A Team Leader at APAC Speaks out

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I was employed at APAC for 7 years, 5 years of which I was a Team Lead and involved in several meetings with the upper management crew in the directors office. I was absolutely horrifed at the discussions that took place in these daily Operations Manager meetings.

Not only did this company take my health, my dignity, and my family away from me for 7 years, they fired me after taking an FMLA leave due to health related issues caused by their workplace environment.

I came to my senses after being off of work under FMLA, and realized they are using brainwashing techniques on their employees. They even tell their employees during the so-called training classes, where else are you going to get a job and make this kind of money, McDonalds? That is degrading within itself. I heard many employees say that is a common comment in training classes, and I have heard it myself in regular training.

APAC bases everything on "Integrity" and having a "positive outlook", however this only pertains to the employee, not to the company and upper management.

In response to Team Lead's covering up favored employees, that is true. Being a Team Lead for so many years, it was very simple to impose rules on some and not others, that is a common practice among many team leads, not all, but many. The Team Lead's managers are so busy overloaded with work for the week, they don't have time to double check all the Team Lead's work and corrective actions, the Team Lead's know this and know what they can get away with. If they don't like a poor performer on their team, they simply follow the rules to the book and walk that employee out the door with all of the documentation. If the team lead has a great performer that has some other issues they simply overlook the other issues to maintain their team stats and keep the employee on their team and in APAC's employment.

In my opinion, you have to really be a fake person and agree with everything they tell you to do and say to get any type of a promotion to Operations Manager in the company. I was a Team Lead for 5 years and had a perfect record and perfect attendance record, no corrective action and had received a substantial raise on my review, my boss was fired without notification or good cause, they simply said he was fired for not following sop's (standard operating procedures) which was untrue, anyway, I applied for his position which would be a substantial promotion and I was well qualified for it.

I submitted my resume and received an informal interview for a professional position in a cluttered office that lasted about 10 minutes and with 3 interruptions for my interviewer. Very unprofessional! I then found out that the candidate that had been chosen had only been on our site for 1 month and had already been named as the new operations manager before I had even had my interview, and the entire management already knew about it. I was humiliated by them.

They claimed that I didn't have the Assistant Operations Manager position experience required for the position. However, this is position that is no longer available at APAC, it is not a title any longer, the position was eliminated several years ago. I had been acting as an informal assistant to my Operations Manager that was fired for 3 years and he had taught me his position and I knew how to do the job, so that was just an excuse on management's side.

This company does not care about it's employees, it uses brainwashing techniques in all of it's training classes, and by this I mean that all they preach is remaining positive at all times, if you show any type of alter opinion, or don't agree with something and speak your mind about it you are looked down on and possibly fired for not agreeing with them. This happened to me many times when trying to stick up for my team employees.

They use these techniques to keep their employees afraid to speak their mind, they become stressed out robots that are afraid of losing their jobs if they say anything at all, most of the people that work there have family's to take care of and believe they cannot get a job anywhere else making the kind of money they make at APAC. Many employees talk about wanting the Union in there, but are afraid to do anything for fear of being fired.

APAC changes the rules of everything on a daily basis, you never know what is going to be the rule or standard procedure from day to day, they have a bonus structure that is based on Star, A, B, and C rank. However, even though it is a bonus structure, you can be fired for being a C ranking for 6 weeks in a row. You are put on what is called a Chronic C status and your Team Lead is responsible for working with you 4 hours per week, if you haven't attained at least a B status by the end of 6 weeks working with your Team Lead then you are terminated, and this is the bonus structure.

APAC is this underhanded little technique they pull though, they change the goals when the employees are making to much bonus. When the bonus payout sheet starts creeping up over $8,000.00 payout, they increase the goals that the employees are to meet that makes it impossible for the employee to meet anything above a C status!

When the bonus sheet first came out, I remember that it totalled about 65,000.00...they realigned the goals so fast it made my head spin, everyone dropped from a Star or an A status (required to receive bonus)to a B or C status within One Week! The next bonus payout sheet was only around 6,000.00, quite a savings for the company. They realigned the goals at least 7 times in less than a year that I know of before I was fired for FMLA leave.

They claimed to have a lower attrition rate in 2006 than any other year, however I know this is not true. They fired or laid off almost every employee on the Wellpoint floor in 2006, going from 450 employees to less than 50, and on the Outbound floor, they went from 267 employees in July 2006 to less than 50 in December 2006, and on the Inbound floor they went from almost 500 employees to around 120.

They then lied to their Outbound employees telling them that they didn't have any outbound work for them and put them in inbound calling, assuring them that they wouldn't be sent home, they would be able to work their entire shifts. However once they started calling Inbound they were sent home on a daily basis, causing more terminations and employees quitting.

It's just my opinion but it sure seems funny that APAC is opening 3 call centers in Manila, and firing or making it impossible to complete the work duties due to the high goals and stress level and keep employment in the US calling centers.

In response to emotional distress...YES....it is more than emotional distress, it is complete emotional and physical breakdown. I had to meet 100% goals as a Team Lead, if I had a person that called on the phone for only 1 minute out of the entire week, and just per se they got sick and couldn't come back to work for the week, I was required to have a complete 30 minute documented coaching session and 2 separate monitors submitted into the system for them or I wasn't meeting my goal for the week. If I missed 1 required person, that put me at about 90% which wasn't acceptable. Here again an impossible goal to meet.

A Team Lead is only supposed to have about 15 on their team, however in the entire time I worked there I had anywhere from 20 - 50, my average was 27 members on my team, all of which I had to perform 2 monitors per week, a 15-30 minute coaching session with each one, hand deliver,discuss and document each person's quality monitor from quality control and the 2 from myself, maintain reporting on absenteeism, quality, training and efficiencies, in 3 different systems and handwritten folders for all of my employees daily, not to mention corrective action for any issues, daily manager meetings, training, interviewing people that came in to apply for jobs, human resource issues involving my team and anything else assigned that needed completed, including 4 hour per week sessions with chronic C employees.

There is not enough time in one week to complete all of the tasks they require you to perform and meet your goals, I was always working at least 50-60 hours per week and would be there until sundays at midnight trying to get it all done. Yes, I had a breakdown and I have stress related illness's now that are disabling, I have absolutely no tolerance for stress anymore because of APAC, I become violently ill, can't breathe, have transient anxiety attacks and massive migraines.

And does APAC care? No, they do not.

I'm sure I've missed a lot of things in my evaluation here, so if you have any questions, just ask, I'll be very happy to give a response.

Don't EVER EVEN CONSIDER WORKING FOR THIS COMPANY!