Family Owned but NOT Family Friendly - Call Specialist Trainer ASD - Answering Service for Directors Employee Review

Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I am certainly disappointed to hear that any of our employees would feel as you do. As always I appreciate all of the feedback we receive—good and bad. I would like to address some of the issues that you mention in your comments. It is unfair to describe our attendance policy as ‘absurd’ after you clearly list all of the many ways ASD rewards reliability. We do take attendance very seriously because of the nature of the work we do. Calls cannot be put off and must be answered in a timely fashion. Ensuring we are fully staffed at all times is a crucial concern. An unscheduled absence or lateness affects not only our clients, but also the entire company including your co-workers. As your own review states, many bonuses are offered to our employees and we created these incentives to promote good attendance and to discourage unscheduled absences. Your review asserts that “people are often fired for needing to tend to their sick children” but no employee at ASD has ever been fired for a single absence. This action is not taken unless the employee has exhibited a continual pattern of tardiness that is considered unacceptable. Employees are made aware of ASD’s attendance policy when they first join our company and it is reviewed with them in detail to ensure everyone is on the same page. The statements you made about the lack of experience among our supervisors and managers are simply untrue. A quick visit to the staff page of our website will show that all of the supervisor, manager and senior positions at ASD are held by experienced employees who have worked for our company for a number of years. We have every confidence in their skills and in their ability to lead our Operations team. Improving internal communications is a high priority at ASD and we will continue to push forward on new ideas for enhancing this. There are many factors that are considered when deciding which employees are eligible for promotion. These factors include experience/years of employment at ASD, education, attendance record, call performance reviews and input from other employees. These decisions are never made without debate and careful consideration. We can understand why it may have been frustrating to notify a supervisor before going to the bathroom. However, in the past this was necessary to maintain consistent staff levels and to ensure that everyone doesn’t go at the same time. The statement about employees having to wait up to 90 minutes before being allowed to get up is completely inaccurate. This was NEVER the case. Additionally, we now have a system in place so that our staff no longer has to ask anyone to use the bathroom. Regarding your comments about our help wanted advertising, ASD’s pay rate is very much incentive based. Your review mentions the premium pay rate offered to our staff for working on weekends and holidays, but you did not mention the fact that we also provide attendance and performance bonuses. Our employees can earn up to 47% more every paycheck through these incentives. We factor this in when determining the rate of pay advertised in our help wanted ads. However, if an employee has poor attendance or call scores, he or she is unlikely to qualify for such incentives. Just as a waiter or waitress who doesn’t get very many tips is probably not suited for that job, an ASD employee who doesn’t earn a lot of incentives is probably not a good fit for our company. While it is obviously hard to please everyone, our rate of retention shows that we have many long-time and very loyal employees who are happy to come to work here everyday. Employees are not “fleeing our company” as you stated – in fact, more than 50 of our employees have worked here for 8 years or more. For those of you reading this, I would encourage you to read ALL the reviews so that you can get a more balanced view of how our employees feel. I’m sorry your experience wasn’t a positive one here at ASD. It sounds like it just wasn’t a fit. Best of luck to you.