AVOID - Anonymous employee Protect Line Employee Review

Thank you for taking the time to leave your views, and provide us with detailed feedback. We are sorry to hear that you feel the way you do about your time with the business. We take all feedback as a learning opportunity and therefore we will be certainly taking the time to evaluate and reflect on your comments. I felt it important to respond to some of your points individually with the aid of providing clarity and balance. When the business was set up the decision was made to offer higher than average basic salaries and bonuses, rather than an extensive benefits package. However over the years this has evolved and a bespoke package is on offer for those within performance related roles, which includes car allowances, additional holiday, suit and clothing allowance and a personal cleaner. This is something we do review as a business, and with the fullness of time we are wondering if we need to look at options of salaries at reduced levels so we are able to offer benefits such as sick pay. In 2017 we introduced an employee benefit called Babylon which gives employees access to emergency medical appointments online, which the company pays for. This allows individuals the option of seeking medical support quicker than their own GP, as we recognise that many people in and outside of our business do not always afford themselves the time to visit the doctors. Of course staff still have the option to visit their own doctor and as a business we fully support this, with multiple people doing this each and every week. Our Babylon service has been used by many staff, and I know as a result there have been instances where individuals have received treatment or a prescription within hours of making an appointment, which they are very grateful of. Trust Pilot is a platform in which customers can leave their own feedback about their experiences with us as a business. A huge amount of these reviews mention our agents by name which they are incredibly proud of. There have been some situations where customers have left a positive comment, coupled with a low rating. In this instance we have reached out to customers to clarify if the rating was accurate based on the positive comments. As a result some customers have gone back on to amend their review. On the odd occasions where there has been a genuine dissatisfaction of service we have naturally engaged with those customers to better understand the situation and seek to remedy it. We truly believe that mistakes happen in any organisation when servicing customers, however the manner and spirit in which a company seeks to remedy such situations truly defines them. We are saddened to hear your comment that our Trust Pilot reviews are fake news, given the high volume of heart felt comments that customers have left about the service that many of our hard working staff deliver. In addition we are certain that if we were bullying customers into changing their reviews or financially rewarding them, that this would have been reported to Trust Pilot and they themselves would have taken action. You have made reference to Glassdoor reviews being removed, and you are correct that earlier this year Glassdoor removed one as it contravened their policy. There was also a recent review that was posted at a similar time to this one, which Glassdoor also removed as again it contravenes their policy. There are instances where people have struggled to make the transition into their role whether at Management or agent level. Our initial approach is to identify the root cause and how best to move forward from this through discussion with the employee. On some occasions we have looked at alternative roles within the business as this enables an employee the opportunity of staying in continued employment, without having to secure another role. Reading your review has made us realise that our good intentions have the capacity to be perceived differently, so with this in mind should we face a similar situation again we will give deeper consideration to this. As a business we have recognised that further training and development would be beneficial with all levels of employees, and as such have introduced a Head of Learning and Development and other coaching based roles in the department to focus on these areas. In terms of our hours- a number of our roles do offer flexibility at recruitment stage, and as such we have a variety of both part time and flexible working patterns across the business. In the last year changes have been made to various departments finish times to reduce the impact of people’s personal lives, as we recognise it has been a former business challenge. We hope our responses have been taken in the spirit in which they are intended which is to provide balance. You have definitely given us things to go away and reflect on as a business, and I thank you for taking the time to provide us with your views. It does however lead us to wonder why you remained in the business for over 3 years given the strength of your views, and had we been aware of how you felt earlier in your journey if we could have openly discussed your concerns, and if it was beyond resolution, parted company in a more positive way. If you would like to discuss this further please do not hesitate to contact me directly.