Pros
Let’s start out with the pros that were a part of my personal experience. -My immediate supervisors were absolutely amazing, understanding, and great to talk to. They have taught me so much and I have a lot of gratitude toward them as supervisors. None of my cons later on pertain to them in any way as they have mostly backed me in my assessments and always were true to wanting improvement for the customer experience. -Overall working at the office before changing to work from home was fantastic, everyone got along and it was a very tight knit environment. After we went to working from home, we could still reach out to each other and overall the assist chat was as busy as it normally was. I helped on the phones doing work from home on a few occasions and it wasn’t bad. -When we were at the office we would have pretty frequent catering and events/competitions to drive productivity up. -Having different usable pieces of equipment at the office helped emulate the customer experience and also helped the customer make changes to Shentel equipment over the phone. There are simulators on the help site, but being able to use the remote and play with the options was a much more cohesive experience. -Health insurance options were great and the HSA funds put in were an awesome perk as well -401k match was pretty good and the vendor they use has a fantastic app and website.
Cons
To the cons that were a part of my experience: -The big con about Shentel is that pay is good compared to minimum wage but not where it should be for certain positions. Assigned duties at the end of each month that were originally supervisor duties took away value from the Quality Advocate position. I was making less than entry level tech support reps after being there for two years and having to negotiate a pay bump as they wanted to consider a “leadership” role a lateral move. To compare here’s a list of positions and their round about salaries that I found out about before leaving. My salary as someone with the company for over two years and in what’s supposed to be considered an hourly “leadership” role: less than the values below. Starting tech support representative hourly wage: $14.30 Senior tech support rep with tenure example: “barely over $15 with some at around $16 (where it should be) When confronted with the survey results about a percentage of the company feeling like they are not paid fairly a HR rep simply stated: “Everyone feels like they should get paid more.” This is very disappointing to those who are constantly willing to put the extra hours in, cover shifts, and treat Shentel as a career rather than a job. It shows that loyalty and dedication are not appreciated at that level of the company. To piggy back on this, the yearly merit raises are paltry in comparison to other companies. The supervisors definitely care, but they’re also not in charge of giving raises. -Tuition reimbursement benefit policy: Shentel has a tuition reimbursement policy that is just about as useful as trying to carry bricks in a wet paper bag. Not only do you need to reach a minimum tenure (a year I believe), but you are expected to stay an extra two years in a lesser paying position even if your new education takes you to a higher paying job. Thankfully they only covered a 1/4 of one semester instead of the whole thing. The fact of the matter is that with that clause in the “benefit.” It’s not much of a benefit at all and essentially is better off not being used. If anything it’s a payment deference rather than a reimbursement for those looking to improve themselves after getting an education. -Policy trumps all for Human Resources there isn’t any leeway and the book will be thrown at you. As in the previous con, if there’s any dispute to a policy they will bring out paperwork the employee signed. The policies are iron clad and mostly written in legalize terminology so that a good portion of it isn’t necessarily understandable. Not only that, but the policies are also pretty draconian. To Human Resources you are another number in the machine. To put it frankly, you have to use an hour of PTO to use any PTO at all despite it generating in fractional increments. No half hour, no fifteen minutes, just by the hour. -Being in Quality Assurance felt like our major role was to grade score cards and put numbers on a spreadsheet. While I have helped various representatives improve on using the various tools in tech support, it feels like major problems get swept under the rug. There is one representative in particular who openly states he does not enjoy his job and consistently gives a poor attitude to callers that simply need guidance on changing to the proper signal on their television. No matter how many times they have “talked to him.” He barely gives a good attitude after those “talks” and returns back to the nasty attitude mentioned before. This has been addressed by both the supervisors and the manager, yet he’s still up to the same things as he has always done. It’s disappointing because as a customer, it does not reflect the values of Shentel, yet Shentel allows it to keep occurring. So it begs the question about this values being upheld or if they are truly the values to begin with. -Turnover can be rough sometimes as people find higher paying jobs. It makes less work for QA but as I was taking calls at one point, I know how it feels. -Last but not least, promotions seem to be favored for certain initiatives and possibly tenure over skill. I had an interview and was informed that “x employees were being interviewed for x position due to the buyout of their part of the company” at the beginning of the interview. I immediately knew I was not getting the position despite there being two openings for the position I wanted. It was at that point I would have preferred they didn’t interview me at all.