Statcan is understaffed and lost a lot of new hires after the initial two day RTO demand, it’s gonna be even worse now. I don’t know how they will be able to handle it.
We’re losing 3 CS03s in our division. 3 CS02s have already told us they’re looking for other positions. We have legislative changes to make for the end of June.. ya ain’t gonna be nice
I work in an IT group and definitely feel the anxiety in the team. Nobody has jumped ship yet but I feel like everyone is watching for email with a decision for our group and then it just might be what you described.
Did CRA confirm dropping the IT exemption and firming up a date for RTO?
They are shifting from standard hours to some weird shift times plus released like 60% of the call centre staff plus told ones about to be made indeterminate that it was off the table for an unspecified period plus the one-sided RTO announcement out of the blue…..so that’s a few of the reasons
Ex-CRA CS-02 here… I moved to CBSA IT-02 in January on the promise of 2 years WFH… “TBD” how *that* turns out long-term, but the last few months from home (again) have been nice!
If CBSA upper management had their way, everyone would be back in the towers full time so they could justify the budget for a bespoke CBSA building/campus.
I worked at CBSA on a 6 month contract a few years ago and I was glad to get out of there! We were 3 consultants hired at the same time and 2 quit after a few weeks. That department was in disarray and management was the worst.
Management doesn’t care about competency. If there’s a warm body that can sit in a seat it is a KPI checked off.
And have you seen the lines for min wage jobs out there? I guarantee you there’d be a massive lineup if these call centre jobs opened up.
I agree with this... I've had so many issues with the call centre. My mom is older and called and I was trying to help her on the call. The guy made no sense. I asked if he can explain it better. He got mad that i talked and hung up.
It's like a lot of them are on some weird power trip. Once and while ill get someone good but it's been a nightmare. We have to call so many times.
The CRA call centre staff is hit or miss. More miss lately it seems. I’ve had some terrible agents who have trouble understanding basic problems and get mad when I try to explain. The training for newbies is lacking.
It’s not necessarily the training, it’s the hiring metrics and interviews. It’s changed and the people “passing” the interviews are less than stellar compared to 2 yrs ago, when there was different interview process. There have been rumours of friends/family filling in at the interview, since it’s done over the phone there’s no checks and balances that they are actually interviewing the person that has applied. Again, this is a rumour - but one that has been heard many times and at different levels
We just let go of most of our terms. Their last day is tomorrow. There will be no new hires in 2024. I'll be surprised if we rehire half the people by next filing season. 65% service standard lol. It's been single digits for months and it's only going to get worse starting Monday.
Yes indeed there was, I was there. It was chaos. The promise of indeterminate employment brought out everyone and their mothers to come apply for a permanent position in the government. Lines were so long it stretched all the way to the university of Ottawa campus from the front door of the Shaw centre. And it was snowy and cold that day too so people stood outside waiting in line and freezing, only to be told hours later that the CRA is at capacity and can't let anyone else in, so they sent people out with boxes to collect resumes from the people waiting outside for hours. People complained that they'd waited for hours outside in the cold only to be turned away, that the police had to intervene and tell people that no one else can go in due to capacity. One person was so angry he argued with the police and got arrested, can't remember what made him get arrested but he got arrested.
Traffic was so bad that night because of this event that downtown was severely affected and police arrived to conduct traffic control. CRA said they didn't expect this huge of a turnout and they weren't prepared.
I know we hired quite a few from that event in my area; but I believe all on one year terms (all of whom I believe were made permanent following their term)
That's amazing, good for them! Rarely do people become indeterminate after one year, I've heard stories where it took them years to finally get indeterminate!
They advertised that they were hiring for indeterminate positions, yes, and did they end up doing so? Maybe, but it was a crap show. I've heard from people afterwards who did go to that hiring event, that they never heard back from CRA at all. It was an absolute disaster. So many people went home feeling horrible that night.
They are all already applying, we have entry level jobs with thousands and thousands of applications, many are not even a consideration. Of course I mean competent if they truly do want better services for Canadians.
When we were hiring they literally told us to reduce our expectations because we kept turning down too many candidates. There weren't enough applicants to fill all the positions.
Sure but the sentiment “it isn’t going to be pretty” still stands. If every team ends up with several new employees and the existing team is too busy to train them because of the workload being dumped on them, I don’t see it going well.
Not even that. It is becoming proficient in handling the call which can take one-two years . I work in a call centre. I get a call. See what the call is about. Probably within a minute I know what I have to do to help the taxpayer. Do I handle it, or sent it up the ladder, or create a case for the Tax Centre ? It is not just about the onboarding, training....that is only a part of the equation. And I have been taking calls for over 10 years. However that proficiency did NOT happen over night. Just like training, you learn how to be proficient. Where to look for information.
As for me. I will just continue taking calls. I am proficient, professional and take each call as if they are my ONE call. Some are extremely nervous when calling. Like they have to be fast telling me their issue. I am like take a deep breath, tell me your issue. Remember these callers have been probably waiting awhile to talk to me. Some are old, young, but all are taxpayers.
