Dish Rated as Worst Company to Work For by Employees

[[me]]

As for some of the other issues mentioned, I could not agree more. The metric system seems clearly designed to insure that there is no way anyone can control their own success. There are a number of factors that we have little or no actual control over such as customers canceling jobs, having or not having internet available, and equipment or other problems being counted against the tech.

Many of these same metrics are used to determine promotion. Not that promotion is all that important anyway since the scheduling is not determined by your level but by your job performance so from a corporate income perspective there is no reason to promote technicians since they can pay less for the same or more work. In the nearly two years I have been working there has been only one tech (in our shop of nearly 40 techs) who was lucky enough to get all of his stats to line up at the right time to be qualified for promotion and despite his relative success he quit for another position before his promotion could be carried out.

Not getting promotions may not be all that big of a deal if the company provides reasonable raises, but that is clearly not the case. In my personal case I started work pretty much at the period of performance review, meaning that my first one was a year later and covered my first year of work. During that year I learned a great deal and worked hard. I got to the point that I was doing the same amount of work as the highest level techs about 2 out of every 3 days, I was named as tech of the month for one month (an entirely metric determined title), and learned the technical system so well that the managers often mentioned me as a contact for other techs in case of technical problems. During my job review I was told that my performance was "meeting expectations" and my raise was 0%. I thought that perhaps the issue was an isolated one but discretely asking around I found out that very few guys received raises and the ones who did received very small ones.

As for employee appreciation, it is practically nonexistent. The last holiday season we had no office party or anything of the sort, the only thing in any way festive was a tray of holiday cookies that showed up in the warehouse area one day shortly before christmas. Upon looking at the cookie tray I noticed a little card, picking it up I noticed that it had been sent over by the local company that takes care of the maintenance for our fleet of vans. They provided much more holiday cheer and appreciation than our own actual management.

And the overtime requirements, we have been working required 5th days for a good while now, which means that aside from our regularly scheduled 4 day week of 10 hour days (that are often really 11~13 hours and sometimes more like 15~16) we are required to work a 5th day of exactly the same length. We're told this is because of the amount of work that is building up and we are falling behind, yet I have talked to many customers who have told me they are shocked how quickly we have come out and even some that have told me their appointment was set for days after I was there. On one of my 5th days I even talked to our dispatcher who pointed out that they were having trouble finding jobs they could pull forward so that all the techs in the field would have things to do that day.

The policies in effect do not reward people for doing good work. The difference that we see in payment or bonuses for great work vs barely passable work are small or sometimes nothing at all. Luck plays a much bigger part on bonus payment than actual work performance. There is basically no possibility for advancement or promotion or any sort of career design or planning.

Oh, and one final thing. There was some complaint about weather issues. As techs driving is a part of our job so you would think that perhaps on days with weather so bad that travel is discouraged we would work less but that would be wrong. Snow has not once caused even a lightening of our routing much less any sort of canceling or delaying jobs. I remember one day this past winter which saw a blizzard in our local area. We of course were expected to work a full day, which we all did. As I was returning from my day of work, tired and stressed from the work as well as the driving in the snow storm I unfortunately was involved in a minor traffic incident that was entirely due to the weather conditions. The result of the incident is basically the same as if I had intentionally caused a traffic accident, any additional traffic incident within a year will get basically get me fired, despite the fact that local government and basic logic both say there was no way anyone could have been totally safe driving that day with the weather conditions.

That's about all I've got for now since I have another early morning of work tomorrow and then I have to figure out how to get off of my 5th day this week since I very luckily have a job interview with a different company but I am out of (unpaid) sick time and learned too late to use paid time off for the day.

[sserrano49]

Speaking from the point of view of a technician, you don't see a lot of us get bent out of shape at your home because we generally like the work that we do. We just hate the company that we do it for and it's not you, the customer, that makes our company suck. Besides that, leaving a customer feeling bad about his/her service experience certainly won't help make our day better.

