on the road again...

[Phrag]

Re: on the road again...

I live in a moderate sized town/city in Australia. In town, 98% of the calls would be about 5-10 minutes maximum travel from the office or home. So that's great.

Our agreed upon start time (long story short) is 8:20am on Monday, and 8:24 from Tuesday to Friday. If I decided to attend a call first thing Tuesday morning, I I generally leave home around 8:20. Occasionally I have to head to one of the coal mines out west. If that's the case, I may leave about 8am depending on how I feel.

We don't get paid overtime; Just time-in-lieu, and our boss doesn't like us racking up lots of TIL. So, If I have to do the rounds at this mine, I might leave about 8am, skip lunch, and get back home around 5. I've got it sussed out pretty well, so I generally receive 1 hour TIL every trip.

We don't have the issue with travel to first job and travel back home being unpaid. Travel time to and from the first and last job respectively is paid, and covered if we have an accident on the roads, or are a victim of someone else's poor driving. I guess our Unions have fought pretty damn hard for us.

[HenryT2]

Re: on the road again...

they provide the car and business fuel, it's just the time that concerns me. I have regular performance reviews and the main thing that counts against my performance is work time. I'm usually at 96-98% of contracted 37 work hours per week, but this never includes the time it takes to get from to my first call, and from my last call back to my home. this would add 5-10 hours per week to my overall work time so I believe that whilst my employer has reports that show I'm not putting in the hours, I feel that I'm actually working overtime for free. I often have to travel further afield and if I don't do this on my own time it counts against my overall performance. if anyone out there works from home, do you drive to the call on your own time, or would you claim overtime for travelling to and from home? I think they're being unreasonable, but would love a bit of feedback from you guys so I know if I'm right or just a workshy layabout.

" they provide the car and business fuel, it's just the time that concerns me "

Do you have the option to leave this company vehicle at your work-place ?

If so ... go to work at the usual time , sign in , get the keys to the vehicle, go on the first call.
When you finish up your last call , go back to the company , leave the keys , log out , and go home .
If your first call has to be performed at an earlier time than normal ... just show up at work and sign in early enough to get to the customer's site when they are expecting you.

( This is presuming that you have a personal vehicle for non-work related travel . )

[Ollie1981]

Re: on the road again...

Years ago there was a "get what you need to get done but don't take the piss" policy that seemed to work quite well.

But then a global financial crisis happened, several mergers happened, lots of redundancies were required. This gave our management much more arm-twisting leverage than what they had previously and boy they used it.

Basically, the number one overriding priority is the figures. You must hit your daily/weekly/monthly metrics (calls per day, response times) otherwise management will be all over you like a cheap suit. You must be at your first call at 8:30 whether it's 10 minutes or 2-3 hours away from home, you must only leave your last call at 17:30 or later even if you still have a 3 hour journey home.

This keeps the figures looking good. Don't like it? You know where the door is.

Officially you get an hour for lunch, but I don't actually know anyone apart from bosses who dares to take an hour and there is never enough leeway with response times to allow you to go somewhere to eat. I have sandwiches and a drink in a cool-bag and eat on the road between customers. Unofficially the "unproductive" time in your day is for travelling between customers. If the travel time can be written off as your "breaks" that keeps the numbers where management want and need them to be.

This is grim enough at the moment, but now there is talk of being GPS tracked coming up shortly, so things are going to get much worse. I just hope I can get an escape plan and jump ship before that happens.

No manager will go on record to say that this is the actual policy, but working through the lunch hour was always unofficially expected. It's just nobody used to make a fuss if you went home at 16:00, now they want you to stay working till 17:30 regardless.

To say this management style is unpopular is an understatement, last time the field staff were "downsized" and they asked for people to volunteer for redundancy, they had 35 more people volunteer than what they required, and now people have left and gone to other companies and spread the word of what it's like to work here, they now have a really hard time recruiting time served techs.

This seems to be a huge surprise to our bosses, who believe it or not, seem to be working under the delusion that they are a great company to work for, an "employer of choice" no less.