Pros
Work from home ***Glenn - after Startek separated my employment, Glenn, contacted me to apologize for his company and wish me the best. THIS GUY, is a diamond in the rough of an otherwise field of cow pat.
Cons
I was hired while living in a state that Startek did not have a working agreement with, so I had to relocate. No problem, Colorado was always on my list of places to be anyway. This is where things go downhill. I essentially had 3 days to pack up my belongings, get on a flight, and be in Colorado for the start of my training. Obviously with home based there is no relocation, so this is all out of pocket. Upon arrival I signed in for my training, and this is when I realized I had made a huge mistake. If you have worked a call center before, you know the drill. This was the single, worst training and onboarding experience with a company I have ever had to endure. The trainers, were not familiar with the material, or even their company policies really. Which being remote makes life difficult since you can't just walk into HR and ask benefits, salary questions, etc. There was no clear distinction of who management was. I had a few contacts that I was told were supervisors, but we had no access to other's schedules. Again, being remote this makes things interesting to say the least when you ask one or two people a question, and don't receive answers for several hours. Only to learn that is their day off, or even better, they have been in meetings all day but just decided to get back to you. Connectivity issues. My entire training class experienced them, ultimately leading to Startek actually dismissing us from our roles as "it was not a Startek issue". As a seasoned tech, I tried to explain this several times that I was connected to their network, clocked in, essentially I was ready to go, but was unable to access the customer database, so I was unable to log calls. At this point I was told to clock out to not affect the teams numbers. For several days I tried logging in, no success. I was then informed that since I wasn't taking calls, I would NOT be receiving my paycheck for the week I wasted waiting on equipment to show up, and for connectivity issues to be resolved. We were told during our interview all necessary equipment would be provided, we had 1 rotating weekend a month, and once you accept the position, you find out that is not the case. There is no partial compensation for telephone or internet connectivity. You have to purchase your own phone (they do provide the headset...which is not compatible with most hardphones, so you need to order a specific one which we didn't receive the information on until our final two hours of our last day of training. This is where the schedule now comes in. You don't get weekends off. In fact, you don't even get 2 days in a row off. Time is split, and the shift selection is terrible. Pay, well, let's just say it for what it is. They pay 9.50 an hr. The training staff would frequently complain and blame others within the company for things not working (not a good sign from any form of leadership). I would routinely hear that the tools available weren't the best, and really didn't work correctly as is. In summary. Startek sold me some beachfront property in the rockies and when I was in the fold, found out that I was underpaid, not appreciated in the slightest, management was terrible at best, and then when issues were on their end, they simply abandon their remote employees.