route driver

hospital service technician

driver

associate

local driver

Stericycle

Basic Job Description(s):

Operator: Answer all incoming calls from a computer with a headset on, linked to StarTel network with all calls recorded for quality assurance purposes. Enter and verify appropriate data into StarTel program. Upon call completion, queue completed entry for dispatch ranked in importance by predetermined criteria.

Dispatcher: Pull queued Operator entries in order they are received by the system. Proofread all entries and edit for succinctness, clarity, relevance, and accuracy. Contact appropriate 'On-Call' Business or Medical Practice representative as detailed in the system by the On-Call Manager. Deliver and file each completed entry out of the active queue. 

Disclaimer: My first 20 months of employment with the Call Center were when it was NotifyMD, before acquisition by Stericycle Inc. finalized in/around Oct. 2011. This review will attempt to detail the post-acquisition environment, and may reference previous ownership for comparative purposes only.

Upon acquisition of the Call Center by Stericycle Inc., I witnessed the following:

Systematic removal of many of the highest quality NotifyMD employees. (Coincidentally, many of whom were the most currently well-compensated).

Freeze in all pay increases. Previously, it had been that one would receive an approximate $0.25/hr wage increase per annual quarter with consistently positive performance reviews.

Hiring sprees ensued to compensate for the thinning of the workforce mentioned above. I suspect much of the qualification for these new hires was to be in the appearance of non-discrimination. Many lacked the basic comprehension, language and computer skills integral to the position. 

Training classes were rushed and, invariably, training was extended onto the Call Center floor where adjacent agents were responsible for new hires' daily ongoing training in the live setting. This often translated to an air of 'the blind leading the blind' in the workplace.

Dramatic increase in call volume due to client integration with similarly acquired Call Centers nationally. We were chronically understaffed during peak hours as a result, lacking not only staff, but the necessary number of workstations to handle the volume of incoming calls.

Stricture of the point-based attendance policy was implemented, from an eight-point limit to six, with the duration of all point-offense incidents increased from three months to six. This was accompanied by the removal of our time clock and electronic employee timecards in lieu of a web-based clock-in system. This required each employee, upon arrival, to first find the workstation they were assigned to for that shift and, pending it was not already occupied (as it frequently would be, due to scheduling conflicts), log in to the computer, pull up the webpage and log in there, and then click a button to record their arrival time. Not only does this process take 5-10 minutes with seamless operation (depending on how slow the particular station and web connection would be to respond), the clock on the website itself was often not calibrated correctly, and was apt to run about 2 minutes fast.

Sharp shift in focus from the content and quality of interaction with callers, to a prime imperative on 'optimization' of all manner of call statistics such as elapsed ring time, duration of call, # of calls answered, rejected, ignored, abandoned, etc. Most of these statistics had always been available to any agent aspiring to improve on these levels, which I had formerly enjoyed perusing for that reason. However, it became mandatory for all agents to look up, from multiple platforms, and manually record (on paper) selected daily individual statistics to be submitted for review by their team leader and discussed each two-week pay period. An entire wall of the building was repurposed as an enormous whiteboard which held a month's worth of workplace-wide hourly statistics, with red marker dauntingly used to catalogue any aggregate that fell out of their preconceived range.

All staff were subject to regularly attending informational seminars in which suits were sent to outline the overhaul of our old business model in favor of the 'Lean' corporate organizational structure. All employees were encouraged, beguiled into purchasing stock options with the company which uniformly resulted in negative returns.

At the Mobile, AL office you are treated like a child. The afternoon team leader speaks to you in a condescending tone and will even follow employees to the bathroom and listen at the door to make  sure they aren't on their cell phones. 

During slow times, of which there are many, you are not allowed to do anything. No internet, no cell phones, no books, nothing. You are supposed to sit and stare at your computer and wait for the next call. The wait can take quite a while. At one point they did allow the operators to draw with markers and crayons in between calls, but they may have stopped that. 

The schedule was not set, and unless you really complain, they will schedule you to work 9 days straight. 

Management acts brainwashed and is more concerned about your ability to memorize company slogans and acronyms than employee concerns and issues. Literally everything that comes out  of the regional manager's mouth sounds like a script.

 Their solutions to simple problems are really stupid. Example: the office has a stove and sink in the kitchen. Originally we had a dish schedule where one of us would do dishes on assigned days. Stericycle stopped the dish day and said that everyone was in charge of their own dishes, which was fine. Someone complained that people weren't doing their own dishes or cleaning off the stove, so management threw out all the dishes and suggested they get rid of the stove instead of just reimplementing the dish day.

The building is dirty. The floors are blackened and the wallpaper is hanging. Half the chairs are broken. There are wires at you feet under your desk. They may have fixed this by now, but eight months after they acquired the building nothing had been done.

