project manager

contract manager

engineer

customer service representative

land manager

Sse-PLC

I think this is perphaps the worst job l have had. Worked here for around nine months. If your over 30 this is not the job is probably not for you. The work-floor or office space is filled with a couple of hundred of advisors who look like big brother (wannbe) candidates. Some of which are actually bosses. Anyhow in a typical day you have to make around 6 to 7 calls in an hour and be available to take calls 85%of the time. Suprisingly this can be hard to achieve if you have not previously done this type of work before. This maybe due to the fact that when a call ends you still may have notes to finish from that call- which in turn stops you being availalable for the next call.The system of paygo meters in customers homes is to complex for such a straight-forward entity, many customers do not understand the weekly standing charge and the weekly debt recovery rates, let alone the staff. The complaints procedure is also complicated as each individual manager has a different solution, from another manager. 
One of the worst part of the job is call listening, this is very degrading to say the least. The manager pulls a series of calls that you have made and then whilst the customer is swearing and threatening to fill you in etc, but maybe if you  have not asked a relevant  question you get castigated. A large part of the problems with SSE is that although the training and trainers is very good, it is not comprehensive,  and many of the issues that customers ring in about are overlapping with other departments. Which the advisors do not have much knowledge about.Subsequently  departments are happy to keep you on hold and then after around 10 mins say sorry they cannot help you- you need to ring another department. Ultimately this can lead to your dismissal.

Another bad part of the job, is the safety moment. Typically managers ask advisors for examples of accidents/near misses, at a meeting. You then share these moments with other colleagues i.e today l tripped over my cat on the hallway stairs etc. I think they do this type  of exercise in infant schools. Also the department  where complaints are escalated to can be very sarcastic and usually will do everything not to take a complaint call off you. This will eat into your call time. My advice is to goodwill the customer if any sign of a complaint, advisors get £20 to £30 for each customer. I used to enjoy resolving problems in this way as many of the customers are on low incomes hence paygo meters.

Finally the best part of the job was geting canned. I could have gave my bosses a pat on the back and a cigar.Thoroughly miserable place to work, surrounded by scruffy/slobby people.Managers throughout the day handing advisors sweets or cream cakes out (keeping sugar levels up -so thet act hyper on the phones). Most advisers ignorant of this (ignorance is bliss).  However ldid work a handful of really nice people at SSE.

Parking rules were a joke, 2 days out of five you cannot use the car park, but if you start later than 8.30am -no spaces available. In the end l opted out and parked in pontprennau everyday. Saved being patronised, rather the threat of having car vandalised by local residents. Working hours were always getting worse, typically expect to work 2 late shifts a week, until 8pm. And every over Saturday until 4pm. Although as l left there were plans for staff to work until 10pm and work one sunday every eight weeks.

Literally everyone l worked with, fellow colleagues :would say l want to get out of this place. It is worth remembering they hire en bloc and they get rid of their staff in much the same way.

