senior system engineer

senior program manager

program manager

system engineer

engineer

Astrion

On paper, the company sounds fantastic.  They do a great job of selling themselves and putting out what they intend to do, it's just that they very rarely follow up on any of it.

At the agent level, you will have an incredibly difficult time changing your schedule for any reason.  You will have two ten minute breaks and going outside of those by even a minute means you are likely to get a Corrective Action Form, quickly escalating to firing.   That isn't done universally, however - it's done based on how much your supervisor and management want you around.   Agents who are disliked by management are punished for even a minute over, others are allowed to slide by with abuse excessively.  

That is something that applies across the board with all of the rules, they're enforced based off the desires of management.   This also applies to supervisors.   The rules are not enforced on a fair basis, they're used as a way to remove undesirables in the eyes of leadership.

If you are absent or late, it will go much the same as breaks - you'll get a Corrective Action and it'll quickly escalate to firing based off your desirability by leadership.   Some will be fired after three mistakes, others will be allowed thirty.

Supervisors are expected to accomplish more than they realistically can in forty hours.  There's no compensation for working beyond that, but you will never work just forty hours.   You will be expected to come in early or leave late for meetings.  You will be expected to get every task assigned to you completed, no matter how late you have to stay.    This would be reasonable, except there's no realistic way to accomplish all of the goals and leadership acknowledges that often.  If you fail to meet all the goals, it's often ignored and accepted.  That said, it's used as leverage.  If you upset them, you will suddenly receive a Corrective Action for missing a required task.  Others won't receive it, you may have never received it and may never again.

If you use "Employee Voice" as leadership, you will receive a Corrective Action for another reason within the week.  It is a consistent pattern.   If Agents use "Employee Voice" their supervisors will, at best, have an unpleasant meeting with leadership.   It's not actually intended to be used under the current leadership as it makes them look bad to their bosses.

The culture can be very positive at the agent level, provided you just avoid interaction with leadership and stay off their radar and keep high quality metrics.  But once you have bad metrics, you are on the radar.   Once you miss work, you are on the radar.   If you take multiple bathroom breaks, you are on the radar.

You'll find that your coworkers are your only major upside in interactions, and the further up you go internally the less pleasant your interactions become.  At the Director and VP level for the Melbourne site, you will be treated great in the face to face - but they will mock your grievances when you leave their office and will often find reasons to punish you or your supervisor for it.

No paper, no cell phones, smoking area is polar opposite of the break room where you store your cell phone - so you can't do both on your ten minutes.   You will also be hard pressed to go to the restroom and check your phone or smoke on the ten minute break.

The HR Department is there for the company, not for the employee.  They will nod at your grievances and very little will be done, it will also be communicated to management what was said even if they avoid saying who.

Every day you are reminded of how expendable you are. Sure, the management repeatedly exclaims how important the collectors are to the company. However, on any given day I feared it would be my last. No matter how well I performed, despite the fact that I was in management training as one of the top agents, I felt uncomfortably disposable. 

This company rules their employees by fear. Within the first month of employment, almost all employees (myself included) are written up to the point of termination - then they tell you they won't terminate you just yet, but if you have one more slip up they'll ask for your badge and send you home for good. 

They will do everything in their power to prevent you from earning a decent paycheck. The pay sucks... and some projects don't even have bonus structures, which is pretty much unheard of in collections. Even if you're lucky enough to make your bonus, more often than not it turns out to be less than you expect it to be, and if you question the authority at all they will perform an audit on your calls and fire you for any slip up they can find as soon as possible. 

They will hire anybody at this company because they are disposable, and if they fire them within the first 90 days they only have to pay out minimum wage on the last paycheck. So they squeeze every penny they can out of you, then dump you on the curb. 

There are no benefits available until 6 months of employment, but the only time you can register for them is a short 3 day window in October, so no matter when your 6-month date is, if you started the job in August 2014, you'll have to wait until October 2015 until you can sign up for benefits packages. 