For me, the overtime isn't the biggest issue. I don't mind working 13-15 hours a day, but I don't have a wife or kids. It's that as employees we are constantly setup to fail. Unreachable metrics, unreasonable installation rules, the constant no-win situations we're put in. I'm expected to maintain:
-- 6 points per hour (each install/service call is assigned a point value based on what is expected to be done on that job.)
-- A Customer SATisfaction rating of 9.7 (out of 10)
-- Completing 99% of assigned work orders (if you have No Line of Sight on your property, that counts against me)
-- Never fail a Quality Assurance Inspection (I fail a QA if you don't have stickers on your remote controls)
-- A Trouble Call rate < 3.5%, which is essentially 1 or 2 per month (A TC is when a customer calls in within 12 days of me being there and needs another technician to come out. Whether you lost your remote, moved your receiver or you call because you can't get your DVD to work, the reason is irrelevant, this counts against me.)

There is also Connectivity(connecting receivers to an internet connection) in that pile, however, I think DISH has finally come to a reasonable number with that. So here is a no-win scenario:

I arrive at your home for a service call. Your signal is low. I find that your dish is out of alignment and can be repointed and your problem will go away. An easy fix if there ever was one. But wait, your dish is mounted to your siding. The cable that was used on your install was from your DirecTV system that you had before us. The cable ends on your cables are 'not approved' by DISH. Now I'm supposed to tear out all of that perfectly good cable. Take down that dish that is securely mounted. Move this dish to your roof, run new cables and in some cases drill new penetrations. If I don't do all of this, I fail a Quality Inspection. Also, I was given 50 minutes by our routing system to do all of this. I still have 2 other jobs to get to before noon.

Now you as a customer, say "Hell No! I don't want anymore holes drilled in my house." As you should. It's unreasonable. So I can leave it as is and roll the QA dice or I can cancel the work order and have my completion metric take a hit or I can be the used car salesman and try to sell you on the idea that we have to move your dish and run all new cables, thus screwing over my CSAT from you and my following customers because I'm now going to be late getting to them.

Oh and while doing all of this I'm supposed to sell you a TV mount or a surge protector.

This is spot on and the only reason i dislike the company. Ill give an example of my usual day. I usually drive 3 hours to a town and 3 hours back. That's 6 hours of drive time so just saying if i were to do two 2 room new connects i would have to complete those both in two hours to be somewhere close to hitting my points per hour. Its basically impossible. Then there are days where i drive all that way to do 1 trouble call so before i even start my job my points per hour is already shot. I do this job because i love the work and i love meeting new folks everyday. That's why we smile that's why were happy to be there. The sad thing is we don't expect much i've been here for over a year and was told im eligible for a promotion if all of my metrics are in order but how can i get them in order when there basically sabotaging me. For the people who are saying Dish can't be the worst company they either haven't worked for them or do not know anyone who works for them. I do this for my family and for customers.

[iamfoesho]

This is the best review I have read about the company and agree 100%:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Emp...RVW1866820.htm

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[NotMe546]

Are you counting your days or what?

Thursday I go for a second interview, so yes I am.

[ckhalil18]

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I sorry to bring this up again, but I the Huffington post had an article on this and I just wanted you guys to read these few paragraphs and post what you think. This is from the writer's point of view from a Dish recruiting event.

I had an experience with a recruiter at Dish Network a few years ago that gave me a tremendous perspective on the company's culture. I was at a recruiting event chatting with a young woman who gave me her business card. Her title was Recruiting Manager. "Are you busy?" I asked her.
"We're swamped," she said. "We have so many openings, we're going crazy. In fact, I was hoping we'd meet some likely candidates here at this event, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen." I gaped at her. The event where we were chatting was clearly a networking event for HR and recruiting types.
"What sorts of people are you looking for?" I asked. "Hispanics," she said. I gave a weak laugh. "But really," I said. "Hispanic employees are our best workers," she said. "They don't complain about the pay." I was disoriented. "But --- you realize that you can't favor one ethnic group over another in your hiring, correct?" I asked, fumbling for words. "We'll hire anyone who's qualified," she said. "But we prefer to hire Hispanic people."
"Is your background in recruiting?" I asked her. "No," she said. "I was a Call Center supervisor until a few months ago, when our Recruiting Manager left. They gave me the job." "There are some absolutely essential things you need to know, if you're going to be recruiting for your company," I said. "Are you familiar with the EEOC, for instance?"
"I'm not!" said the young woman, grabbing her pen and notebook. "Is that an association of Hispanic job-seekers? Do you have their number?"


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-ry...b_1790994.html

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[GaryPen]

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The more I read about their work environment and corporate culture, the more I understand what I've seen and experienced as a customer.