Sse recruit all year round and struggle to keep staff so will ultimately employ anyone with little to no customer service skills. In interviews they make the job sound amazing, listing all the perks to draw you in, target related salary increases, staff discount ect. Not once will you hear they have a low retention rate, the worry started when I realised recuitment happens all year round, new starter groups of 12 taken on every month for collections and the pay as you go department. Some times 2-3 groups at a time! Alarm bells!
The training doesnt prepare you for the reality of the job. Monday to friday with shifts between 8-5 you think youve got something decent, training is classroom based and an easy pace. Youre in a team and all get to interact. This is the only chance you will get to speak to eachother. 
Training over and the real horror begins. Call after call after call. You have a small amount of time to wrap a call up once the customer has hung up the line, but anything over 2 minutes and someone is behind you asking what you are doing. You have targets which is no shock in a call centre but you put yourself into a break which you are entitled to do so and again someone asks you if you know youve been in a break? Even if youre hitting your targets that day they will hassle you if you are in anything other than available. 
Whilst on the call you have to cover a series of questions for call monitoring, often asking the customer things arent applicable to the call at all. Causing the customer to get frustrated and annoyed at you. Not all the customers are vile, but honestly most are. You cannot blame them, the computer system is ancient and theres so many new people all of the time you wonder if anyone knows what they are actually doing. This leads to you logging endless complaints and chasing up problems for weeks at a time. Weekend shifts are even worse because you cannot do most simple tasks you would be able to carry out throughout the week as most departments are closed. More complaints.
You will also notice new people and older employees (not many staff are long serving) sit away from eachother, meaning all the new people are stuck together not knowing all that much, and without enough support from managers you can be waiting for help for ages. Some of the people employed to help look straight through you or walk away from you. I found most of the people that worked there rude and quite frankly arrogant.  A lot of women who work here end up in tears because of the way they are spoken to. 
Most people dont last long, its over demanding, unrewarding and soul destroying.
After a long days work you then have to walk back to your car that youve parked up to 20 minutes walk away because its your non parking day. 
The salary is tempting and pays the rent. But dont think its worth the stress and misery of this job. 
Speaking to other people from other call centres they refer to this type of call centre as a sweat shop. 
People should know the truth before stepping into a world of pain.

I worked at SSE for several years, and it just got worse every year! 
Over 200 people worked out of or at my depot, and I don't know a single one that was actually happy, and people left on a regular basis! 

They are utterly obsessed with health & safety to the extreme!
Some office examples....

No coats on back of chairs, might catch in wheels
no bins under desks, its a trip hazard
have to wear safety glasses to handle safety pins, glue or tippex
hanging xmas decs in the office is a 5 person job, 1 on the steps doing it, and 4 surrounding them in case they fall (all in high vis and safety specs)
cant carry coffee from a vending machine by hand, has to go on a tray in case any spills over the side & burns hands.
cant sit on the edge of someones desk to speak to them in case you slip off. 

It goes on and on and on, new ones every month, and just when you think they have come out with the craziest rule yet, don't worry, next month they will easily trump it with something even more crazy!!

They are equally as obsessed with saving money.
Everything supplied was the cheapest they can get! 
Tools snap & break weekly. Every tool is the cheapest imaginable, the vans were rubbish, the uniform is not suitable for the job.

The I.T. and computer system is from the ark, seriously it resembles Windows 3.1 and needed updating 30yrs ago. 

The tablets for field staff are useless, and the system on them is a diabolical total pile of dung and totally not fit for purpose. 

There are signs by the printers saying 
"THINK! Did you REALLY need to print that out?? SAVE PAPER!"

There is a massive culture of bullying in management!
You are pressured and forced into working on, pressured to find a way to complete jobs that should be aborted, so they don't miss their targets!

Managers are constantly pitted against each other in league tables for performance & if your manager is at the bottom one month, look out. 

Team managers are expected to work 10-12hr days for no extra pay, my manager was often in at 6am, and went home about 6pm, and then still worked from home on his laptop!

Managers will often get it in for a certain person who doesn't play ball or causes them headaches from above due to stats, and will then hunt and hunt and hound and watch that person until they finally have something to fire them for....

Colleagues were always out to drop you in it to further their own agenda, there is a "Brothers keeper" system which is basically sanctioned grassing on colleagues, disguised as looking out for each other!

You are constantly retro audited on your work and picked up on the slightest things like forgetting a sticker,... 

They want people to volunteer to work away for a week at a time, but if enough don't volunteer, you are just told you are going anyway..

There is a bi-annual "Great place to work" survey, that often had bad results, which were generally just ignored and nothing is ever done about them by the higher management..

Couldn't wait to get out!!

