Pros
There are definitely some positives. The team, as a whole, is full of outstanding people and are in many cases very good at what they do. The support teams, like sales support and membership, are some of the best people I have ever worked with. I have a lot of respect and admiration for them. Experian as a whole is a very good company. But this does not, and I mean DOES NOT apply to the NSC.
Cons
I do not know a single person in the Experian NSC who is happy working there. Not one. NSC Management refuses to be clear about rules and standards, and in my opinion it is because it allows them to twist, bend, or make up the rules as needed to support decisions that actual data would not support, or to single out individuals when they would have to include others if they went by data and clear standards. I quit recently, but have been told by NSC team members I have a good relationship with that NSC management has either stated or strongly implied in meetings that I was fired. If true, it means that the people you will work for if you join the NSC team are liars, that they gossip like schoolgirls about private, confidential personnel and disciplinary matters with people who have no reason to know. You know how a lot of offices have the person that has nothing better to do than spread rumors? Now imagine that person is your boss. Not long before I left, one employee got up from his desk in a rage over something he thought another employee did, but which I thought would be perfectly legitimate if she had done it. Employee A, the enraged one, who is large and male, walked over to the cube of employee B, who is smaller and female, and yelled loudly, with f-bombs here, there, and everywhere. With A’s presence between her and the exit from her cube and A’s posture being very aggressive, B had little choice but to endure this. She must have been scared out of her mind and felt very threatened. Surely A would be fired for this, right? Nope, at least not before I left about a week later, and as far as I know he got a slap on the wrist before being sent back to work 20 feet away from the target of his outburst. I don’t know if a warning was issued, because, to my knowledge his case was not discussed publicly. It would be very ironic if management said it could not discuss personnel issues publicly, because all signs suggest they are perfectly comfortable with it. My colleagues expressed to me their belief that A, due to his sales numbers being good, would not be in any danger of being fired. That is speculation, but the near-assault as I described it happened and one team member must have been deeply shaken and intimidated and the other suffered no real consequences I am aware of. If that is because of his sales, somebody could conclude that, in the Experian NSC, if your numbers are good you can harass and abuse others. As I said, I don’t know why it was handled the way it appears to have been handled, but I would not want any female relatives or friends of mine to work in a place where one employee could treat another like that and not be immediately escorted off the property by security. Now, consider the comfort level NSC management has and the amount of tolerance they have for employees resolving conflicts, real and imagined, among themselves even if it might increase the risk of office rage like the 100% true story above. To this, add crazy systems like inbound calls ringing on everyone's phone at the same time, so individual performance is not necessarily based on superior sales skills, but could be mostly due to someone's ability to keep their finger on a button on their phone. If you work to feed your kids or keep a roof over your head, this is not a small thing. It is deadly serious. If you think your ability to take care of the people you love is being messed with by luck, circumstance, cheating, or other things you cannot control, you may feel a lot of stress and frustration, and if you don't, the person next to you might. This system is what has passed for good judgment at least twice, with two different groups. It obliterates the team atmosphere and gives people a reason to look at their fellow team members as threats. Especially if they have the severe anger-management issues like the person in the story above, who you will be working with if you join the NSC. It is commonly believed that if you do break through and have a good year, and exceed your quota, NSC management can and sometimes do raise your quota so they need not pay you. It is also commonly believed that NSC management has reneged on a sales award at least one time. These are rumors, but if management enjoys spreading rumors I might as well let you know what team members have said, since I consider it to be more reliable than what management says. Personally, I believe they are accurate. In summary, the way I see it, if you join the Experian NSC, you will work for people who refuse to be clear about standards and rules. You'll work with a team that is almost entirely unhappy. You may be subject to harassment, abuse, and intimidation, or possibly even violence, by someone already known by NSC management to have engaged in threatening behavior against a fellow NSC associate. You may sit next to this person, but only if you work in the Experian NSC. You can look forward to having to argue for your interpretation of the rules because others interpret them in away that is bad for you, and NSC management is unable or unwilling to make a clear set of rules that apply equally to everyone. I left because I had a disagreement with Experian over what I considered to be unethical practices by the NSC management team that pressured me and others to choose between violating the law, violating Experian policy, or alienating management. Any of those could have put my job in jeopardy. I believe my relationship changed due to my raising the issue with HR, which failed to provide any assistance in resolving it. You can take this as the word of a disgruntled ex-employee if you like, but an employment lawyer I talked to agreed with me, but pointed out that Illinois is an at-will state, so if they can make up a good reason to let you go it can cover for illegitimate reasons that might be the real cause.