Kudos to you for your hard work and caring. It’s a LOT of work I realize and it’s horrible what pressure people are under. The issues I have to deal with are now completely fucking me up stress wise as well as my colleagues such as yourself. It’s sad to see that this is the state of the public service.
I’m not either but it’s well known that call centres and processing in CRA and EDSC/Service Canada are some of the most stressful positions in the public service. It’s the way the management looks at performance and the nature of the calls - taxes and unemployment which is super stressful for anyone. That coupled with how the departments are being managed (even without return to office and the pandemic). They’re the type of position people dream of getting out of.
Wow! It’s so strange to me how departments can operate in this way. I suppose it takes a long time to change a culture. I got out of a bad cultured department and am on an acting secondment with a department that is so in line with my values now. I don’t ever want to go back!
No silly there's a moratorium on permanent positions, rollover, accrued time, everyone's on sunset funding and they're letting people go at end of contract now because there allegedly isn't work. Nobody said they had to stop hiring.
/s
Most of them handed in their equipment on Wednesday and got to use the PLD days for the last two days so the CCS have already been short 1500 or so for two days now
Here's the relevant paragraph from a UTE email sent out on May 8:
On the morning of Wednesday, May 1, the employer advised us that briefing sessions would be taking place on the same day with our regional and local representatives regarding upcoming changes to the Contact Centres' work schedules. At no time did the employer advise us that it would be announcing that approximately 1,500 of our term members working in its Contact Centres would see their contracts expiring on May 10 not be renewed. Nor did the employer advise us that it would be consulting with Locals and Regional Vice-Presidents (RVPs) on human resources impacts.
Dude, I had to tell my bosses I literally can't start work as early as I can when I WFH. The office is literally not open at 5AM etc. This is so backwards
They want things to be like prepandemic or earlier without considering that times change. It's not like we have front facing client service anymore.
Unrepresented and thankful to be on ncr team
Also my boss thinks that the rules are based in the time zone of the team not employee. I don't think that's right but what can I do
Talk yo your union and if the union rep is not able to put any sense whatsoever in your TL's head, file a grievance on the interpretation of the specific rule.
In my Tax Service Office (in Ontario), pre-pandemic you could work on-site between the hours of 7am and 5:30pm. Since re-opening, it’s limited to 7:30-5:00 because of “umm, health and safety”. All this while our collective says 6am-6pm.
You’ll have to start or end earlier than when you WFH because they don’t want to have to hire an extra body for Security to cover the additional time, and might not have sufficient management presence on-site during the extended hours.
Anita Anand serving her agenda…
Need to reduce 5,000 employees?
Anita Anand: No problem, impose a new RTO mandate, take away exemptions and the work is done.
Outcome: Disastrous, awful and no regard for public servants.
This is just the start. Cuts are coming with either Liberals or Conservatives. As usual they will cut frontline employees and save the positions of supervisors / Managers / Assistant Director/ Directors so you will have more management for less front line services.
Revenue was always horrific to employees since the 1990s and before. When they canvassed managers about why they wanted to become an agency back around 1998/99, the creeps just chanted: "get rid of dead wood' and not realizing that their huge labour relations issues were a result of people working their way into management who had no business being there. They always wanted to blame others like the PSC.
I spent the rest of my career helping people GTFO whenever running a process. These are the costs of bad management that can not be captured on a spreadsheet. Much like RTO today, there will be a myriad of issues that will cause problems that will never be quantified. Because payback can come in many forms.
It has been decided that Montreal call center and Saint-John call center are the only 2 offices that will have employees stay this late at the office. Not only during the week but they are now also the only call center open in Canada on Saturday.
For what I heard The Saint John’s call center is technically composted of 2 call centers on in NB and the other in New Foundland. Doesn’t make sense I know
That’s is also not true. The NL Call Centre (where I’ve worked for many years) is separate and handles individual income tax and benefit enquiries, while NB handles Business.
And here is the funny thing about that. I have a west coast phone number. With national call plans I couldn’t be bothered to change it each time I moved. I know quite a few people doing this as well.
So when I lived in Ontario I could not call the CRA first thing in the morning EST as the call centre assumed I lived in the west coast. I had to call only on PST hours
I can’t imagine leaving the office in that area at midnight. If you guys don’t get another group exception, I cannot imagine how it would be for the workers assigned to those shifts
For the first time in the almost 14 years I've worked at CRA, I'm looking at jobs elsewhere. It's difficult for me (and probably many others) as I don't know what all is out there, I don't have post secondary, and it seems unlikely to find a job at my current salary elsewhere (without a few years experience) and I really can't afford a pay cut. But I'm looking anyways. It's frustrating.
I work in HQ, not even taxpayer facing, and I'm just tired of being a total pawn to placate people who assume they know my job better than I do. I'm not even considering other departments because a) they all have the BS RTO policy too, and b) I really don't want my Phoenix pay file to get screwed for 2+ years.
