Great cause, poor workload and management - Affordable warmth adviser Changeworks Employee Review

The advisors in the team are lovely and Changeworks has many nice people working for them, who want to do their best, but are up against a restrictive system.

When interviewing, I was told that the role would be with Changeworks, but found out after starting, it's actually subcontracted to Home Energy Scotland. The day-to-day is very KPI led and calls incredibly inflexible in their structure. Every second of the day was watched, calls closely scored and despite being home based, creating a high pressure environment. Our breaks and work life quality was slowly reduced, as other staff left for better roles elsewhere. Management structure is top heavy and it shows. Poor communication and lack of consistency of feedback leaves advisors confused and in a position where they can't please anyone. Although not technically cold calling, the system does rely heavily on outbound calls, often follow ups from months ago, which feels like cold calling and often receives the expected response from householders, when they have often forgotten permissions given to keep in touch. Calls are closely monitored and very carefully structured, so can feel robotic and gives little room for compassion or adaptability. Very little chance of training (beyond the basic requirement) or job progression and the pay is poor for the quality expectations and pressure on the team. Redundancies are common and funding relies on Scottish Government. Technology is not up to date and the issued laptops often crashed or required lengthy updates. HR policies are confusing and contradictory and despite blowing the equality and diversity trumpet, the reality is that disability and reasonable adjustments were often ignored and workers needs treated as an inconvenience by HR and senior management. The job description needs to be updated to be more transparent and honest, so people are less surprised at the day to day role.

- Staff are lovely and friendly and do look out for each other -Workload can vary but I find it good in my current role. It is easy to be unproductive but I think this is managers trusting staff to manage workload and raise any concerns if they don't have enough to do.

- I've held two positions in Changeworks which are drastically different in workload with the same pay. - Pay is not great but for an admin role in the 3rd sector its expected. - I don't think there's a lot of opportunities for progression. I also don't get to attend training that I want to do - It's always in the PDP forms but takes ages to get it organised. -Agree with other reviews about the management and current CEO. In two years I've never had a conversation with him which says a lot, No acknowledgement in the office- not sure he would know who I am or what my role is. Never seen him sitting with anyone in lower positions at lunch etc. - Rest of the executive are also out of touch. It's a bit of an us and them situation. -Job security has been a huge deal in the last month with unpredictable ScotGov funding. Lots of staff are feeling unsettled now. -I don't see a future at Changeworks - its been a good post-covid job and I've learned office based skills but will have to move in order to progress.