My experience at this job has only gotten worse. You are initially hired with lots of promises and as you stay with the company, those promises are revealed as lies.
First, the insurance started a bit expensive but doable. One thing they will not tell you when interviewing is that it is mandatory in this job that you take their insurance, even if you have insurance from the Marketplace options at healthcare.gov (ObamaCare). Their insurance is through Humana and you pay much more than you ever would pay for it at any other job. That is because they are giving you a "Welfare" stipend. Don't expect to pocket any of that stipend. I am paying over $600/mo for my benefits. You'll only get the $11.22/hr. The head of insurance once came to our training class and said that "high deductible plans are the way of the future."
So, when open enrollment came, they changed the insurance plans to be more expensive to have and use. My insurance went up $100/mo plus they added $1000 to the deductible while also increasing all the copays. So many people quit when this happened! I haven’t been able to afford to go to the doctor since the price increases. They always ask for Dr’s notes when you miss work, but it isn’t cheap to get one.
Second, they decided to give everyone on the floor new responsibilities by switching them to claims employees after being trained for benefits and referrals, which we were hired for. During training, they tell you that your supervisor will be involved in your development and it is important that you express your goals with the company. I told my supervisors I’d like to work in Mental Health because I want to help people. That didn’t matter and I was forced to go to claims anyways. They said it was mandatory and everyone would be making the change, which was untrue. They didn't force those who had been trained in other specialties to change nor would they allow you to choose which specialty you would like, despite still having training classes for new agents in those specialties. Now they have endless rounds of claims trainings to refill those who quit after getting out of claims training. It is an endless cycle. Being forced into claims was a big reason I quit.
Third, you'll never want to get close to anyone you sit near, especially your supervisor. They move you around often. I get a new supervisor once per month with no warning or explanation. The supervisors don’t know the content anyways. I’ve had them argue with me because I asked a question and I’ve had others tell me they’ve never worked in this line of work. Some will roll their eyes at you when you ask for help. Basically, your supervisor is only there to make sure you’re doing your job and clocking in properly.
If they let you work at home (WAH), you’ll have even less support. You are required to ask for permission before calling certain departments. You can sit and wait for that permission for up to 30 mins with the caller on the line, just to make sure your problem is valid enough to call the other department.
Rules constantly change, and on the fly. Not only does the contractor make lots of changes, but so does the call center. The management likes to blame things on the contractor. “I’m sorry, they’re asking us to do this.” The training you receive in the beginning does not teach you the things you really need to know on the job, just the very basics. You are then thrown in to sink or swim. There is no continued training like at other companies, except for when they send you to the claims department, and that is only for 1 week and the trainer will even tell you that most of what you will need to know will be learned “on the floor.”
The CEO came to our training class and told us how important education was and promised free education reimbursement would be in place by Jan 2019. However, the most we have seen from this has been a 10% discount to Union College.
Recently, there was a big fiasco with changing how our pay worked. Normally, if you have a bank who doesn’t hold onto your check, you get your money on Wednesday, instead of Friday, though Friday is the scheduled payday. That is because payroll sends our pay to the bank on Wednesday to make sure we get paid by Friday. This is normal, most businesses operate this way. One Wednesday, we didn’t get paid. There was a lot of concern because people had gotten used to the way it worked after years of the precedent being set. We have a Facebook group for Senture employees only and a lot of employees took to the group to vent their frustration. The company started deleting posts. Management, including executives who make several times more than us, would go on about how we shouldn’t depend so much on it and should plan more ahead. About a week later, there was an official statement sent out that said there was a change in how they are working with their bank. They also blamed the employees because our hours must be approved in time to get paid in time, which seems like a conversation for management. They also added that we should be “Blessed” for getting paid at all. Basically, they failed to give us any notice and blamed us for it.
Finally, the lack of professionalism. They claim to be a Christian company that cares about Kentucky. I would say their actions are direct opposite of their words. They are more politically motivated than religious. For instance, the CEO sent out an email telling us who to vote for. He also came to my training class and prayed for Donald Trump. They are now in the process of opening a new call center in another state. I would suspect the reason is for all the bilingual people there, but those are jobs that could be filled in Kentucky they are taking out of state. They have even asked for people interested in moving to the new location.
