Complaint Review: West Corporation - Bryan Texas

I have worked for West Corp here in Bryan, TX for a little over a year. We handle incoming calls for T-Mobile. The job is relatively simple the hardest thing is dealing with the multiple company polices and lack of structured management. After about 6 months of working for the company I settled in the top 10 or so agents and began work as a sr. rep or sup.

My job title was still agent but I was glad to do the higher work just to get off the phone. I occasionally applied for the positions above agent to gain the title and pay for the job that I was already doing. In the past six months I have applied for 2 different positions, Sr. Rep 4 times and Supervisor 2 times.

To my surprise I was never even offered an interview for Sr. Rep, as I watched I saw people being promoted in to this position with half my tenure and/or stats. Most being promoted to provide diversity, one most likely was affirmative action, 2 gays were hired and to my surprise one woman was hired and this I was happy to see. I now many individuals (most being out best agents in the call center) had applied for the same position and were also turned down. West hired people that were far less qualified just to look good. After this several of our best agents moved to other local call centers.

The manager or our training department, an overly proud black man, placed a posting for Training Assistant positions. He then hired a black male that had not even completed his 90 days with the company over several white tenured agents. He then followed by hiring 2 more black assistants. You could not miss the fact that he hired them because they were black just like he was. In response to this, several more of our tenured agents left.

I was never offered an interview the first time for supervisor, which I expected. The second time the supervisor position came around I was one of 3 people that qualified. The two people that were offered the job were without a question qualified and were right to have the job. However one of them had already let it be know that he did not want the supervisor position and that he was just wanting for a better offer from another job and would be leaving T-Mobile for that job with in the next couple of months. Still he was offered the position.

When I tried to talk to our Operations manager about this, he avoided talking to me and instead discussed the issue with my supervisor and supervisors supervisor. In turn both of the supervisors came to talk to me and informed me that I would have had the job but that there were just not enough positions open.

So in my opinion West Corp has very poor promotion standards, unfortunately there are laws and regulations in place that keep companies from hiring the best qualified and forces them to hire less qualified individuals in the since of fairness. Frankly this is a problem that is going to destroy the US economy. Regardless of color, race, sexual preference the best qualified should always win.

As for West Corps hiring process, it needs to be regulated. West will practically hire any one that turns in an application. In my year of employment I have seen, heavy drug users, alcoholics, prostitutes (doing more than the job they were hired to do on the clock and on business property), thieves, very poorly educated individuals ect...

My training class started with 30 or so people and ended with 5 people. At this time I am the only one left from my training class. West has horrible retention of its employees.

I do tend to enjoy my job unfortunately with the recent hiring and promotions that I have seen and experienced my faith in the company has been demolished.

Disappointed Employee

Bryan, Texas

U.S.A.