Clock work thrown out

A plan to improve the efficiency of 200 Centrelink workers in Bunbury by timing them with stopwatches has been scrapped.

The idea was abandoned after the workers became angry and called on the Community Public Service Union to intervene.

The Department of Human Services denied the proposal was ever designed to “intimidate” its staff.

The workers were told of the proposal on July 2 in an internal message: “As of today, all team leaders will be utilising a stopwatch during quality call listening to be able to accurately reflect the length of your talk time and work time during a call, ” the message said.

“This will allow us to link our observations to all other available information to get a better understanding of what constitutes efficient and effective service delivery (regardless of what statistical data may indicate).

“The reasoning for this is to be able to link the calls that you are taking in with the data that is reflected in the smart centre performance tool.”

CPSU organiser Rory Lambert said the plan would have seen team leaders timing workers’ calls with stopwatches despite having other ways of monitoring the calls.

He said staff in Department of Human Services call centres were some of the most heavily scrutinised in the Australian public service.

“It was a bit of a shock to see they were being further scrutinised above what I understand the Department of Human Services guidelines on monitoring, ” he said.

Mr Lambert said the workers were angered by the plan and said morale was low in the call centre.

A Department of Human Services spokeswoman said experienced staff regularly reviewed its workers’ performance as part of its quality coaching program.

“It was proposed locally in Bunbury to use a stopwatch to capture information rather than using the staff member’s computer screen and was in no way intended to intimidate staff, ” she said.

“The proposal was set aside following feedback from a small number of staff and the use of stopwatches never actually commenced in the Bunbury Smart Centre.”