Services Australia staff say performance targets negatively impact work
Frontline Services Australia staff say their work is being negatively affected by pressure to meet performance targets and they don’t feel trusted or respected by their employer, a new survey reveals.
A report by the Community and Public Sector Union claimed excessive oversight – including intrusive questions about employees’ toilet breaks – and restrictive work practices were having a “negative effect on staff wellbeing, customer service and workplace culture”.
The survey of 1,571 Services Australia staff members found 79% did not feel the way the agency managed its employees showed they were trusted or respected.
It also found 90% of respondents reported feeling pressure to meet performance targets, while 63% said that pressure meant they needed to “manipulate their work practices” in ways that were not “productive for customers”.
Alistair Waters, the CPSU national president, said the pressurised environment was acutely felt by members who worked in Services Australia’s service centre offices and call centres.
He blamed the problem on the fact there was “just not enough secure and experienced staff to get the job done”.
Nearly three-quarters (71%) of respondents felt what was considered the average time to finalise a work task was unrealistic.
One survey respondent said: “It is doing an incredible disservice to our customers and putting unrealistic pressure on us so if you care about your customers and actually giving them assistance, you will then be asked to explain yourself in coaching. It’s disgusting.”
Another said: “The claim you are allocated might be extremely complex and take a considerable amount of time. It really puts you in a difficult position, if you take the time to ensure the outcome is accurate for the customer then it can take a real hit to your productivity.”
Other findings included 61% of respondents saying that too much of their working day was spent explaining what they are doing, either on the system or to their supervisor, while 20% reported being asked intrusive questions about their toilet break.
“I have had, on so many occasions, team leaders follow me to the toilets and wait outside timing my break,” one survey respondent said.
Waters said frontline staff faced “irresponsible measurements that mean employees were “manipulating KPIs to get the work done”.
He said these time measures meant workers had to handle calls and service centre visits in an allocated time, regardless of whether the matter was “simple or highly complex”.
They were also required to be off the phone when their shift concluded under a measure called “adherence to schedule”, he said.
Those who were still helping a customer could be “coached, and performance managed which can lead to being disciplined”, Waters said.
“To ensure that clients can have the service they deserve workers keep them on the phone or at the counter longer than required to ensure that all processing can be completed,” he said.
Hank Jongen, a Services Australia spokesman, rejected the survey’s findings as “misleading”.
“It covers a small proportion of CPSU members’ views, and is no way representative of our staff,” he said.
He said the agency’s 2019 staff census had a sample size of more than 25,000 staff, and its findings included that 87% reported their supervisor treated them with respect, while 80% believed their supervisor cared about their health and wellbeing.
The census said 69% reported they were overall satisfied with their job with Services Australia, Jongen said.
“We manage people respectfully, using performance processes and systems that are widely used in the customer contact (call centre) industry, and we await the results of the 2020 staff census,” he said.
The survey was conducted in October and comes amid record demand for some of the agency’s services as a result of the pandemic.
The agency has processed a record number of jobseeker claims, while also processing $700m in refunds stemming from the robodebt scandal, and in recent days, the government services minister, Stuart Robert, has heaped praise on Services Australia staff for their efforts during the pandemic.
To meet the demand, the agency hired an extra 6,774 new employees during the pandemic period, with 1,546 hired directly and the remainder contracted through labour hire companies. The agency has an averaging staffing level of 27,325.
Performance targets have been a point of contention between the union, labour hire companies and Services Australia during the recent robodebt scandal.
Guardian Australia reported in 2019 that Centrelink staff felt pressure to complete robodebt reviews within a certain timeframe, a claim disputed by the agency.
A blind robodebt worker who spoke to the Guardian at the time claimed he was routinely shamed and later sacked for working too slowly and not meeting the government’s aggressive debt recovery targets. Services Australia denied the claims.
The CPSU wrote to Robert in July asking him to apologise to staff for requiring them to administer the unlawful scheme and ignoring their concerns when the scheme began. The government accepted no liability over the scandal in the settlement reached with Gordon Legal last month.