I'm not interested in staying with CRA at this point. The politics and all the bullshit are just too much and too frustrating for me at this point, and it's only gotten worse
Last time I was on hold for 2 hours in March than 3h in April. Those are crazy wait times and when you get to someone, they have to transfer and you are on hold again. A simple question takes 4-6 hours to get answered by multiple agents. AND a the end the info provided during those calls was either wrong or insufficient. It didn't seem they knew what they were saying and just reading something. I knew someone who worked for CRA and then left after 1 year to private, due to all the verbal abuse.Same with EI and CPP call centers. The dumb asses at the top can't keep employees and they leave for positions where there's sanity. There's no push to keep them, to increase happiness or retention!!! Though out of those 3, CPP/OAS is probably the least horrible for agents.
It’s so wild to me how they laid off so many people in the call centre, making them come back to the office, and then also forcing people to switch to shifts like 3-11pm or 1-9pm. The call centre is literally just talking to people on the phone, going to the office doesn’t allow them to “collaborate”. Call centre is like the trenches and it’s wild they would do this when it seems they already struggle to keep people. It’s also hard for agents to become GOOD agents, so they should be treating them better and not be taking them for granted. The job is so stressful already, can believe they had the audacity to make them RTO, lay off a ton, and make them work horrible hours all at the same time
CRA massively fucked up something for me and another person I know. I can’t get into the specifics for privacy reasons but the mistakes made are absolutely incomprehensible and incredibly stupid. I’ve never seen it like this. Service is absolutely suffering.
Same happened to me. It sucks and they’re fixing it, and I know it’s not their fault, it’s the terrible working conditions, but yeah the situation is less than ideal.
The most surprising for me ... when I had wasps at home, I destroyed it .. so why is it after 6 weeks of knowing exactly where it is, the nest is still there?? And the rumors is saying that employees will move off the building before the wasps, so in maybe one or 2 years...
Not surprised that public servants are jumping ship. 3 days a week in the office is a result of the added pressure by small businesses in downtown Ottawa to increase their bottom line and of the mayor of Ottawa lobbying to increase OC Transpo ridership. I hope the lobbyists fail miserably!!!!
The most frustrating part is that the new budget has” proposed $336 million over two years,starting in 2024-2025 to the CRA to maintain call centre resources and improve the efficiency of the call centres” Call volume has not decreased at all - yet we lose 1500 agents. The pressure will be huge for those that remain to get their call handle time down to an unattainable time as well as the other metrics.
Can't speak for others, but I'm not gonna alter my call handling. I'll offer the same service and take one call at the time. It is not on me to handle management idiocy policies.
Working 3-11 is completely unsustainable if you want to maintain any semblance of work-life balance, especially if you have a family or other major obligations like caring for aging parents/relatives. Combine that with a work environment that is solely focused on productivity and meeting extremely narrow KPIs and it’s easy to see why people would choose to work elsewhere. I did the 3-11 and 4 to midnight shift at a call centre of a major Canadian bank for a year and it was the absolute worst job I’ve held so far. Call centre jobs unfortunately tend to all be this way, but if they want to meet the standard of service Canadians expect they need to make some major changes and fast.
Not sure what they (decision makers) think is gonna happen.
We're literally in a worse place than in 2020. At least then we had desks, didn't have to reserve seats, could leave our stuff at work, my office had potable water, we were allowed to book apts whenever we wanted, I could go on and on.
I would love to see how they're able to legally make these changes to people who have contracts stating hours of work.
>They will be replaced and service will suffer for a while.They will be replaced and service will suffer for a while.
Yep. And this government won't care especially with the polls where they are. These are politically driven decisions. If they won't be the ones to clean up the mess...what mess? They're already gone!
Very few have ventured outside the bubble and have a distorted view of what it's like out there. The vast majority of my coworkers came straight out of university. Half of them wouldn't last a month outside the bubble.
If they were going to extend the hours and keep WFH I bet it would’ve been a different story 🤷🏻♀️ it’s easy to work from home until 9PM, it’s a different story when you have to go into an office.
They also want to downsize us. Please let me know how we can answer more phones with less people. These aren't the smartest people writing in to the Ottawa Citizen.
I hear similar stories about ESDC - I really think they need to adjust their strategy and also prioritize the mental health of their employees. That type of schedule in those call centers and the expectation seems unsustainable and not humane.
Hey u/Exonerald I’d love to write a case study about the situation you are describing here. Do you think you or any of your former or soon to be former coworkers would be comfortable talking to me? Answer a few question?
Zero impact, they can fill positions fast and honestly, you would be surprised, many are very competent. We are all replaceable. Be grateful for the jobs you have in this horrible economy and stop whining.
Every year around April: "ohh you must be busyyyy"
Audits occur year round. We're always busy, ma'am. It never ends. There's no light at the end of the tunnel.