You do get lunches and breaks, however if the call queue goes up they will make you come back and clock in. Or sometimes you don't get a lunch at all and have to answer calls in between bites of food. Always bring your lunch, just in case. 

Management has said that they want two calls in the queu for every operator, which means you would stay busy, but you are constantly being yelled at by the callers and the clients for long hold times. Your clients, the doctor offices and other companies, that use the answering service expect their customers to be able to get through in five seconds or less, and if they get complaints about hold times then they will cancel their contracts. You cannot win with this company. Stericycle wants the service to be constantly busy all the time, however they won't give the Mobile office any more accounts. It is an answering service, which means during the day it is very slow because businesses are open and don't need the service unless their phones go out or they close for lunch. 

Many people who worked at this answering service before it was bought by Stericycle have left and many are still trying to leave. I don't recommend this employer unless you have a high tolerance for bs.

I had the displeasure of working one of their call centers where they called themselves Notify Md. I also had the joy of being demoted while still having to work the tasks of my previous job, without the title or pay of course. This was referred to as "semantics". I also had to take calls that only supervisors should get with irate clients, because well, their call center is one of the worst in the US. I was expected to do all that supervision does with extreme disrespect from the real supervisors who do nothing but walk around like idiots who can't even run both programs. Yes, at the call center they had two different programs they used to dispatch messages. Very few knew how to run both. Management couldn't be bothered to learn both.

I learned that titles and "semantics" do make a difference. I was demoted very slowly and quietly. At first I was told I could stay a supervisor, but was slowly stripped of that title while more responsibilities piled up on me. Employees were treated worse and worse. The whole place could be used as a training course of how not to run a business. Whenever the badly treated employees fought back and started demanding more rights, the more everyone was punished. I learned to basically get out of that toxic environment ASAP and to never stay a horrible place that long again.

Management was a bunch of idiots. They couldn't even run the systems necessary to take calls. They never took calls. The "office manager" sat on her behind staring at stats. Of course, when things were busy the "office manager" never jumped in and helped. She just screamed at people to work harder.

Co-Workers well, they were a different bunch. The only people that tolerated the abuse were the loony ones. The funniest story was when one of them got so upset at management, they pooped on the floor in the admin bathroom. Many of them flushed tampons in the toilet to cause the plumbing to jam. My favorite was when one of my co-workers took a bite out of a manager's sandwich and placed it back the wrapper, back in the fridge.

The hardest part of the job was pretending to be a supervisor while having to do supervisor duties along with the job I was supposed to do. This caused me to get yelled at by clients, who were angry at how badly this place was run. I hated being the "fake supervisor". I would answer questions from new hires and even fixed ones computer. After spending time fixing her computer and actually got it to work again, the office manager screamed at me for the high call volume. However, if I didn't fix the computer I would have been screamed at.

The most enjoyable part was when I quit. I felt so relaxed and happy. Seriously, I'm still in therapy over all this. I can write a book on this.

The turnover rate is probably why hours are so flexible. I honesty have nothing say that is even relatively close to "Good" about this company. I've been here for almost 5 years and not even a single cent raised in my paycheck. The "PROS" are you're "PROGRAMMED" like a robot to accept a ridiculous "One team one Goal" attitude. It's very sickening. And of course those who love this company, are the "favorites". If you work here, you might as well be working at a high school, excluding any individual thought process of course.



One giant elephant in the company's room is..PAY. The pay is terrible. Agents are supposed to learn major accounts and take on several tasks of higher up jobs while getting paid close to a fast food wage. I know customer service is tough. I know not EVERYONE who walks in the door is gonna go home with a fat check and a gold star on their paper, BUT COME ON!...The only way to advance, or they like to say "Opportunities", is to wait 3,000 years until a position appears.. (NO WHERE NEAR YOUR LOCATION) and if somehow, someway a "Team Lead" position appears, I use team lead very loosely because team leads do close to nothing, then you had better hope you're a favorite. Being a favorite is VERY special. See being a slack off, uh I mean "favorite", means you can mess up on accounts, calls, emails, 50,000 times and still get a slight raise compared to someone that has honestly tried their best. Employees are not appreciated, they're just not. Now the work is not hard, let's get that clear. I believe anyone who can keep busy cannot find the work hard, it's just tedious. It's the performance for good work that is often over looked. That's also why raises for the masses are never given. I'm part of the masses. Advancement are few to none, this is not a career, it's literally 8-10 hours of your life that you will never get back. So save the breath of asking for opportunities, you'll need it to sigh at the sight of your paycheck every two weeks.  


Accountability, Integrity...are you kidding me? I hold accountability for my mistakes. You know how? Because I've learned from them! This company and it's management are no longer in the "LEARNING" process. If a person has to keep learning something from mistakes over and over over and over again, then guess what..THEY'RE NEVER GONNA LEARN! Same goes with this company, they will never learn how to treat their employees. The definition of insanity my friends is to do something over and over again, and expect different results. Heed my warning.

