back to article Two G4S call centre staff sacked over 999 answering scam

Two G4S staff who were investigated over a scheme to fraudulently meet quotas for responding to emergency calls within a reasonable time have been fired. Earlier this year five former Lincolnshire police employees were suspended from their jobs with G4S after allegedly calling 999 during quiet periods to improve their …

  1. Pascal

    Evil staff, scheming so their bosses can hit their goals...

    And management was just as surprised as those guys at Volkswagen were when they discovered that all their engineers had been scheming behind their back in a worldwide conspiracy to cheat on those diesel tests without management's knowledge.

    1. Velv
      Headmaster

      Re: Evil staff, scheming so their bosses can hit their goals...

      I was going to point out that the article says nothing about any personal target they had to hit to ensure any personal bonus was paid, however checking the linked Guardian article includes the missing "it is understood individual staff members were not on a financial bonus scheme linked to performance"

      1. Triggerfish

        Re: Evil staff, scheming so their bosses can hit their goals...

        Shitty metrics and bosses.

        Seen to many call centres where basically it works like this, did you not hit all the markers, well definetly going to look poor on performance review for you, no payrise, keep failing no job.

        So now you have staff oh I dunno doing something usueless and ignoring answering calls in ten seconds, I dunno maybe they are dealing with some sort of emergency situation over the phone that means they cannot do that (I know unlikely to have problems with callers on a 999 number bet they are all simple).

        Sound reasonable? no in the eyes of the bosses who never are at that end of the job, thats them being slack bastards who effect the call metrics and the loverly cash contract they have.

        They wonder why people game the system.

        1. Sgt_Oddball

          Re: Evil staff, scheming so their bosses can hit their goals...

          I dunno, I got laid off from a call centre because I kept point out the sales notes we got (it was experiment we were told, there's no pressure we're told.....) either were massively unsuitable to the customers down the line at the time or when It was appropriate we couldn't get through to the right department. Oh and I also ended up telling other departments how to work their own parts of the 3 different systems we had to use because I figured it out whilst trying to track various different events over my time there....

          Did I mention this was for a bank? A couple of years before they all got burned because people couldn't pay back cheap loans?? Yeah... don't say I didn't warn you.

          As for gaming the system? Just about every one games the system given half a chance. Staying on the straight gets you nowhere.

  2. Red Bren

    “There is no place for anyone in our organisation who behaves in this way and their actions undermine the commitment and the good work of their colleagues.”

    Did John Shaw, the managing director for G4S public services, also offer to pay or repay any contractual fines or bonuses that might have been avoided or gained through this terrible unsanctioned fraud that senior management knew nothing about because no one thought to investigate a sudden "smoothing out" of demand or an increase in very short duration emergencies?

    1. sniperpaddy

      Caller data analysis would have identified this early

      I seriously doubt the gamers would have used 600 different phones so data analysis for multiple calls from a phone number would have flagged up gaming before it became a cultural habit.

  3. Chris G

    I chose the wrong career

    200 million for police backend services in a county that is mostly corn and turnips?

    Oh! And the odd poacher.

    1. Alister

      Re: I chose the wrong career

      in a county that is mostly corn and turnips?

      And has some of the highest road accident statistics in the UK.

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: I chose the wrong career

        Indeed. Lots of mangled Wurzels.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I chose the wrong career

      Turnip theft is no joke...

      1. wolfetone Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: I chose the wrong career

        "Turnip theft is no joke..."

        True, it's a problem that could mushroom in to something bigger.

      2. Captain DaFt

        Re: I chose the wrong career

        "Turnip theft is no joke..."

        And don't forget all those yokels falling off turnip wagons!

    3. TheTick

      Re: I chose the wrong career

      I was thinking of posting a huffy reply but then looked out of my window (with it's lovely views of Lincoln Cathedral) and saw the ears of corn growing nicely in my back yard. Ok I'll give you this one.

      1. Chris G

        Re: I chose the wrong career

        My comment was not intended to be disparaging of Lincolnshire in any way.

        I have spent many an enjoyable weekend at Cadwell Park in the '90s mechanicing for a mate who raced a couple of old RG 500s (A la Barry Sheen), I loved driving through Lincoln County the epitome of English countryside.

    4. Black Rat
      Black Helicopters

      Re: I chose the wrong career

      Lincolnshire Poacher ;) I see what you did there

  4. sabroni Silver badge

    There is no place for anyone in our organisation who behaves in this way

    If you want to work here, don't get caught.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All part of gaming the performance statistic

    1) Simple statistic to check performance

    2) People at lower level examine statistic

    3) People find loophole

    4) Profit!

    It all starts with a simplistic performance metric. I heard of one at a call centre to answer a query within so many seconds. When that answer was too long they just dropped the call, and left it for the next guy.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: All part of gaming the performance statistic

      I worked at one call center for internal support and was often asked what the hell was taking so long to resolve the issues? I dunno, maybe because the fix needed 4 fixes to work? With the first fix being a remote connection problem? From literally a 1000 miles away.

      Morons.

  6. Dave Harvey

    Mandatory Casablanca quote

    G4S Bosses:

    "I'm shocked, shocked to find that [response fiddling] is going on in here!"

  7. DNTP

    Call centers

    If this is like any other call center I've ever heard of, the quotas set by management are completely arbitrary, divorced from reality, and basically impossible for even the best worker to reliably meet.

    If staff can't meet a metric like "answer 92% of calls within 10 seconds", that generally means that the company is understaffed, which is always true in call centers where management gets larger bonuses for keeping minimum staff on payroll. Then when the metric isn't met, they fire lots of random workers and hire new minimum wagers.

