Low Pay, No Respect - Engagement Specialist Startek Employee Review

I have worked many jobs over the years, from auto assembly, quarry mining, US Military and Garbage collector..This is by far the worst job I have ever had. The stress and pressure to sell for (Major Cellular Company) is so great that you must stretch the truth or flat out lie to customers. The upper management and support staff are clueless to the difficulty of the job and are always pushing agents to do more for sales. The line of business is customer service so the types of calls are typically billing questions. The push to up sell to individuals who are already disappointed with service or billing makes the job much more stressful. Lower management, although typically good people, are under educated and not prepared for leadership positions. The turn over is so high that the company hires on a regular basis just to fill seats in the center. Individuals hired are of questionable character and have access to customers personal information. The call center is also micro managed via scripting to push sales and the ever present monitoring of calls for 'quality assurance'. Employees are not assigned desks and not allowed any items to be out on the desks, a dehumanizing tactic making the employee feel less than valuable. Chairs in the center are very old and broken, leading to discomfort and in some cases injury. Games and other efforts are made to lift the employee morale but the only individuals that benefit from these activities are the management staff since the general employee must remain on the phones, while the management team performs the tasks designed to lift morale. The education level of the employees results in a 'high school' atmosphere, causing the formation of cliques, favoritism, nepotism and certain favors for some of the employees while others pick up the slack. Training is performed in a very lackadaisical fashion making it the most enjoyable part of the entire experience. Trainers often leave the class room for hours on end and give several extra long breaks per day, so the time set aside to learn how to perform the job is less than the time spent waiting for instruction. Parking at the building is barely adequate for employees but there are plenty of handicapped spots, unfortunately they are taken by training and office staff. The computer systems are woefully out of date and the IT staff is too overwhelmed, and under paid, to address issues in a timely fashion. The absence policy is very relaxed, but based on the type of job it is I can see why. Raises are on a regular basis but capped at a very low rate so years of service is not rewarded with compensation. All in all this job is not for professionals with a higher education that are accustomed to having responsibilities delegated to them to complete at their discretion.