PSA Industrial staff and Delegates from the Newcastle Contact Centre met with Service NSW management on Friday 28 August. The meeting was to receive SNSW’s reply to our formal dispute regarding the Customer Concierge Operator/Customer Service Representative (CCO/CSR) role descriptions; lack of clarity between the roles; and unfair Temporary Assignment Allowance/Higher Duties Allowance (TAA/HAD) practices.
The PSA wishes to acknowledge and thank members for their patience with these matters. It has taken around 18 months to have SNSW management respond with constructive solutions to the complaints we first raised informally in early 2019.
At the meeting, SNSW advised it has ceased the practice of routinely seconding for fewer than five consecutive shifts at a time. This is welcomed, as it was seen by the PSA as a way to use members in higher duties without paying TAA/HDA entitlements. SNSW advised that some business lines have already offered CCOs six-month secondments as CSRs to meet their business needs.
SNSW further recognised the need for clear, concise and consistent delineation of the duties required in each role. To that end, SNSW has given the PSA assurances that a working group will be stood up to understand the real world workings of each role’s duties, and will prepare policy and procedure documents to ensure consistent application across Contact Centres. This will not only be used in training new staff to understand their duties, but also to guide local management in how they can deploy their staff and give us firm, mutually agreed grounds to work from if future issues should arise.
Lastly, SNSW also conceded call quality reviews should not be carried out by CSRs as part of their day-to-day duties. SNSW agreed this duty is for a higher grade and will be looking at how to meet its QA needs via the creation of a higher-graded role.
The PSA at this stage is satisfied SNSW is attempting work constructively with the complaints raised. However, we will be keeping the dispute open and will continue to monitor these matters. The PSA reserves a right to take further actions if warranted.
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