Your day consists of constantly answering social services call, such as child support, energy assistance, food and nutrition, as well as housing subsidy calls. Some employees assist with all of the following programs. Calls are targeted to 5 mins, also you only have 15 secs in between calls to document what was discussed and update social services and icf call logs. (not nearly enough time) 30 min lunches are timed down to the second as well as your two 15 min breaks. You are targeted to answer 80 calls each day, software is often glitchy and turnover is high. Each call is "authenticated" meaning you have to ask (name, d.o.b., phone #, and address) even if the caller doesn't have an active case and just wants general information. You walk into the office and there is a photo of the Mayor and DSS posters yet don't be fooled employees receive no govt benefits working for the call center. No retirement options, no overtime, no free health benefits and to my knowledge only one raise since ICF took on the project to assist with all calls in the entire state of Maryland. The pay is $14-$15hr which is not great at all considering you are essentially expected to know as much as a caseworker at a local office. Customers will call repeatedly during the same day asking the same questions. "Did I get a child support payment" then hang up on you if you don't have good news for them. The automated voice response gives clients all info about their case yet you will be stuck attempting to resolve issues and broken promises between local social service offices and clients. You are not allowed to give direct numbers to offices so clients can resolve their issues. If a caseworker calls a client they give the call center number as a call back. You will be provided no identifying info for any caseworker for assistance and the only way to have anybody at DSS directly resolve any issues with a client is to send a "work order" which at the max is a 2 business day response timeframe. The training class is only one week and there has yet to be a training class in which %100 of those who applied did not quit prior to being placed on calls. The top supervisors actually do not know policy so they are of no assistance to resolve issues and there is only 1 supervisor on the floor with 30 plus employees to attempt to resolve any issues. Parking at the office is awful as they have a driving academy, flying avacodo restaurant, law office, personal training gym, and several other businesses in the same plaza. You are not given a single minute grace period to clock in and also have to arrive early once a week for "huddles" which has been negative since I've been employed here. I wrote this detailed review to provide insight to anyone who would potentially make the mistake of appying to work at this dead end job.
