Being Flexible - A politically correct expression for "Being Exploitable". Used to describe positions requiring you to do anything your employer asks of you without second guesses or questions, even if it is at the cost of more important things, like your spare time activities or your physical/mental health, parental or social commitments etc. Often involves doing tasks that are not part of your original contract. Also used to describe working unpaid overtime. See Also: Cross-Skilling, Strong Customer Service Skills.
Call Centre - A modern working environment characterized by cramped spaces, massive amounts of negative stress, high employee turnover, low employee satisfaction, miserable salary, arrogant management, fixation on numbers and statistics rather than people, sluggish administration
Competitive Salary - Used in job descriptions to obscure the fact that the salary for a particular job is appalling. Companies that do have competitive salaries usually indicate an exact amount. See Also: Excellent Benefits
Cross-Skilling - A relatively new fad in the call centre community, used primarily to save money and to decorate statistics for sponsors, CEO's, CFO's etc. Also known as "Squeezing the lemon as much as possible". Describes working for other departments at the same time as the one originally signed up for. Can also be used to describe carrying out tasks for your old department at the same time as your new department in the event of promotion or transfer. Employees are not usually informed about this or it is masked as something that sounds interesting until the actual employment starts. See also: Being Flexible.
Excellent Benefits - An attempt to make standard mandatory benefits like Statutory Sick Pay and National Insurance contributions sound like they are not actually included in every job. See also: Competitive Salary.
Outsourcing - The concept of transferring services to countries with much lower salaries and at the same time sacrificing understanding of culture, mentality and proper communication. Countries preferred are usually India, Czech Republic and Hungary, although in theory any country with significantly lower average salaries and real estate prices would be considered.
Promotion - In a traditional (i.e. normal) working environment this means a higher salary and more prestige. In call centres however, this means more responsibility and more work for roughly the same salary. More indirectly, it also implies working more unpaid overtime than in your previous position.
Service Level Agreements - Usually referred to as "SLA's". Meaningless statistics that determine whether or not sponsors are willing to finance a particular department or service. Also used to satisfy CEO's et al. Usually reverse proportional to Employee Satisfaction. See Also: Employee Satisfaction, Cross-Skilling, Statistics.
Statistics - More commonly referred to as "Stats". Often used as an alternative to "SLA's", but also used to describe employee timekeeping and attendance. See also: Service Level Agreements
Strong Customer Service Skills - Basically the requirement of taking any form of verbal abuse and threats from customers without retaliation. Also describes the ability to deal with low intelligence customers that should not be calling or using the product in the first place. See also: Being Flexible.
Call Centre - A modern working environment characterized by cramped spaces, massive amounts of negative stress, high employee turnover, low employee satisfaction, miserable salary, arrogant management, fixation on numbers and statistics rather than people, sluggish administration
Competitive Salary - Used in job descriptions to obscure the fact that the salary for a particular job is appalling. Companies that do have competitive salaries usually indicate an exact amount. See Also: Excellent Benefits
Cross-Skilling - A relatively new fad in the call centre community, used primarily to save money and to decorate statistics for sponsors, CEO's, CFO's etc. Also known as "Squeezing the lemon as much as possible". Describes working for other departments at the same time as the one originally signed up for. Can also be used to describe carrying out tasks for your old department at the same time as your new department in the event of promotion or transfer. Employees are not usually informed about this or it is masked as something that sounds interesting until the actual employment starts. See also: Being Flexible.
Excellent Benefits - An attempt to make standard mandatory benefits like Statutory Sick Pay and National Insurance contributions sound like they are not actually included in every job. See also: Competitive Salary.
Outsourcing - The concept of transferring services to countries with much lower salaries and at the same time sacrificing understanding of culture, mentality and proper communication. Countries preferred are usually India, Czech Republic and Hungary, although in theory any country with significantly lower average salaries and real estate prices would be considered.
Promotion - In a traditional (i.e. normal) working environment this means a higher salary and more prestige. In call centres however, this means more responsibility and more work for roughly the same salary. More indirectly, it also implies working more unpaid overtime than in your previous position.
Service Level Agreements - Usually referred to as "SLA's". Meaningless statistics that determine whether or not sponsors are willing to finance a particular department or service. Also used to satisfy CEO's et al. Usually reverse proportional to Employee Satisfaction. See Also: Employee Satisfaction, Cross-Skilling, Statistics.
Statistics - More commonly referred to as "Stats". Often used as an alternative to "SLA's", but also used to describe employee timekeeping and attendance. See also: Service Level Agreements
Strong Customer Service Skills - Basically the requirement of taking any form of verbal abuse and threats from customers without retaliation. Also describes the ability to deal with low intelligence customers that should not be calling or using the product in the first place. See also: Being Flexible.