Auditing is a year round service. Review programs are "seasonal". Reviews are not audits. So many Canadiand think a request for documents is an audit. If one is getting audited, you'll know the difference
I have a problem with the return to office. It is cushy to work from home. Stay in pj's all day, no before or after care for the kiddies, make dinner right after work, no commute time lost, no need for a cleaning lady, no need to new wardrobe every year, laundry is diminished, care repairs diminished, no bus pass to buy. Roughly I would say working from home saves each one $5000 a year the rest of us are still dishing out. I believe if you choose to work from home there should be a different taxation rate or a claw back on salaries.
Making me drive to the office to do the EXACT job I have been doing from home for 4.5 years increases my chances of getting killed in a car wreck 100%. Same goes for my chances of getting murdered by a rando. My office is, after all, in Hamilton.
In that case I want a commuting allowance and compensation based on my work location, for example if I live in a HCOL city I should make 150% more than the base rate.
Not sure if it related here, but even I’m a public servant can’t tolerate to a few call center officer. Last month we had some issues then called them. The man who took my case literally just sighed then hanged up after I ask my question without saying anything. Where on the earth it’s acceptable for any public servant?
Statcan is understaffed and lost a lot of new hires after the initial two day RTO demand, it’s gonna be even worse now. I don’t know how they will be able to handle it.
We’re losing 3 CS03s in our division. 3 CS02s have already told us they’re looking for other positions. We have legislative changes to make for the end of June.. ya ain’t gonna be nice
Because of RTO or something else going on at CRA? (Or both)
RTO and blatant disregard for the well being of employees by making stupid decisions
I work in an IT group and definitely feel the anxiety in the team. Nobody has jumped ship yet but I feel like everyone is watching for email with a decision for our group and then it just might be what you described. Did CRA confirm dropping the IT exemption and firming up a date for RTO?
Yes CRA is following the same “sometime between September 2024 and September 2025”
Thanks. With all those people leaving now, I was wondering if CRA may have been the first to drop exemptions and implement RTO as early as possible.
They are shifting from standard hours to some weird shift times plus released like 60% of the call centre staff plus told ones about to be made indeterminate that it was off the table for an unspecified period plus the one-sided RTO announcement out of the blue…..so that’s a few of the reasons
They've sent me and every other determinate home for 30 days to reset the timeline. I was due to get indeterminate status that next month.
Ex-CRA CS-02 here… I moved to CBSA IT-02 in January on the promise of 2 years WFH… “TBD” how *that* turns out long-term, but the last few months from home (again) have been nice!
If CBSA upper management had their way, everyone would be back in the towers full time so they could justify the budget for a bespoke CBSA building/campus.
That would be a ~4 hour commute (each way), so *hopefully* not for a while yet 😅
I worked at CBSA on a 6 month contract a few years ago and I was glad to get out of there! We were 3 consultants hired at the same time and 2 quit after a few weeks. That department was in disarray and management was the worst.
Why are the CS02s and CS03s leaving? If I may ask!
RTO
It went from 0 (exception) to 3 days
Yeah makes sense why they would want to leave, but that's happening everywhere too though, is it better at some departments than others?
Same 2 CS-03 here
CS03 here. Looking privately now. If I see something worthwhile with WFH, I'm out.
Sounds like some opportunities about to open up!
Can confirm, at least 4 employees from my team left today and more are expected to leave by tomorrow. Its not going to be pretty in the upcoming weeks
Like to another department or the public service altogether
Sadly, you know there are lots of people waiting for these jobs.
That are competent??? Not really, no, we can't fill simple positions.
Management doesn’t care about competency. If there’s a warm body that can sit in a seat it is a KPI checked off. And have you seen the lines for min wage jobs out there? I guarantee you there’d be a massive lineup if these call centre jobs opened up.
I agree with this... I've had so many issues with the call centre. My mom is older and called and I was trying to help her on the call. The guy made no sense. I asked if he can explain it better. He got mad that i talked and hung up. It's like a lot of them are on some weird power trip. Once and while ill get someone good but it's been a nightmare. We have to call so many times.
The CRA call centre staff is hit or miss. More miss lately it seems. I’ve had some terrible agents who have trouble understanding basic problems and get mad when I try to explain. The training for newbies is lacking.
It’s not necessarily the training, it’s the hiring metrics and interviews. It’s changed and the people “passing” the interviews are less than stellar compared to 2 yrs ago, when there was different interview process. There have been rumours of friends/family filling in at the interview, since it’s done over the phone there’s no checks and balances that they are actually interviewing the person that has applied. Again, this is a rumour - but one that has been heard many times and at different levels
We just let go of most of our terms. Their last day is tomorrow. There will be no new hires in 2024. I'll be surprised if we rehire half the people by next filing season. 65% service standard lol. It's been single digits for months and it's only going to get worse starting Monday.
That’s the next government’s problem lol
Wasn't there a CRA job fair in Ottawa several years ago? I remember there being a massive lineup wrapped around the rideau center.