    And then they wonder why people cheat the system!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Call centers

      Oh you don't know half the tricks. of fiddling SLA's.

      If a call breaks SLA, ignore it and answer the ones still in SLA. Doesn't matter if they are on hold for 12 days, it's still only one.

      Another is to answer quickly and drop the caller on hold (call parking) for as long as required while they deal with others in the same manner.

      Anon for very obvious reasons.

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Call centers

      And then they wonder why people cheat the system!

      And also wonder why they can't keep good techs. Besides the insulting pay, that is.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Call centers

      the quotas set by management are completely arbitrary, divorced from reality, and basically impossible for even the best worker to reliably meet.

      That's how they control the peasants - it's built-in constructive dismissal from the outset but they'll never be caught on that one.

  8. Herby

    So, they rigged the test to impress the inspectors...

    Funny that it seems to be the norm. Others have done this as well, I believe that Volkswagen comes to mind.

    If you build a criteria to test to, someone will cheat to get the desired results. You need an audit to really see how things are working!

    Trust me doesn't always work. Trust but verify (I think I heard that before) seems to be the order of the day!

  9. Trigonoceps occipitalis

    G4S did not immediately respond to our enquiries.

    Please contact our communications team by dialling this number: 999

    Manager, Lincoln Police Call Centre

  10. goldcd

    Give people goals, and they'll try to game it.

    Interesting point is that surely those making the "test calls" demonstrably couldn't be the people benefiting for answering them.

    So why did they make those "test calls"?

    1. Phil Kingston

      Re: Give people goals, and they'll try to game it.

      They might not directly benefit. But they'd be less likely to be sacked for poor performance.

      What I found interesting is that of the team of 5, only 1 remains in their post. If those who left before their disciplinary or were sacked have any doubts about who dobbed them in, they probably don't have to look far.

  11. TeacherMARK

    Tip of the iceberg... this whole company is one massive scam after another.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    G4S staff fraudulently meet quotas

    "Two G4S staff who were investigated over a scheme to fraudulently meet quotas for responding to emergency calls within a reasonable time have been fired."

    Of course none of their managers will be held to account.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: G4S staff fraudulently meet quotas

      "Of course none of their managers will be held to account."

      Correct. Because all the memos and emails lay out the correct, legal and fair obligations for the employees to follow. The other stuff is all done verbally.

      In a previous life, we all got a memo reminding us to always drive within the law. But we were still expected to get to jobs 100 miles away "on time" even when it was legally impossible.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's odd is that you can be prosecuted for dialling 999, there's clear evidence of 600 fake calls, but the police have just let G4S conclude the matter with a few lost jobs and probably an email telling people not to do it. And let's not forget that the end result was the call answer rate went up, so when all this blows over someone will be getting a bonus! Clue, they don't wear a headset.

    I've been in a call centre environment, they almost always make it both easy and rewarding to game the system. It takes a brave call centre manager to rise above it, employ more people, scrap the IVR and get humans doing a decent job, but they get business - I used to pay extra for O2 Premier (where you get to call a different number, answered by a real person) and I changed banks to First Direct based entirely on their customer services

    Sadly they are the minority

  14. Smitty

    Call centers like to demand the impossible.

    15 years ago I worked in Comets PC support center. It was a bonus service for people who bought extended guarantees on their crappy Daewoo or other 2nd tier PC systems - they all had winmodems which I hated.

    We were supposed to resolve all issues within 10 minutes. The phones were programmed to auto answer within 3 rings, we were unable to reject calls.

    The managers were thick as pigshit and knew nothing about technology. We could only authorise engineer call outs after we made the customer reinstall Windows.

    It was technically impossible to achieve the required performance level so staff would hang up or just lie to callers. We were encouraged to edit ticket histories to make things look better for us.

    One day some Watchdog researchers called to test us. We even got solicitors letters via Comet HQ about bad service.

    Toxic wasn't the word.

  15. Merchman
    Mushroom

    Aren't the private sector great.

    Can you imagine the utter shit-storm, if this had been public sector workers? I imagine the Mail, Telegraph and Express wouldn't shut up about it for months and there would be continuous calls for the entire management hierarchy to be sacked.

    But G4S can continue to fuck things up (the Olympics, prisoner tagging etc) and keep getting contracts.

  16. breakfast Silver badge
    Mushroom

    A fact universally acknowledged

    Private sector organisations are more efficient.

    Private sector organisations are more efficient.

    Private sector organisations are more efficient.

    Repeat until true.

  17. Cuthbert

    CALL CENTRE HELL

    Hi all, as usual we yet again read between the lines and we can see bullying call centre bosses pushing their staff beyond their limits to the point of the staff taking a "well I'm making sure my mortgage is paid and my kids are fed" attitude and ensuring, one way or another, that they meet their bosses micromanagement demands. Then they get caught and what do the managers do? Lock themselves away and deny any involvement while the staff are pushed into the public eye like sacrificial lambs. And it's not just G4s where this is happening but in thousands of Call Centres all over the UK - big names and small names are all abusing staff and pushing them to achieve highly unrealistic targets which sometimes staff are forced to fabricate their achievements.

    Please join our facebook group as we are exposing these unscrupulous Call Centre bosses and naming and shaming them before they destroy any more lives:

    https://www.facebook.com/Call-Centre-Watchdog-UK-1630785613899375/about/?entry_point=page_nav_about_item&tab=page_info

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