I worked for SSE for 5 years. Started out an amazing place to work. Sales and targets were easy to achieve and you could be yourself on the phone with people. The customers were hard work but most of them would sit and chat with you about their lives and it was a very interesting job.
Two years into it, it all changed. A new site manager came in and changed the stats. We had to conform to all these new regulations and if your face didnt fit, you were on your last legs. 
Management would pull you aside and explain every call they had listened too and give you a telling off. Young managers would talk about each other and their teams in front of you. Slag people off all the time to eachother. They put three of our team on a "Fact Find" and took us off the phones for 2 months for DPA breaches.. which were at best petty. Then the outcome would do nothing but cause you stress and anxiety. 
Back room staff were treated really badly and the systems in place to cover new offers and tariff changes would lead to customers waiting 40 mins or so to be told they had to go through a script which took another 30 mins. That would normally cause them to complain and give a bad score for the company on their call. Which in turn would be fed back to you as a bad call and somehow your fault . "You could have got that customer to turn around etc.. 
SSE sickness policy is terrible. 3 strikes and your out. Everyday people coming into work and being made to sit on the phone with Flu and colds, all the time spreading it around because they were too scared to stay at home. The line managers would be set sickness targets and phone you all day to see whether you can come back into work and then have a home visit disguised as a welfare check. They would then give you formall notices in your home.
Shocking place to work. People have spent time in the toilets crying where managers have shouted at them or singled them out for their stats.
In this environment you are just a piece worker in a massive money making factory. You are not cared about and you are always made to feel that you dont fit in. Some teams have had 7 or so manager changes in two years and they always end up puting a team down where people are desperate to move on. 
You can only move up in this company if your know someone high up who will suck up to the company.
I have seen them treat people with serious illnesses in a dispicable way and heard managers talking about them while they are not there saying they are lying about their illness.
Regular price hikes are greeted with a meeting where they tell you that they are helping the customer out with money savings and brainwash you into thinking that it was great for you so you can have a secure job for the future

DO NOT WORK FOR THESE PEOPLE

Every day I went in with a spring on my step and hope and willingness in my heart, every evening I came out disheartened, in low spirits, disappointed, bitter, angry and with my self esteem lower than ever. You just can't get it right. 
The stat system is designed to show you on the worst possible light. "We care! Go the extra mile!" You took too long. If you handle something beautifully, "oh you could have done that". Next time you do that, not even a reference to it: "why didn't you do this?" "Such and such an issue is very close to our hearts": send customer forms to apply for help from other organisations. Their SatNav (a system that shows the script to follow on every call and how you perform on it) rates you in a way that seems designed to show your stats in the most unflattering light.
Health and Safety meetings every week but little compassion for employees when they're ill. Taking you to meetings that feel like court cases, check up on you at your home. If you have leave to stay home for the day, still they call in the morning, in the afternoon, you can't forget about them and focus on recovering  If you're have a few days sick at home, you still have to report by phone ("to see how you are") every day. When they asked the expected "Is there anything we can do for you?", it was only fear of offending that stopped me from saying "Yes! Please leave me alone " A relative of a Department Director came in with a little bandaid on her neck and was immediately sent home. 
I took less break than I was entitled to for a year and a half. One week I went over 2 or 3 minutes on 2 days, I was called to account. I put in a lot of extra time because I had to finish a call or work related to a call and didn't claim it because it would have added to my call time stats. Which would have interfered with my annual stats and annual raise and chances of progression or department transfer. I was shamed in front of all the section because I was playing a game on my phone when I was on the toilet during MY break. 
If you join the clique you're all set. A persont who shrieked the loudest and applauded the most when a sale was made, was promoted to floor manager in a few months, then promoted again. 
Mine was not a sales job but I was asked if I had a problem with a little light selling. What could I reply? We don't have to sell but as part of the script we need to read these lines about some products, "just to make customers aware", but if you don't have any sales that'll go against you.