There is no PTO available until the next quarter following your 6-month date, so you may have to wait 8-9 months before you accrue PTO time. Even then it is only 1 day per quarter until you reach your 1-year mark, then you get 5 days in the year, but they may try to get rid of you before your 1-year mark because then they have to give you a 1-year bonus. Even if you use the PTO time, they fully expect you to make up the time to hit your 40-hour work week. If you don't make up the time, they will write you up for failing to work your assigned schedule. 

Bottom line: DO NOT WORK HERE!

ERC is a BPO, which means its a business process outsource. What that means is you may not have the same job as someone else in this company and the reviews I looked over didn't really reflect that. Bear in mind this review is for an AOL customer service representative, I can not speak for other positions in this company as I have no experience there. Typical day at ERC consisted of coming in and taking calls from customers needing to make payments, cancel, or upgrade their AOL accounts. It is your job here to try to keep the customer on this account and ensure they don't leave the company. I learned a lot about how this operation works and a lot more about AOL then I knew before. Management is broken down into supervisor positions for each team working under them. Your supervisor could be very good or very lack luster and the positions do open up quite often due to problems like they get fired or in some cases, go to jail for ... reasons. Your co-workers are the best part of this job because if your supervisor doesn't keep you going then your co-workers will. They are the motivation that makes you want to come to work each day. The hardest part of the job is not helping customers due to company policy and having them scream at you which is quite often and common. The most enjoyable part of the job would be coming to work and seeing what it holds for you from day to day. The upper management make the job fun by doing drawings, giving away prizes for people who do excellent there and so forth. If you have enjoy fast paced jobs with room to grow then this is for you.

Very unprofessional in the sense of being on calls with consumers discussing setting up a payment with unnecessary background noise ie loud clapping and yelling. There's little to no concern for medical/personal issues that can't be helped and you have to miss work. They want you to make up hours that they're not going to pay for. They move you around with no notice and expect you to be able to adhere to different team's schedules. Also there is no adequate training put in place for when you're moved to a different project, you're expected to just get it. Supervisors are great but OM's are nightmarish. HR hires you for what they want you to work. I applied for customer service but was placed in collections and then let go when I ran into incontrollable circumstances and fell behind. Upper management doesn't care about their employees. They put on a "show" when letting you go. Instead of letting you know the day before, they make you come in for an hour only to tell you that they're firing you, then they insist on humiliatingly gathering your things from your cubicle and then they proceed to "walk you out the door" Just extra for no reason. It may seem like a cool place to work at first but once you spend some time there, the true colors of the company will shine through. I do not recommend employment at this establishment at all, I wish I could get my time back.

The job pays fairly well but in the environment you're working in, sometimes you question if it's even worth it. It's extremely loud & customers always hang up because they think we're partying or a scam company. 

The supervisors are ehh, but the managers are the unethical ones. When you first start, they'll boost your ego to make you seem like you're a great collector & shift the calls to you so that you're able to meet your budget & get your bonus payout. But once you've hit your 90 days, it's all you; no more feel goods or call shifting. 

Managers & supervisors alike are always downing you if you don't make enough money from customers but don't understand how tough it is to persuade people to pay their debts since they're no longer om the phones. On one hand, we're told to be honest to customers & if they pay, they do. If they don't, they just don't. On the other hand, we're told telling white lies & sweet talking them is just apart of the game.

The company doesn't really care about its employees and expects employees to eat, sleep & breathe ERC, as if we're not supposed to have lives outside of work. At the end of the day it's about making money & hitting your bonuses so that your managers & supervisors can get their bonus checks. If you can tolerate unprofessionalism at a decent pay rate then this is the job for you!