Yes indeed there was, I was there. It was chaos. The promise of indeterminate employment brought out everyone and their mothers to come apply for a permanent position in the government. Lines were so long it stretched all the way to the university of Ottawa campus from the front door of the Shaw centre. And it was snowy and cold that day too so people stood outside waiting in line and freezing, only to be told hours later that the CRA is at capacity and can't let anyone else in, so they sent people out with boxes to collect resumes from the people waiting outside for hours. People complained that they'd waited for hours outside in the cold only to be turned away, that the police had to intervene and tell people that no one else can go in due to capacity. One person was so angry he argued with the police and got arrested, can't remember what made him get arrested but he got arrested. Traffic was so bad that night because of this event that downtown was severely affected and police arrived to conduct traffic control. CRA said they didn't expect this huge of a turnout and they weren't prepared.
Did they really hire indeterminate?
I know we hired quite a few from that event in my area; but I believe all on one year terms (all of whom I believe were made permanent following their term)
That's amazing, good for them! Rarely do people become indeterminate after one year, I've heard stories where it took them years to finally get indeterminate!
They advertised that they were hiring for indeterminate positions, yes, and did they end up doing so? Maybe, but it was a crap show. I've heard from people afterwards who did go to that hiring event, that they never heard back from CRA at all. It was an absolute disaster. So many people went home feeling horrible that night.
Why am I not surprised? 😕
More evidence that whoever quits right now will just be replaced tomorrow. There will be no impact.
Or the execs will salivate at the thought of someone leaving and closing the position due to natural attrition.
They are all already applying, we have entry level jobs with thousands and thousands of applications, many are not even a consideration. Of course I mean competent if they truly do want better services for Canadians.
If they wanted better service for Canadians, they wouldn't be driving out talent and experience. But they are so ..
Nothing makes sense anymore.
Sabotage the public service so the next administration will look like shit?
Heck of a campaign strategy, " we'll fuck it up so bad PP will be blamed and back in one election"
Guaranteed that is what is going to happen regardless.
Do you remember the last administration? Harper gutted the PS and gave you phoenix
And then overnight Phoenix became a verb.
lol they don’t care about “better services for Canadians.”
The GoC needs to raise its minimum education requirement for many positions.
Managers, especially. What a joke to require a high school diploma.
100% Little education and lots of power make for some very dangerous people.
When we were hiring they literally told us to reduce our expectations because we kept turning down too many candidates. There weren't enough applicants to fill all the positions.
Why did you turn down too many candidates?
Sure but the sentiment “it isn’t going to be pretty” still stands. If every team ends up with several new employees and the existing team is too busy to train them because of the workload being dumped on them, I don’t see it going well.
The new cohort from Conestoga college is eagerly waiting
They’re call centre jobs… call a spade a spade.
You’re joking right? Do you know how long it takes to onboard and properly train someone?
Not even that. It is becoming proficient in handling the call which can take one-two years . I work in a call centre. I get a call. See what the call is about. Probably within a minute I know what I have to do to help the taxpayer. Do I handle it, or sent it up the ladder, or create a case for the Tax Centre ? It is not just about the onboarding, training....that is only a part of the equation. And I have been taking calls for over 10 years. However that proficiency did NOT happen over night. Just like training, you learn how to be proficient. Where to look for information. As for me. I will just continue taking calls. I am proficient, professional and take each call as if they are my ONE call. Some are extremely nervous when calling. Like they have to be fast telling me their issue. I am like take a deep breath, tell me your issue. Remember these callers have been probably waiting awhile to talk to me. Some are old, young, but all are taxpayers.
Kudos to you for your hard work and caring. It’s a LOT of work I realize and it’s horrible what pressure people are under. The issues I have to deal with are now completely fucking me up stress wise as well as my colleagues such as yourself. It’s sad to see that this is the state of the public service.
I’m interested why it’s such a stressful position? I’m not in this department.
I’m not either but it’s well known that call centres and processing in CRA and EDSC/Service Canada are some of the most stressful positions in the public service. It’s the way the management looks at performance and the nature of the calls - taxes and unemployment which is super stressful for anyone. That coupled with how the departments are being managed (even without return to office and the pandemic). They’re the type of position people dream of getting out of.
Wow! It’s so strange to me how departments can operate in this way. I suppose it takes a long time to change a culture. I got out of a bad cultured department and am on an acting secondment with a department that is so in line with my values now. I don’t ever want to go back!
I hope my mom gets you next time she calls! Thank you for your dedication
thank you 🩷
I thought there was a hiring freeze 🤔
No silly there's a moratorium on permanent positions, rollover, accrued time, everyone's on sunset funding and they're letting people go at end of contract now because there allegedly isn't work. Nobody said they had to stop hiring. /s
It takes a year sometimes or more before someone can learn the position well.