My last reference from previous employer read "She is a gregarious, personable employee that excels in what she does" - well that is so laughable now, I have forgotten who that person is after starting at SSE.  As a company it has so much potential but falls flat with new staff members;  It was supposed to be a 4 week classroom based training - NOT.  After exactly 7 days from the start we were hit with 2 hour long exams to see how much we had learnt!!  The training is so full on and the only word that keeps coming to mind is OVERWHELMING.  We had so much thrown at us and very little time to practice computer based and then told after 2 weeks we would be in our departments with a buddy, a one to one work based partner where we could learn on the job - NOT.  We got deployed to our various departments who were not equipped or ready to take us, so we were distributed where there was a spare desk and basically left to our own devices.  As soon as we are shown one thing, we are not given any time to get confident with that, then it's on to the next and so on. The environment itself is absolutely huge but it is very easy to feel totally isolated and alone.  Yes there are some lovely people there in truth and they try their best to help and teach and it could be a lovely place to work, but again that same word comes to mind - it is all so overwhelming.  Not having worked in a call centre environment before I have found it difficult to adjust to staring at a computer screen all day with no breaks other than dinner or a quick toilet break but that's it. I am used to being able to leave my chair, go to other departments for work related issues and just having a general chat, but I feel like a robot with no contact with the outside world.  As a person I know I have lost all my confidence because it is a struggle to remember everything, so the person once described is no more.  I would like to regain that person but that comes with confidence in my abilities and that is sadly lacking and I wonder if it will break me and I decide the job is not worth all the stress related with it.  I would like to think not as already mentioned, the people are lovely, the money not bad, the hours ok and not too far from where I live so it has a lot going for it, it's just the pace in which we are supposed to learn and work.

This job was horrendous... ‘management’ are pre teens who were all in the right place at the right time. Treat their staff like muck on their shoe and if you need help or support then good luck. The 4 week training programme is severely intense and you will be expected to know an awful lot before you leave that room. If you are poorly or need any time off then good luck.. in 2 years I had 5 days off on 3 occasions and each day I was absolutely pounded with atleast 3 calls per day to ‘check how I was’ it made me feel guilty and like I was doing something wrong for being ill. 

This job is extremely target based driven and every time a call is listened too they will focus on the negative’s, even down to how much break time you have per day. It’s like being a robot, absolutely everything is monitored and if they do not like it then they will do everything in their power to get you out of there or make you leave!! I eventually got I’ll and managed to get another job and go before this happened to me but in this place if your face doesnt fit then they will say goodbye!

The ‘support’ on the floor is a joke, you have wannabe managers walking around helping you then 3 weeks later they get returned back for telling the newbies wrong information!! If you need to escalate a call then I hope you’ve got a good 15/20 minutes time on your hands of arguing cases with the complaints escalation team, they will do everything in their power to do as little work as possible. 

If you have any issues, and go to your team manager then please also prepare for the whole call centre to know. This place holds absolutely no confidentialality and they do not care one bit about you, if you are poorly physically or mentally and they don’t like it then you will be pulled in a room with 3 other managers and absolutely ripped to shreds until you feel useless.

The car parking is a joke, you have to pay £14 a week and endure a 15 minute walk every day to and from work or risk it and park residential but that’s atleast 25 minutes away. The only people that get on site parking is again, management. Not the peasants, please if you have any self respect and want to enjoy your life. There really are plenty of other places to work.

I am in control of my own workflow. I have a constant flow of work with peaks in October. I look after my own high-profile customer but also help across the wider department with daily quantities of work. My tasks are varied and range in difficulty. I often have to liaise with other colleagues and departments to give customers the best service.

I have learned to plan and organise my working day. I can handle large volumes of work and work efficiently and to best effect. I know when to escalate issues to more senior staff and when to consult with colleagues.

My current Team Manager is the most effective I have worked for yet in SSE, demonstrating strong leadership and has definite expectations of her team. Issues amongst the team are handled professionally. I have the feeling that if you want to do well at SSE, she would be the person to help you.

I work with a mixed range of individuals and have some very good friendships. Most staff are very easy to get along with, which is probably a characteristic of the type of people who work in customer services. I enjoy their company and respect the differences in each team member.

