British Gas Homecare

[kwatt]

There’s no justice in this world Johnny. 😆

Mind you I’m surprised that Indesit have the time to do anyone else’s work from what I hear.

K.

[johnnyj]

Re: British Gas Homecare

When i ordered container she was telling me Gas Board were out almost every week, it was at leat 3 years since i was last at the machine, but what a mess, i spent about an hour getting the thing safe enough to use, but the bearing housing was knackered seeping between the housing and tub hence requiring a container. Its great to know our own customers are taking a back seat for the good old Gas Board.

[iadom]

Re: British Gas Homecare

johnnyj wrote:I’ve an outer container to fit to an old 9926

Can you still get them, I did one a couple of weeks ago but I have heard a rumour that all WM/WD outer drums are getting very thin on the ground.

[DentedPorsche]

Re: British Gas Homecare

Been biting my tongue on this thread for ages.
Have to say, on plumbing and drains cover, taps and washers are excluded. Would have been better if this had been explained to the customer when she phoned the fault in and a call should never have been booked. (Not saying I agree with the T&C’s).
On the repair side, we’re not all productivity chasers. Some of us actually try to do a good job and look after the customer.
Indesit wanted the work off BG and we have to pass the work to them. Not a case of “can’t be bothered to do it”.
As to working for BG, In my case, I had a choice, minimum wage (less than £13k 1-1/2 years ago) with a Whirlpool partner (no longer in business) or more than 50{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} more with BG. No contest really.

Brian

[johnnyj]

Re: British Gas Homecare

Crap if British Gas cannot get an engineer out they pass the call onto us, which we have to respond within 2 days or we dont get paid, what happens then is they overbook us trying it on if we kick up a fuss, they dont move the Gas Board calls, they move our own customers even though the Gas Board calls were the last calls booked, every Gas Board call i go to the customers are going nuts when i explain i dont work for them they soon calm down, it,s when they kick off about waiting it gets passed to us. The call to-day the wiring was like a dogs dinner the belt was getting thrown off every other week our friendly gas board engineer just refitted and warned her about loading, nothing to do with the play on the drum.

[DentedPorsche]

Re: British Gas Homecare

No Johnny it’s not crap. Indesit really did sign a contract to take work from BG and that’s what you’re having to endure. Indesit wanted the work, if they didn’t they wouldn’t have signed and they wouldn’t have agreed to the terms. What you’re complaining about, your management created.

As to your posts regarding the state of the machine you’ve been to, or every machine as you put it. Does it mean because you’re following a poor or lazy engineer that every BG engineer is the same?
Does it mean that you’re a poor engineer because I’ve had recalls on two Indesit jobs this week? No, it doesn’t. Try reading my post again without your angry anti-BG head on. You’ll see that I actually say that SOME of us do try and do care.

I’m definitely not one of the “can’t be bothered” brigade. I’m not afraid of hard work, and bearing and tub changes aren’t hard work at all.

I’m by no means perfect, I make my mistakes and learn from them. If I can’t figure something out then I come on here and ask for help.

So please, don’t brand all BG engineers as being the same, we’re not. I take pride in my work and I don’t chase bonus.

Brian

[kwatt]

Re: British Gas Homecare

DentedPorsche wrote:What you’re complaining about, your management created.

To be fair, from what I’ve been hearing on the grapevine, that really doesn’t come as a surprise at all. In fact, it rings so true it’s unreal.

Anyways some of the BG guys are under immense pressure as well to meet targets, just as the Indesit guys are. It’s cr4p and we all know it, but that’s modern life with KPIs.

It actually astounds me that engineers are rewarded, not for doing a good job and making customers happy, but they are rewarded because they hit a magic number, also known as a KPI. Judging an engineers ability and worth on merely a simple statistic is, at best, a folly IMO and that’s what you’re up against.

The managers pull in more work and get a pat on the back, the poor foot soldiers just have to go do it and meet the targets set. Which would be fine with most of the guys I know if the reward was there or you feel a part of a team, prefferably both, but with both BG and Indesit I get the distinct sense that neither apply. You’re just a number that makes numbers.

K.

[philfish]

Re: British Gas Homecare

i now im going to sound stupid but what is a kpi 😕

[Alex]

Re: British Gas Homecare

philfish wrote:i now im going to sound stupid but what is a kpi 😕

Key Performance Indicator

Posh corporate talk for statistics and being kept up to date by means of facts and figures. Just to make it look good on spread sheets. We can all do the leg work & number crunching, and produce some wonderful graphs if required. Then some manager somewhere can take the credit.

To be fair to the ideal, I do run stuff though an Excel prgramme on engineers calls & recalls, turnover, parts ordering and first time fix, so I’m just as bad.

Alex

[iadom]

Re: British Gas Homecare

Key Performance Indicator. ❓

Well at least Alex’s post confirms my guess. 8) 😀

[funkyboogy]

Re: British Gas Homecare

ive done engineer developent with b/g , so i can speak with a wee bit authority on KPI,S…..

please accept my appoligy for long thread….but im sure you will find it funny…..

KPI,S you must reach your target….100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}

read on….

From a strictly mathematical viewpoint it goes like this:

What makes 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}?
What does it mean to give MORE than 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}?
Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}?
We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}.

How about achieving 103{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:

If: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

is represented as:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26,

then:

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K

8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}

and,

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E

11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}

But,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E

1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}

And,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T

2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}

and, look how far ass kissing will take you:

A-S-S–K-I-S-S-I-N-G

1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}

So, one can then conclude with mathematical certainty that:

While Hardwork and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, Bullshit and Ass Kissing will put you over the top!

ring any bells

cheers f/b

[gegsy]

Re: British Gas Homecare

Anyways, back to topic. 🙂
Just to be helpful here is a link to explain KPI 😉
http://management.about.com/cs/generalm … findic.htm

Greg

[Bryan]

Re: British Gas Homecare

Must admitt I preferred fungyboogy`s explanation :lol:.

Bryan

[gegsy]

Re: British Gas Homecare

DentedPorsche wrote:I’m definitely not one of the “can’t be bothered” brigade. I’m not afraid of hard work, and bearing and tub changes aren’t hard work at all.
So please, don’t brand all BG engineers as being the same, we’re not. I take pride in my work and I don’t chase bonus.

I wish there were more BG guys like you.
The clown up here who I have to sort out after is doing BG no favours.
19 times to washing machine he made as it was leaking and sticking 8O, I got there after guy gave up, just to find that hot tap was damaged (poor flow)and weeping.
Im not the hottest engineer by far but this is basic stuff :rolls:

Greg

[Alex]

Re: British Gas Homecare

Just looked at Gegsies link. As I said, posh corporate speak, probably originated in good old America. In the 60’s was activity sampling.

To be fair to B.G. if managed and evaluated correctly a good means of seeing the true picture on the field service staff. However, being brought up in a nationalised indusrty, the problems are rarely at ground level, usually too many managers who have come in from other industries who know little about the business.

Same with every large organisation I suppose.

I do personally think posts in this thread from the B.Gas engineers have been very good. Such devotion is not easy to find, and I hope they remain passionate to the cause.

Alex

[Author]

Posts