No benefits.. 4mos to earn 8 hours off, you can't take an unpaid day, they want you to make up the hours or points will be accrued against you.
Insurance expensive $68 per check for yourself, add spouse and it jumps to $400, family coverage is basically your entire paycheck$860ish for the cheaper option $1200ish for the good insurance. The script is ridiculous and they demand you read verbatim or a coaching is in your future. You answer phone under as different company name...Sales are required even though you're told differently at interview. You get a 45 minute lunch and two ten minute breaks. You can spend your whole break waiting in line to use the bathroom and/or waiting in line to scan your fingerprint coming and going, so smokers beware. Also coaching and/or points for being late... 10 minutes not enough time. Bathrooms are disgusting, roaches crawling across tables in breakroom. Add lack of communication and micro managment. One breath, offer the world to customer, one call resolution, offer to call them  back, then next breath no outbound calls due to call volume, then coaching when call back not completed... and don't think a call back is as simple as dialing a #, a work order needs to be created, then re- opened, and then completed or you get a coaching.

The work itself wears you down with time. It makes you miserable and will start to get to you if you don’t have the right temperament. So if for whatever reason you can’t hit your target numbers- you end up not qualifying for most bonuses so you’re stuck with a meager paycheck that barely pays the bills. 
Management only really is interested in being there for the employees they like. You get 4 days of PTO annually (which is nothing) and even though it’s YOUR PTO you always have to explain in detail why you need to use the personal time YOU earned which is unlike any company I have ever worked with. 
There are little to no growth opportunities, you may get promoted with team supervisors who are one step above an agent. Almost all upper management is hired externally. 
At the end of the day- you are just boots on the ground. That’s why the turnover rate is so high. They don’t care about the people your worth to them as much as you can collect- and they will remind you time and time again then you are replaceable. 
If you’re looking for somewhere just to put food on the table and dont have a lot of financial obligations- this place is not the worst option. But if you plan on going anywhere or want more for yourself- don’t even apply or you’ll end up stuck.

ERC is good for those people who thrive under pressure and are great at sales. If not, then this place isn't for you.

While they do give you the benefit of a three month training period, you are under pressure to hit budget from the time they put you on the phones. You also have to be willing to take a lot of abuse from customers who don't want to pay bills for what is often a convincing reason. It can be hard to move up. All hiring for management-level hiring is done within, so there is a lot of potential competition. The hours you work are rather odd, so it helps to be flexible.

To their credit, there are some nice bonuses for hitting budget (I've heard of good collectors making as much or more in bonuses as in base pay), and they do a lot of contests to encourage people. After three months, you can get health benefits, though they do take from your paycheck for them. And they do place a high emphasis on following the collecting laws.

ERC is a place for people who excellent at selling and persuasion, and who have the backbone to react calmly with angry customers.

If you plan on working for a high turn over rate company and for a bunch of criticizing managers, and don't mind management victimizing you, then it may be for you. Very judgemental and depressing place to work for, they lie on you and drive you nuts if you don't mind them threatening your job and working for a bunch of liberals who have employees wondering where you are on your days off. They frame you, and already prejudge you and don't even know who they have hired. You are stressed everyday because they devalue you as an employee and then when you confront them they act like they don't know what you are talking about. This place is a joke and so backwards. Depressing place to have worked in ever. They give you false hopes about everything, and then wants to know why you are upset. I pretty much was informed by upper management that he was going to tell on me to the other manager like a 4 year old tattle telling and crying to the other, and telling women what they need to do and if they need men following them around?? I felt like I was working for a bunch of elementary school kids.

People were great but cliquey. The pay was not worth the stress they put on you to hit budget. After working there for three years I developed ulcers, and had to have emergency surgery to remove my gall bladder. They were very hard on you if you did not hit your budget, while they tried to keep the atmosphere fun, the pressure was too intense. How do you bully someone that could be your own grandmother on limited income to pay a bill that all she did was co-sign for, or paid off years ago but can't prove it. How do you tell someone who is battling cancer you have a bill from 10 years ago you have to pay NOW? when it doesn't work out and you don't hit budget you get hounded by management who got hounded by upper management et cetera. 
While I loved the people that I worked with, I would never go back there in a position of collection agent or team manager, an operational support position yes, but not as a collector. The pay was not conducive to the pressure put on a collector to hit their daily, weekly, and monthly budget.

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