Sitel Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Sitel full-time for less than a year

Pros – Great training period, continuous for new products
Support team was adequate while you were on the phones
Feedback was provided for change that was needed of you on a regular basis
Very positive atmosphere

Cons – Can be stressful if you need to meet a quota
Health benefits take a while to process
Not much flexibility for your personal schedule

Advice to Senior Management – Improve the benefits for employees who need and rely on them
Improve schedule flexibility

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sitel full-time for more than a year

Pros – Easy job to get with no experience, and it is full time hours. The calls are very easy and you can wear whatever you want to work.

Cons – Pays 10.75 an hour with no raises, even if you are promoted. The bonuses are rarely paid as promised, you usually get about half of what you earn.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sitel part-time for more than 7 years

Pros – I enjoyed my peers. This has a 20 word minimum but there was nothing else I liked about the place.

Cons – There is a lot of micro managing, awful pay, shift bids every 90 days. They don't care about their employees, Operations and Team managers talk rudely about the reps behind their backs, and favoritism is huge there. I was employed there from 2006-2012. The new Operations team for the Cox campaign as of 2012 was the worst I've ever seen. They have no clue how to run the campaign and they don't care about their employees. I needed a flexible schedule because of my schooling, and this was never a problem until the new Operations team took over. All of a sudden I was no longer allowed to work part-time, I was forced to work full-time. I quit within a week.

Advice to Senior Management – You need to completely revamp your Operations team. Stop allowing them to promote their friends and actually promote people with decent education/people who know what they're talking about. Having managers in place who have never taken a phone call in their life is pointless and only makes for frustrated representatives, because the managers can't effectively answer their questions.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Sitel full-time for less than a year

Pros – Absolutely no real redeeming quality to the job. Most coworkers are very nice but it feels more like we are friends through sharing a common trauma. We are all trapped. Nothing good about the atmosphere or work conditions.

Cons – Very poor training. We spent 4 weeks of "intensive training' and then were stuck out on phones with 2 support staff and no one even showed us how to log on to the phone. It is more like a high school than a work place. Floor support talk down to the csr's and leave you feeling afraid to ask for help.
Very little incentive other than a free t shirt to improve. More likely thratened to be 'written up" than encouraged or supported. Middle management have very little job experise, since they were promoted through the ranks.
There is no sense they care for their employees at all, as if they know we are here only because we cant be elsewhere. They put absolutely nothing beyond rhetoric into retaining staff. In 2-1/2 months I have taken 4 days (unpaid) off, anywhere else I have worked I missed 2 days a year.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop treating your staff like teenagers. Treat them as if you believe they care about their work, not as if they are lazy kids trying to cheat you out of your hard earned money. Only promote staff who demonstrate empathy, positivity and problem solving, not because their your buddy. Provide time through the day for the csr to debrief or at least take a breather from constant calls. Recognize the tedious nature of the work, the often negative, depressing nature of most csr work. Stop assuming we will perform better when you dangle a logoed t-shirt in front of our noses. Stop promoting the 'teacher's pet', the 'jock', the 'hot chick', and promote the supportive, knowlegeable caoch. Respect your staff, act like youu care for us as more than ear and mouthpiece. Worst place to work- it is the sweat shop of the 21st century, and plays to the most vulnerable of the workforce.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sitel full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – As a business process outsourcing provider, Sitel facilitates employees exposure to a wide array of technology skills. Great work@home opportunities offers employees the convenience of working from home, resulting in savings for the employee and the company. Frequent training provided for skills upgrade.

Cons – Your achievements may go unrecognized due to inefficient communication at the middle-management level. Some workplace locations do not have free parking.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sitel

Pros – Employees never miss a pay cheque.

Cons – Company does not know how to hire staff that understand the value of putting in a good day's work and therefore leave the minority of hard workers to make up for the majority of slackers. Management don't care and use a "buddy system" of promoting. They also offer few employees reasonable raises if a raise at all and yet newly hired staff with no experience are routinely paid more. Even so, the pay scales are so low, it's difficult to live a reasonable lifestyle unless of course you are one of the majority of 20's something staff that live at home and pay no rent and have nothing better to do than blow their money on "stuff". Those of us that have families hear this all the time. The office is more concerned about not losing the company's biggest client, Hewlett Packard, and go all out to eliminate what they "think" are threats to lose the contract. Many of the best employees overall may have a bad day and be fired on the spot for what is perceived as not being a team player and doing whatever is required to keep the client. There is no thought of taking care of the client's customer, that is a very low priority and yet staff deal with the client's customers and it is the unreasonable reviews that are based on the interaction with these persons.