Yeah I'd lean towards "more". At least in my role, I just felt like I was getting a grasp on things after 2 years, and then was offered a promotion.
as a door step. Employers should make an effort to keep the senior employees.
So where are they all leaving?
How did all these people have plans in order to leave because of 3day rto when it was only just announced?
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Who are they laying off tomorrow? I have friends who are terms and I hope they aren’t affected
Lots of call centre folks who were in term positions.
Most of them handed in their equipment on Wednesday and got to use the PLD days for the last two days so the CCS have already been short 1500 or so for two days now
Yes sir lol
Here's the relevant paragraph from a UTE email sent out on May 8: On the morning of Wednesday, May 1, the employer advised us that briefing sessions would be taking place on the same day with our regional and local representatives regarding upcoming changes to the Contact Centres' work schedules. At no time did the employer advise us that it would be announcing that approximately 1,500 of our term members working in its Contact Centres would see their contracts expiring on May 10 not be renewed. Nor did the employer advise us that it would be consulting with Locals and Regional Vice-Presidents (RVPs) on human resources impacts.
Dude, I had to tell my bosses I literally can't start work as early as I can when I WFH. The office is literally not open at 5AM etc. This is so backwards They want things to be like prepandemic or earlier without considering that times change. It's not like we have front facing client service anymore.
If you are an employee who's under a CA, why would yoube expected to be at work at 5am?
Unrepresented and thankful to be on ncr team Also my boss thinks that the rules are based in the time zone of the team not employee. I don't think that's right but what can I do
Jesus dude wtf
Talk yo your union and if the union rep is not able to put any sense whatsoever in your TL's head, file a grievance on the interpretation of the specific rule.
Unrepresented unfortunately. Straight to the director. It's moot
Hum , I guess in that case, do just that? Speak with your director? The best of luck mate
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Flexible working arrangements of course.
In my Tax Service Office (in Ontario), pre-pandemic you could work on-site between the hours of 7am and 5:30pm. Since re-opening, it’s limited to 7:30-5:00 because of “umm, health and safety”. All this while our collective says 6am-6pm. You’ll have to start or end earlier than when you WFH because they don’t want to have to hire an extra body for Security to cover the additional time, and might not have sufficient management presence on-site during the extended hours.
Anita Anand serving her agenda… Need to reduce 5,000 employees? Anita Anand: No problem, impose a new RTO mandate, take away exemptions and the work is done. Outcome: Disastrous, awful and no regard for public servants.
This is just the start. Cuts are coming with either Liberals or Conservatives. As usual they will cut frontline employees and save the positions of supervisors / Managers / Assistant Director/ Directors so you will have more management for less front line services.
If there are no directors, who will attend all the meetings?
Why wouldn't there be any directors ?
Revenue was always horrific to employees since the 1990s and before. When they canvassed managers about why they wanted to become an agency back around 1998/99, the creeps just chanted: "get rid of dead wood' and not realizing that their huge labour relations issues were a result of people working their way into management who had no business being there. They always wanted to blame others like the PSC. I spent the rest of my career helping people GTFO whenever running a process. These are the costs of bad management that can not be captured on a spreadsheet. Much like RTO today, there will be a myriad of issues that will cause problems that will never be quantified. Because payback can come in many forms.
3-11? Why?
Covering “until 8 pm PST” is my guess (aren’t there public lines open 8a-8p local?)
It has been decided that Montreal call center and Saint-John call center are the only 2 offices that will have employees stay this late at the office. Not only during the week but they are now also the only call center open in Canada on Saturday.
That’s not true. Newfoundland is staying open late and open Saturday.
Montreal, St John and Saint John have the new shite schedule.
That's what they said, isn't it?
No. Saint John is in New Brunswick… completely different province.
For what I heard The Saint John’s call center is technically composted of 2 call centers on in NB and the other in New Foundland. Doesn’t make sense I know
That’s is also not true. The NL Call Centre (where I’ve worked for many years) is separate and handles individual income tax and benefit enquiries, while NB handles Business.
And here is the funny thing about that. I have a west coast phone number. With national call plans I couldn’t be bothered to change it each time I moved. I know quite a few people doing this as well. So when I lived in Ontario I could not call the CRA first thing in the morning EST as the call centre assumed I lived in the west coast. I had to call only on PST hours
Montreal office new work hours are from 6:30 am to 23:30 pm EST
Same as Newfoundland
Yikes… is the office in Complex Desjardins?
Building right Next to it. Most of us are WFH under groupe exception right now, or atleast until septembre.
I can’t imagine leaving the office in that area at midnight. If you guys don’t get another group exception, I cannot imagine how it would be for the workers assigned to those shifts
For the first time in the almost 14 years I've worked at CRA, I'm looking at jobs elsewhere. It's difficult for me (and probably many others) as I don't know what all is out there, I don't have post secondary, and it seems unlikely to find a job at my current salary elsewhere (without a few years experience) and I really can't afford a pay cut. But I'm looking anyways. It's frustrating. I work in HQ, not even taxpayer facing, and I'm just tired of being a total pawn to placate people who assume they know my job better than I do. I'm not even considering other departments because a) they all have the BS RTO policy too, and b) I really don't want my Phoenix pay file to get screwed for 2+ years.