Promotions were difficult. Advancement was not obtainable. I worked my butt off. Didn't receive much support from the supervisor. Applied for an internal job in the next city over, denied transfer, then a few months later they reorganized and gave me the job after much hassle. It wasn't very safe. Safety concerns were brought to management's attention and were ignored. The company invited employee +1 o the annual Christmas party then wouldn't let me guest attend, even after I offered to pay for my guest. I do appreciate the offer to have a party at company expense though. Policies and work plans are inferior leaving room for managers to change standards or rules. I was doing the work of 3 people and the person before I was doing the work of just one. Lots of cliques. Politics and religion were a common topic at the worksite and if you didn't agree with the politics or religion of the co-workers you were shamed and blamed. The site manager didn't know OSHA rules or regulations which placed everyone at risk and caused disharmony with the customer. Men and women were held to different standards. Paperwork was shredded to cover management mistakes or employee manuals were quickly rewritten to prevent outside agencies to review company policies. Employee manual for nonunion employees clearly bashes unions and the CEO's disdain for unions was evident. I can see why this company unionized parts of the company. The CEO wasn't concerned about most things, but was happy with his millions and donated money to organizations and political groups that most employees would never want to be associated with.  There were two employee manuals, one for the union, one for nonunion and the nonunion manuals were stricter than unions. When we tried to unionize it was horrible and people bailed for fear of losing their jobs. I wouldn't recommend making this a career move, maybe something in between jobs, or part-time. Many customers complained they were being overcharged as compared to other companies that provided the same service. and couldn't get out of their contact unless they paid more money to cancel it, or they were denied cancellation with no reason as to why.

Where do I begin? I was a route driver. You pick up biowaste, body parts, ect.... It smells awful. The management is very secretive about what you will be paid, and benefits until the day you are hired. A route drive makes 14.50 per hour. Your "super great" benefits will cost you 300.00 per month for your family and they have copays out the wazoo, and a 2500.00 yearly deductible. I was told that I would work four, ten hour shifts and have fri-mon off. Haaaaaa....NOT. You will work five days a week, shifts from 10-14 hours. This company throws OT around like candy. You will pick up from 50-150 biowaste containers that are "supposed" to weigh no more than 50lbs, but the reality is that most weigh around 70 pounds, and some up to 100lbs. You will stack them four wide and four high in a 26' box truck. This is mostly a physical labor position. The fourth high "tote" is around six feet in the air. You will be exhaused. Dead exhausted. Most of the offices that you visit are small, and not made for a half-semi (pup), so you will be told to park in the road, in turn lanes, in fire lanes, or just plain old block in patients for up to 1 hour at a time. Oh, and by the way....don't get run over hahahaha (managements response). Most of the hospitals will have a shipping dock. You are tracked at all times by a in truck GPS system. It is updated by the minute. Safety is honestly last on their priority scale, sales are number uno. Try and find the number for HR. You can't. Got a problem with payroll? Your SOL. You will email payroll, only to get IT support. Your timecard is automatically docked for 30 minutes every day for a lunch break, but guess what? You don't get your lunch break. You will work without a break or lunch all day, and then get docked for it. Does your truck have something wrong with it? Well suck it up buttercup, drive with a broken mirror. Cause this is all about the sales. Are you so tired you can barely walk? Well, management will sympathize with you because they are mentally exhausted. This company is just insane. They are great at sales, and buying out competitors, but horrible at everything else. No support for employees at all. Once hired, you are on your own. Good Luck.

A typical day at work required continuous coordination with other departments, resolving higher level problems, coordinating/scheduling installations, monitoring P&L, service orders, hiring process, personnel issues, conference calls, customer visits, service audits, interviews. The hours typically ranged from 12-16.

I learned a lot about managing from a larger scale, standardizing process, coordinating in difficult situations.  I learned about what it takes to enhance an employee's experience in the midst of growth challenges. My experience was a great one.

Overall, Executive Management had great motives and vision for the company and its employees.  The focus was steady on continuous growth and, later, operations improvement. The field services, however, relied heavily on the successful follow-through of the operations department and sought improvement on systemic approaches to teamwork between the departments. Hopefully, they have been heard and relationships have improved.
 
While it was continuously stated that lay-offs were never their intent (and doing more with less was the mantra), they occurred quite frequently each time a restructure occurred.  Many survived multiple lay-offs and were re-employed in another role.  Some valued employees, however, were not able to stay due to the requirement to re-locate in order to stay with the company.

My immediate co-workers understood process, quality service, and strived for customer service excellence against all odds. We worked well together to achieve company goals and educate other departments on our process and common goals as an entire team approach.