Advice to Senior Management – I cannot give any advice, there is no point. They don't ask for it now nor do they listen anyway.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sitel

Pros – Sitel is a large company with its major shareholder being one of the largest corporations in Canada. This gives the company stability as the sharholder, Onex Corp, has an excellent track record for knowing how to manage companies. Sitel has also done well to attract Fortune 500 Companies, such as the client I work for, and as long as everyone does their job, the client is sure to stay. I like using my technical abilities and dealing almost entirely with business clients, Sitel has done well to attract a client that has almost entirely business customers that call this center for technical support.

Cons – The middle management are more interested in crunching numbers and chasing KPI's rather than finding out what the customer needs. They use the numbers to "cook the books" on individual employees so that "favourite employees", which are few, are guaranteed raises and promotions while the majority are guaranteed almost no chance for additional compensation and/or movement in the company. More than a few middle managers are incompetent and do next to nothing while making their front line people do their jobs for them all while taking the credit for the great things that happen and then point the finger at the employees when the client is "supposedly" not happy with performance. The company has strict rules about bullying and yet the middle managers subtely bully employees all the time and nothing can be done about it unless an employee wants to quit or risk being fired for standing up for themselves and what is right. The management are not interested in employee feedback. They will arrange "summits" and then walk away and ignore everything said by the staff. The biggest downside is going to paid training, the seminars are shortened by at least 50% of the allocated time and employees are then expected to go back to production work while they are being paid for training. Finally, the company does not provide any retirement support.

Advice to Senior Management – The senior management is relatively new at this location and is still on a "learning curve". What he needs to do is make it priority #1 to personally audit the work of all of his managers and require that they set the example and spend a little more time with staff and a little less time staring at their KPI spreadsheets. The center needs to move to becoming customer-focused.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Sitel full-time for less than a year

Pros – Opportunities for advancement, just have to hang in there and continue doing the work. Know the material inside and out, and you will have opportunities with the company.

Cons – Lots of angry customers, so you have to have a ton of patience and be able to stay positive in a job where most people who call in are already upset once they are speaking with you.

Advice to Senior Management – You guys do a great job of trying to motivate your employees.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Sitel full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – I've learned A LOT from working at Sitel. They provided me the opportunity to move up from taking phone calls to being a manager. And the people I work with each day are amazing people. We all have fun. The opportunity for moving up is definitely there, and the call center environment is definitely fast paced! Sitel pays well for my position, and they also give me plenty of vacation time. Benefits are decent. Allowed me to go to the Dr. for 1st time since turning 18..didn't have healthcare before working at Sitel.

Cons – The journey/process to promotion is very difficult. Took 3 tries to be accepted into the Coach role. My very first application was simply lost altogether. The equipment that we have to work with leaves much to be desired. Each representative used to have their own headset, but now headsets are locked down to the computer desks. Desks are shared, and most of the time they are filthy. The entire building is due for a remodel or overhaul. Hiring practices are questionable, as we mostly get people who don't seem to want to work for anything. Taking the calls can be frustrating, but it's not an overly difficult job to do. Our client rarely listens to any feedback from those of us who are out on the call floor day-in & day-out servicing their project. Furthermore, there is little-to-no wiggle-room when it comes to our after-call surveys. Countless times, I've witnessed a survey that was mixed up, messed up, or just blatantly not valid, but the client makes us eat those surveys, and it messes up people's quality scores. As other reviews here have noted, the quality scores are primarily what determine your ranking in the shift bid. Don't be ranked too low, or you'll be stuck on an overnight shift with split days off =/.

Advice to Senior Management – There are many upper management issues at play here. No one ever seems to be on the same page, and I've routinely gotten different information from different people. Furthermore, the company owes me back-pay due to a reporting issue when it comes to up-training. Several gaps allowed for this issue, and I missed out 3 months of a salary increase that I should have received. Also, If I was promoted to the Coach/Manager role close to a year ago, why have I still never received an offer letter stating my position? Strange, especially considering that I've brought up this issue several times, to several different people in upper management.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Sitel full-time for less than a year

Pros – Get company and fantastic people

Cons – Not really any I can think of.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company