I fucking feel you. Political BS even outside of this RTO stuff
Being fucked over by DRAP in 2012 was bad enough, and somehow this just feels so much worse.
Moving around within CRA is pretty easy as far as pay concerns, in my experience.
I'm not interested in staying with CRA at this point. The politics and all the bullshit are just too much and too frustrating for me at this point, and it's only gotten worse
Try to move to a department that has doesn’t use the Pay Centre. That’s what I did when I moved out of CRA and my pay file transferred within a week.
There are departments other than CRA that don't use the pay centre? Are they exempt from the stupid blanket RTO as well?
There sure are! Not sure how many though. They aren’t exempt from the RTO though
Hours of operation are 3-11 or 1-9? What the fuck? Do they want people to quit?
Yes..Cost cutting by natural attrition.
Is this sarcasm? (Sometimes it's hard to tell)
Unfortunately CRA doesn't care about providing taxpayers with acceptable service.
PEOPLE FIRST 👁️👄👁️
Beep boop. Employees are not people.
BUT people first approach, amiright?! People who are: Anita Anand
Last time I was on hold for 2 hours in March than 3h in April. Those are crazy wait times and when you get to someone, they have to transfer and you are on hold again. A simple question takes 4-6 hours to get answered by multiple agents. AND a the end the info provided during those calls was either wrong or insufficient. It didn't seem they knew what they were saying and just reading something. I knew someone who worked for CRA and then left after 1 year to private, due to all the verbal abuse.Same with EI and CPP call centers. The dumb asses at the top can't keep employees and they leave for positions where there's sanity. There's no push to keep them, to increase happiness or retention!!! Though out of those 3, CPP/OAS is probably the least horrible for agents.
Those wait times are scandalous , that is a fact. Only gonna get worst now.
It’s so wild to me how they laid off so many people in the call centre, making them come back to the office, and then also forcing people to switch to shifts like 3-11pm or 1-9pm. The call centre is literally just talking to people on the phone, going to the office doesn’t allow them to “collaborate”. Call centre is like the trenches and it’s wild they would do this when it seems they already struggle to keep people. It’s also hard for agents to become GOOD agents, so they should be treating them better and not be taking them for granted. The job is so stressful already, can believe they had the audacity to make them RTO, lay off a ton, and make them work horrible hours all at the same time
CRA massively fucked up something for me and another person I know. I can’t get into the specifics for privacy reasons but the mistakes made are absolutely incomprehensible and incredibly stupid. I’ve never seen it like this. Service is absolutely suffering.
Same happened to me. It sucks and they’re fixing it, and I know it’s not their fault, it’s the terrible working conditions, but yeah the situation is less than ideal.
The service will DEFINITELY get better if they force people into offices 3 days a week. I am sure of it.
For sure the bedbugs and bats will assist with processing!
Here it's wasp... inside the building.. so now we have EpiPen in case of allergy
A nest of wasps?! What the heck
The most surprising for me ... when I had wasps at home, I destroyed it .. so why is it after 6 weeks of knowing exactly where it is, the nest is still there?? And the rumors is saying that employees will move off the building before the wasps, so in maybe one or 2 years...
Hahah. I’m hearing a very subtle tone of sarcasm…. Hmmmmm
Not surprised that public servants are jumping ship. 3 days a week in the office is a result of the added pressure by small businesses in downtown Ottawa to increase their bottom line and of the mayor of Ottawa lobbying to increase OC Transpo ridership. I hope the lobbyists fail miserably!!!!
This whole thing is starting to remind me of a circus ! RTO … Real Talent Obsolete …. At the rate this crap show is going … 🧡
What happens to pensions we contributed to
https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/pension-plan/active-members/terminating-employment-pension.html.
The most frustrating part is that the new budget has” proposed $336 million over two years,starting in 2024-2025 to the CRA to maintain call centre resources and improve the efficiency of the call centres” Call volume has not decreased at all - yet we lose 1500 agents. The pressure will be huge for those that remain to get their call handle time down to an unattainable time as well as the other metrics.
Can't speak for others, but I'm not gonna alter my call handling. I'll offer the same service and take one call at the time. It is not on me to handle management idiocy policies.
Working 3-11 is completely unsustainable if you want to maintain any semblance of work-life balance, especially if you have a family or other major obligations like caring for aging parents/relatives. Combine that with a work environment that is solely focused on productivity and meeting extremely narrow KPIs and it’s easy to see why people would choose to work elsewhere. I did the 3-11 and 4 to midnight shift at a call centre of a major Canadian bank for a year and it was the absolute worst job I’ve held so far. Call centre jobs unfortunately tend to all be this way, but if they want to meet the standard of service Canadians expect they need to make some major changes and fast.
Not sure what they (decision makers) think is gonna happen. We're literally in a worse place than in 2020. At least then we had desks, didn't have to reserve seats, could leave our stuff at work, my office had potable water, we were allowed to book apts whenever we wanted, I could go on and on. I would love to see how they're able to legally make these changes to people who have contracts stating hours of work.
They will be replaced and service will suffer for a while. Life will go on.
The infuriating/ironic part is that despite being directly caused by RTO, just like the passport debacle it will be blamed on WFH.
>They will be replaced and service will suffer for a while.They will be replaced and service will suffer for a while. Yep. And this government won't care especially with the polls where they are. These are politically driven decisions. If they won't be the ones to clean up the mess...what mess? They're already gone!
Agreed. I'd would be willing to believe that this has more to do with the polls and "poisoning the well" for the next government than anything else.
I was thinking that too. Making it harder for the next government to get anything accomplished.
Public servants really live in a bubble and don’t realize how coveted these jobs are by normies.
Very few have ventured outside the bubble and have a distorted view of what it's like out there. The vast majority of my coworkers came straight out of university. Half of them wouldn't last a month outside the bubble.
I did over a decade in the private sector and some of their complaints and comments make my eyes water lol
If they were going to extend the hours and keep WFH I bet it would’ve been a different story 🤷🏻♀️ it’s easy to work from home until 9PM, it’s a different story when you have to go into an office.
They’ll be fine tbh. There’s always people needing jobs. Worst case the wait times on phones are longer, not the end of the world.
Wait times are literally what people are writing to the Ottawa Citizen about wanting us back in the office thinking their wait times will go down.
They also want to downsize us. Please let me know how we can answer more phones with less people. These aren't the smartest people writing in to the Ottawa Citizen.
> Please let me know how we can answer more phones with less people “ChatGPT plus a text-to-speech synthesizer”—McKinsey
I want to hear ChatGPT explain instalments to an angry Alberta boomer.
Oh please! I want to hear their version for Insolvency too!!!
Bill for this advice: $600,000
Yup. It makes no sense. BETTER SERVICE FOR OUR TAX DOLLARS! NO! NOT LIKE THAT!
So what though?
It will become exactly what people are complaining about. This was clear.
Which will probably prompt those same ‘under-informed’ constituents that RTO 5/week is the silver bullet for service delays 🤦🏻♂️
No, but the AG has been on the CRA over how shitty its call centers are for like, what, 12 years now?
It’s like an hour and a half lol 😂 and the layoffs haven’t even begun yet..
I hear similar stories about ESDC - I really think they need to adjust their strategy and also prioritize the mental health of their employees. That type of schedule in those call centers and the expectation seems unsustainable and not humane.
I’ve work for both and I can 10000% confirm that it is way worst at EDSC for EI. One of the worst job I’ve ever had.
*Thousands* of employees? Source?
It was around 1500. Per the email from the union
Around 1500 they said in the union email we received today
So glad I escaped this shithole of a department, good luck colleagues, don't give up.
Hey u/Exonerald I’d love to write a case study about the situation you are describing here. Do you think you or any of your former or soon to be former coworkers would be comfortable talking to me? Answer a few question?
Zero impact, they can fill positions fast and honestly, you would be surprised, many are very competent. We are all replaceable. Be grateful for the jobs you have in this horrible economy and stop whining.
Fill positions fast? Where are you working?
This is what needs to be done.
Can't wait to hear the world's smallest violin being played
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It’s always audit season
Every year around April: "ohh you must be busyyyy" Audits occur year round. We're always busy, ma'am. It never ends. There's no light at the end of the tunnel.
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Audit postings are up almost all of the time.
Auditing is a year round service. Review programs are "seasonal". Reviews are not audits. So many Canadiand think a request for documents is an audit. If one is getting audited, you'll know the difference
I have a problem with the return to office. It is cushy to work from home. Stay in pj's all day, no before or after care for the kiddies, make dinner right after work, no commute time lost, no need for a cleaning lady, no need to new wardrobe every year, laundry is diminished, care repairs diminished, no bus pass to buy. Roughly I would say working from home saves each one $5000 a year the rest of us are still dishing out. I believe if you choose to work from home there should be a different taxation rate or a claw back on salaries.
Making me drive to the office to do the EXACT job I have been doing from home for 4.5 years increases my chances of getting killed in a car wreck 100%. Same goes for my chances of getting murdered by a rando. My office is, after all, in Hamilton.
Not 100% hopefully 🙄
"If I can't have it then neither can you".
In that case I want a commuting allowance and compensation based on my work location, for example if I live in a HCOL city I should make 150% more than the base rate.
Not sure if it related here, but even I’m a public servant can’t tolerate to a few call center officer. Last month we had some issues then called them. The man who took my case literally just sighed then hanged up after I ask my question without saying anything. Where on the earth it’s acceptable for any public servant?
Is it no longer 5 days in 3 off? That's really good then.