The hardest part of the job are the busiest periods when there is a lot of pressure in a small space of time, working towards a deadline. Luckily for me, the worst of it is only once a year. I would also say that keeping up with the constant changes in the industry is quite difficult. Sometimes, we are not very well prepared for a change to a process.

An additional problem is having to use a very out-dated system and using various different work-arounds and add-ons. It is very frustrating and unsatisfying.

The most enjoyable part of my role is having control over my working day. I have the privilege of being responsible for a high profile customer and have built a sound relationship with them. I like the variety of tasks involved and how the department is aligned so that 3 job roles can work closely together.

Southern electric used to be an awesome place to work, originally located in bstoke until they decided to up sticks and move to reading.  After a while, many talented colleagues who took with them a lot of experience decided enough was enough and I was one of them.  Younger managers were hired without people skills, a six monthly and yearly review which could take over a hour to go over based on evidence that both yourself and your manager would have to provide and of course and would stress out everyone a number of weeks before it was your time.  As a company, sse were obsessed with their golden rules, especially safety, ie, holding the handrail, absolutely nothing was allowed under your desks, clean desk policy, reverse parking.  In every team brief we would always be asked, does anyone have a safety moment they would like to share! It became absolutely monotonous and if no one did have anything to share, with some managers we would either get a smirk or a fake laugh which basically told us they we weren’t believed and we had better try harder on the next meeting.  For a while I would normally come in first thing, roughly about an hour before 8.30am and would also remain after 5pm, again for another hour or so just to basically try and catch up and complete daily work tasks that I was physically unable to do within normal working hours! Of course coming in off my own back was never recognised but instead, management would always be able to pick holes in other things which a lot of the time, were not even there!  I decided enough was enough as the toxic working environment was really taking a toll on my mental health.  I informed management and was told, no worries, you’re easily replaced but then again, I expected nothing less, not even once on the build up to myself leaving was I told, many thanks for all of your hard work and dedication over the number of years ( 20 ) and you know what, that really hurt and wounded me for a long time and I would never recommend working for this company to anyone.

The people are a generally a great bunch who work really hard but you see the split in work ethic once you go above the general management positions. A lot of silly and some sensible internal rules and policies to follow. 

The sickness policy and how it is dealt with by management and HR is unbelievably bad! Avoid if you have any ongoing medical or personal problems! 

You will also have no say in what you do within the company regardless of what job you apply for, if the company feels it is in the business needs then you will be moved accordingly, your opinion is worthless. If you apply for an admin role expect to also take calls on the most minimum of training, its sink or swim and you will be expected to muddle through although you usually get some initial support from floorwalkers. There is very little ongoing training within the company so you have to teach yourself tariffs or pre-payment meters, often while the customer is waiting on the phone. For the amount of calls that the company generally receives there is not enough staff to handle them all so some days you will be on the phone all day dealing with tariffs or calls you are not trained to deal with which is very stressful.

The company participates in various charity days where you can dress up and get the chance to play games or win prizes for performance which is probably the only fun aspect of working for SSE. 

The onsite Canteen is ok but quite expensive and usually nowhere to sit when the weather is bad.

The parking is a joke, don't expect a space unless you carshare, whether you are on a late shift or not! Not enough spaces for all the staff (in fairness this applies to management too) so you have to risk parking off-site. Many of the staff have had their cars ticketed or vandalised when parked in the local vicinity so be careful.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Project manager 8 salaries reported	£64,367 per year
Contract manager 7 salaries reported	£66,881 per year
Engineer 7 salaries reported	£41,857 per year
Customer service representative 14 salaries reported	£25,206 per year
Land manager 4 salaries reported	£63,342 per year

Working at SSE PLC: company overview and reviews

SSE PLC

SSE PLC ratings

Popular jobs at SSE PLC

Salary satisfaction

Jobseeker tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected