Reviews by job title

14 reviews
4.0
14 Mar 2022

It was okay

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Free breakfast Good team Great training opportunities

Cons

Terrible pay, high turnover, can get let go of at anytime

2.0
15 Aug 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good rec/lunch room Lots of customer service experience Good way to meet people Generally chill vibe when you're not stressed Used to have team building events/ competitions

Cons

Leadership is just as lost as all other employees Training isn't the best Lots of pressure to do well and meet kpis Constant call taking Not a lot of time to take a breather Constantly shifting roster Low pay not worth the work Practically begging people to do overtime

2.0
11 May 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You will be taking inbound phone calls for Services Australia- Centrelink, as well as doing some administrative and claims work. If you want an entry level job that will hire you straight out of High School or University, or if you have been out of the workforce for a while, then Datacom will accept you as long as you show some basic competency in working with a computer and a telephone. As well, since the role is taking calls for Centrelink, they do require the employee to be an Australian Citizen and to pass a National Police Background check. You will have to be full time and in the office for the training period and the first two weeks on phones, but after that Datacom is flexible with rostering. You won’t have to work a full week after you complete training, you will never be rostered on a weekend or a national public holiday and Datacom is flexible if you must call in sick or take a day off at very short notice, so it is ideal for working mothers. Overtime opportunities are plentiful as they are always busy. Especially true when disasters happen, the recent floods in Queensland and NSW resulted in a lot of overtime as Centrelink was swamped with phone calls and claims for the Disaster recovery payment. North Ryde train station is a 10 minute walk down the road, it’s close to the M2 so easy to drive to but don’t expect to get a pass for the underground car space, paid parking and street parking are available.

Cons

Datacom pays its CSRs and all other salaried positions below market wages. If you are hired as a CSR will be paid the Award Wage under the Contact Centre Award MA000023, meaning Datacom would pay you less if it legally could. It appears Datacom has a company policy to pay it’s staff below market wages, which has predictable consequences on the company. Staff turnover is high due to the low pay and the difficult nature of the work. Since you are taking calls from Centrelink recipients you are dealing with people who are constantly in financial stress and hardship. Centrelink recipients call you expecting to get money paid to them, either to get a claim processed or reassessed or an early grant of a payment. However it won’t be Centrelink’s policy to grant these payments or it cannot be done ask quickly as the customer demands. They will then get angry at you personally; swearing, yelling and ranting are common. Team Leaders do have the decency not to blame the CSRs for the customers being unreasonable or complaining about an impossible situation so they will back you up. Training is about 3 weeks long but most of that time is spent reading compulsory training modules from Services Australia, which do very little to prepare people for the kind of enquiries that they get whilst on phones. Australia’s Social Security Legislation and Policy is impossibly complex, and you are required to have knowledge of this from Operational Blueprint (OB), which is Centrelink’s internal manual. OB has thousands of articles at this point so be prepared to know how to search and skim read until you find the right answer. Unfortunately, most CSRs don’t stay long enough to build up experience, confidence and competency. They are underpaid relative to a Services Australia APS4 employee (the equivalent position) by a long way. Unfortunately, due to penny-pinching by the Government more and more of these frontline roles are being outsourced to private companies, it saves a few dollars on staff wages, but you the Australian Taxpayer ultimately pay the price. The price is paid in wasted time on phones, on hold and waiting in the queue to speak to somebody who can help, most of that time the ‘Centrelink’ employee is an outsourced underpaid private employee who really knows very little about the job that they are supposed to be doing. Ultimately public money goes to private profits and nobody is better off except the Executives and Shareholders of these companies.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 14 Reviews

Glassdoor has 117 DataCom reviews submitted anonymously by DataCom employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if DataCom is right for you.