Where to start. I got a little list for ya! ;)
- First, they will reel you in with sweet little words and promises of an all-inclusive culture. "Frontline first". "People before profits". They'll tell you that you're important and that they care about your safety and wellbeing. But it's bull. Lovebombing, in a more technical term. My advice would be to take off the rose-colored glasses before you're hired.
- Missing/incorrect paychecks. I have several teammates who have come forward to TLs and Payroll about missing very large chunks of paychecks, or having not been paid for holiday pay at all. HUNDREDS of dollars for most, and in one case, an ENTIRE PAYCHECK. Some took months to fix. Some have YET to be fixed. Do you not see how this is a problem? In the middle of a pandemic, gas prices soaring out the butt, people already making do off of a bare-minimum "liveable" wage just to feed their families and survive, and you have the audacity to say that you're people-first. Don't you get tired, having to come up with all of these blatant lies to save your own skin all the time?
- Lack of sufficient advancement. If you wanna move up, move out. They will get you to a point where they are literally hand-feeding you everything you need to pass your second interview with flying colors after promising you that they had a place in the TL line-up ESPECIALLY for you, only to tell you at the end of the interview that the position they originally oh-so-wanted you for has been filled. With a smile. And a promise to "pull some strings" to get you there EVENTUALLY. And you expect people to just... accept that. We're not dogs. You can't wag a treat in front of our faces and then rip it away and expect us to even like you afterward. Oh, and they'll immediately reject you if you choose to move toward another upward path after the first one didn't work out, despite being well-qualified. This is all personal experience.
- Lies, lies, and more lies. They say the site is safe from Covid. Wrong. There were several scares and a couple of confirmed cases in the few short months I was there last, despite all of the safety protocols put in place. Yet they continuously push for return to office while new Covid strains are popping up left and right, even going so far as to bribe certain teammates into returning with a SLIGHTLY-higher paycut. Also, a lot of teammates who got hired on to work from home were specifically told that it was permanent work from home when they got hired. Also wrong. And those who can't return to the office because they need to protect their families or can't commute or for whatever other legitimate reason? They're blatantly ignored. Or fired, when they speak up! And this just isn't on teammate level, oh no... Up at the tippy-top of the chain, this company is being investigated for investor fraud, as we speak. Among other lies the CEO has told the public. Go on, look it up.
- Lack of company-mandated on-shift wellness time for customer support roles. So we're expected to stay on the phone with customers who are screaming at us, sometimes on an every-day basis, and then we have to reach out for help ourselves, when you could just give teammates time off the floor yourselves? You think that being screamed at as an already-traumatized individual doesn't have any long-term effects on their already-deteriorating mental health? Either get it together and organize client communications so teammates can stop initating processes that get the customers this angry with us to BEGIN with, OR, at least pretend like you care about your teammates by giving them sufficient wellness time away from the computer, on shift, when they need it. They do it on the moderation campaigns!
- Speaking of communication, there is none, coming from the client side. You're expected to employ processes that the client THEMSELVES doesn't know how to use, and are simply told, "good luck!". Without proper training, by the way. You'll bring forth client questions in meetings for the next training to revolve around, and they give you a training that has literally nothing to do with what you need to learn to do your job. And then they gaslight you with said training and what little support they give you, saying that they did their part, and you are the ones that need to be trained on empathy and should know how the processes work.
- More on the lies... don't believe any of the positive reviews you see from new teammates. They are apparently required to post positive reviews upon starting to drown out the honest voices. This is a narcissistic company that only seeks to bolster their image in the public eye. Manipulative, and abusive to current teammates. You don't matter to them. "People before profits"... you're reading it wrong. They don't put your importance above the profits. YOU come before the profits, chronologically. You get hired, they profit. We get it, now.
- They just laid off an ENTIRE campaign here. To save money, of course! Hundreds of people will now not have jobs come May, some of my FRIENDS included. So of course I take that personally. And the best you can say is "good luck", to them? To the hundreds of people that now have to stress about finding a job they can even survive off of? And you say there is "no more room" on other campaigns, yet you host hiring fairs every couple months, and bring a couple hundred more teammates on each time. These people you already have here have been loyal to you for years, and you throw them out like garbage. Additionally, your clients promise higher pay for NEW hires without raising the wages of your tenured teammates... as an "experiment". To boost productivity.
With all of this said (there may be more that I missed, and I'll add that later), and on behalf of all of the affected teammates listed above... To upper management, the clients, and the CEO of TaskUs: How do you live with yourself?
