<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jan/14/australia-outsourced-call-centres-staff-incentives>
"Oliver* says morale is so low at the outsource call centre in Perth where he
works that management has offered enticements just to get employees to come to
work.
In December the privately owned TSA Group ran a “12 days of giveaways”
competition with more than $3,000 worth of prizes for staff working on the
Centrelink phone lines, according to an internal flyer viewed by
Guardian
Australia.
The entry requirement was that a worker attend their full rostered shift with
“no lates or unscheduled absences”.
“They do sausage sizzles and try to make it a fun place to distract you but
it’s pretty miserable,” Oliver says.
“The stuff you have to deal with on the calls at our pay grade is pretty rough;
issues like domestic violence.
“It really rubs me the wrong way that such poorly trained and inexperienced
staff are put on the frontlines of that and then paid absolute peanuts.”
Tens of thousands of Australians speak to government agencies every day about
sensitive matters, including tax debts, pensions, aged care, and disability and
support payments.
But few know they are probably speaking to a private contractor, without the
training, pay, conditions or public service support of a civil servant.
Guardian Australia has interviewed more than a dozen call centre workers at
four private contractors with government agency contracts; the US private
equity-owned Probe Operations, the Nasdaq-listed Concentrix Services, the
British multinational Serco, and TSA Group.
The workers describe a system they say prioritises profit over worker wellbeing
and quality of service. They say private operators offer incentives to get
people to work without addressing underlying issues of inadequate training and
low pay."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
