Retirement Representative - Retirement Representative Empower Employee Review

I was a representative on the phones and scheduling, service levels, and our procedures were the biggest downsides. It is very difficult to take days off, especially if you are new and don't get to ask for your off days at the start of the year like all the seasoned employees. It's especially hard to take off Mondays or Fridays on the fly. Service levels were a big problem when I was there. Often times we would be very busy and not have enough staff to handle the volume of calls coming through. Back to back calls with no reprieve can be exhausting. We would frequently have an hour of mandatory overtime on every Monday and sometimes more throughout the week. The day is also very regimented. When I was there you got exactly 30 minutes for lunch and two timed 15 minute breaks throughout the day. You had to press a button on your phone to get up and use the bathroom. I felt like I was chained to my desk. Doing the job is also difficult because of the amount of knowledge you need to have and the different and disconnected resources and computer systems you would have to be able to use. Trying to get help from other coworkers can be hard. Many people I worked with, even seasoned employees, were not willing to help and would rather pass the buck than take on a problem. Management also does not do a good job of developing their employees. I got the impression that because they need to keep people on the phones to stay in business, they were reluctant to develop workers and train them to move up or move out. Many talented coworkers of mine became frustrated and burned out.