt with this with a good deal of sensitivity. Just goes to show that Sitel can do things properly when they try.

On a lighter note Phil the Ops Manager from the second floor has, Together with his wife Emma. welcomed a new arrival into this world. A baby boy. Welcome to the world of sleepless nights and no doubt all the other fun that goes alongside the joy of bringing up a baby. Congratulations to you both.

Paul Smith.

I had intented to write a piece poking some gentle fun at a couple of people from Sitel who were in the weekends Great West Run. I'm quite sure my jokes wouldn't have been that funny and in light of the sad news there seems to be little place for levity today.

Early Sunday evening the grapevine started to hum with rumour that the man who died on Sunday during the Great West Run was a Sitel Exeter employee. The name Paul Smith came up but that's not an uncommon name and the press were giving little away. On that basis I chose to wait until more concrete information was available. Sadly that rumour turned out to be terribly accurate.

I only spoke to Paul a couple of times in the break room and he came across as a likable guy. The impression  from people who worked alongside him is that he was the sort of person who got on with his job and got on with his colleagues. Always willing to roll his sleeves up and pitch in. This made Paul just the sort of person we could do with a few more of in our office.

To check out after a just quarter of a century sucks. A tragic admonition to take each day as it comes because you can never be sure when it will be your last. I hope everyone will spare a thought for Paul, his family and his friends.

A reminder then that it's not just how long you live but also what you do with your time here.

This ones for you

I'm raising a glass to you and hopefully I'll catch you on the other side.