The most difficult task for me was to tell someone they had still failed after numerous attempts to help them succeed. I saw their potential, when they did not.  I felt I had failed them.

The most enjoyable part of my job was working with people and the challenges of coordinating culturally different departments toward the same goal.

I worked on the Shred-It side of the company, please note it is very different than what is going on at Stericycle proper. 

Your typical day is being the front line for all service and billing issues. This is simultaneously the worst and best part of the job. The upside is you do get to help customers who have legitimate issues. The downside is there are a lot of customers who have no legitimate issues who call in to pretty much complain and try to get something out of you like a credit.

The main problem is customers are still getting used to Stericycle owning Shred-It.

Before the acquisition, Shred-It was a franchise based company and customers were used to contacting their local branch directly with any issues. The fact that they now have to call a call center irks many of them because it no longer feels local to them.

This has also led to problems on the company side. The service level from branch to branch is inconsistent at best and downright damaging at the worst. One branch was so poorly managed it was closed recently and its business was shifted to two other branches.

Despite a decent training program, the service levels between your fellow CERs is inconsistent as well. Too often are mistakes made because one person didn't understand something that well. The worst part about this is there really isn't anything done about it.

Management is almost nonexistent. There is a lot of focus on improvement but no actual guidance on improving unless you go out of your way to flag down your manager.

QA is inconsistent and your worst calls are often cherry picked, however this is improving.

The upside is the starting pay for someone with no call center experience like myself was good, $13.75 an hour, and the benefits available to you are great, I worked for a health insurance company and they weren't as good as what is offered by Stericycle. There are also various discounts on vehicles, appliances, and AT&T that are available.

Ultimately what made me leave was advancement was pretty much put on hold for various reasons.

During the time I worked for Stericycle, I learned that they only care about themselves. The only safety they care about is their name and their bank account. They basically will write you up for anything. They also have a camera in the truck that will watch you, but they say it doesn’t unless you set it off. Expect small performance raises no matter how hard you work. And let’s also talk about how laughable it is that it takes them years to give out a cost of living raise when the cost of living goes up each year. They haven’t done anything special for the employees for the duration of covid. Examples are, if you get sick, you must use your PTO and if you don’t have any you lose a week of pay before you get a check @ %60 of your normal pay. They changed from blue cross to United health for insurance, which is a joke. Honestly, the place is a joke and has a high turn over rate for a reason. They just don’t care. They care more about the customers than how the actual employees. I get that businesses have to focus on customers to make money, but during times like a global pandemic, your focus should shift a little more to your employees. They will essentially ridicule you if you get hurt. Any mistakes you make will be brought up again and again. Longer story short, they don’t give out raises, they changed health insurance where you pay more for less coverage, and corporate simply does not care about you. I have had some good times here, but they are because of the people work with. Don’t expect a great career working here. There’s so much to say about this company, and a lot of this is frustration because of how you’re treated by corporate. This “job” is more stressful than it needs to be. They act like they are out to get you for anything. Corporate doesn’t understand what the drivers go through on a day to day basis to get the job done. They only care about making money and less about the employees. 

I'll basically lay out the job. Monday - Friday with a day off during the week. Typical day at work will start anywhere between 4am - 5am. As a tech your job requires you to build your cart of empty sharps containers at the beginning of your work day. Once that is done you will proceed to Labs, or Patient Floors and switching out the used sharps containers for new ones. That's it, that's the job. All day going in and out of patients rooms checking to see if the sharps containers need switched out. What they don't tell you is that as you service floors/labs, you have to drag around this heavy metal cart that all of the sharps containers go on. The cart weighs a good amount, and gets heavy when the containers fill up. This job isn't a " 8 hours and then you go home gig" You stay until your responsibilities for that day are finished. Could be 10-11 hours, could be 5 or 6 hours, it just varies upon days. 4 day work week but like I said, you may not work the same amount of hours each day. This job may put a little wear and tear on your body, since you are on your feet more than the nurses and you have to haul a heavy cart around. If you don't mind working in the hallways of a hospital, among the sights, sounds (and smells unfortunately) , this would be a perfect job for you. If you like constant contact and interaction with patients, the job is for you. The job is very repetitive and there isn't much room for advancement at all but the management was very helpful and wanted you to succeed. Uniforms are provided, and you will have to pay for your own parking, but you are compensated via a weekly expense report. 

The job itself is NOT hard by any means, but be prepared knowing that you will be on your feet on hard concrete floors for all of it.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Route driver 21 salaries reported	$24.08 per hour
Hospital service technician 55 salaries reported	$18.59 per hour
Driver 10 salaries reported	$19.59 per hour
Associate 10 salaries reported	$20.94 per hour
Local driver 9 salaries reported	$18.72 per hour

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