Working for British Gas these days

[Mike2007]

Please only reply if you have worked for them or still working.

I won't be working with gas just electrical but thought some people here would be working for them?

Whats the managment like?
Whats the pay/pension like?
Whats the workload like?

Cheers

 

[bengasman]

Sounds like you have a fair idea of what is coming.

 

[ollski]

1 terrible
2 pay is ok pension for new starters same as anywhere else
3 workload is ridiculous although with trackers being installed on all vans and working one job at a time I am expecting most engineers to reduce by30 - 40% as they will be able to see where you are rather than assess you on some ridiculous scheme based on sales.

Electrical may not be so bad as you have a larger area hence more time in the van.

 

[Boilerman2]

Mike you must be worried!!

 

[petit_pablo]

Electrical service guys do alot more traveling than gas service guys. However alot of jobs are simple jobs like changing fuse spurs, light fittings/switches. Not sure whether all do white goods too.

Management live in an idealistic bubble where every job goes smoothly / all customers are at home etc.

Pay/pension is comparable to other large companies in similar lines of business

Workload can potentially be horrendous. Depends what our used too really. Ive only ever worked for BG so to me its normal however i have an mate who is SE and he thinks 4 jobs a day is busy

 

[Whitespirit66]

Are British Gas moving into electrical work, or is this electrics for heating etc?

I see they now own Dynorod. We'll all end up working for them soon.

 

[mickyg]

Are British Gas moving into electrical work, or is this electrics for heating etc?

I see they now own Dynorod. We'll all end up working for them soon.

they've been doing electrics and white goods for ages. Although its generally been an "add-on" to existing customers heating cover.

 

[plumberbob]

Whats the managment like?

didactic, poor hands on abilities but never see them hands on anyway, don't listen but preach conversations one way and plentiful.

Whats the pay/pension like?

no comment

Whats the workload like?

push you too hard

Sales is the worst of it, get told off for not selling constantly.

 

[Dick Puller]

I've a mate that's a CPS(cowboy in a polo shirt), he says most of the other CPSs are clueless lazy gits & on the skive all the time.

He was my mate when we were on piece work years ago & is as fast as feck!! He says it's the best job he's ever had & loves it, he finishes at 3.00pm most days & does his homers after that.

If he wants an extra holiday he goes on the sick, last year he was in my cottage in France for a month..........

 

[nickso]

3 workload is ridiculous although with trackers being installed on all vans and working one job at a time I am expecting most engineers to reduce by30 - 40% as they will be able to see where you are rather than assess you on some ridiculous scheme based on sales.

i fully expect more work to be done as there will be very little margin for bunking off. depends on how the ****house uses the information provided by the trackers, if the union take yet another bung to ignore it then it could go very bad very soon.

 

[ollski]

i fully expect more work to be done as there will be very little margin for bunking off. depends on how the ****house uses the information provided by the trackers, if the union take yet another bung to ignore it then it could go very bad very soon.

I honestly don't think it will, at the moment your ability is judged on how many speedy bodges and pointless sales you can knock up. When I am being tracked all day I, for one, will be doing every job as if I was being assessed by a qae and planning on earning my qdos from quality scores.

I have already been told that quality wise the way the work measurement has changed I have gone from bottom on the old measure to top on the new one .

So now they have no recource to collar you for low performance they will be all out to stuff you over safety / quality so why not just spend 90 mins on every asv and make sure they can't.

 

[twgas]

you try asking the same question in "electrics" there might be a BG electrical engineer or two that post there. They would know more about rostas etc.

Management are not the best in the world

 

[nickso]

why not just spend 90 mins on every asv and make sure they can't.

sorry but i think you are being naive regarding the new work times. if you think you have enough time to spend 90 mins on an asv and make all of your money on quality you are dreaming.

problems i envisage,

1. you get nothing for not completing something, this means yet again you have to rely on your 10 year out of date vanstock and luck to get your FTCR up.

2. gross performance on time alone could be hard to make, my initial calculations from what we were briefed shows its going to be tight if you dont get first time completions and you have to travel a lot, which i do. you will have to be extremely consistent if you are to have any chance and your quality and time will have to be good to make any money.

3. i move patches a lot, i may be asked to give completions to other engineers rather than travel back to complete myself without getting a fair amount back from them.

4. you now get around 1.5 hrs for an ASV and linked IB instead of the current .91 +1.17. unfair i think, im working on a cheat for this but it will be easily spotted and im not sure how it will go down with the management.

5. still no recognised way of getting an IB on top of an ASV without cheating.

6. the payments are poorly banded. i can see a lot engs being under the lower payment threshold. the upper payment is going to be a dream for the majority of engs. some will make it on and off but i can see it being difficult to attain regularly. it would have been fairer to keep the £5 per hour reward but fairness isnt the BG way is it?

7.with the removal of standby i have dropped around 4.5k, although im good enough to make some money i cant see me making that back in the new performance alone.

 

[bengasman]

Accountants running companies will always look for ways to "be more efficient".
Bottom line of that is invariably: you either do the same work with fewer people so you can sack them, or you do the same work with the same amount of people, but find ways to pay them less.
Two ways of doing that: you trim at the top, or you trim at the bottom.

 

[nickso]

Bottom line of that is invariably: you either do the same work with fewer people so you can sack them, or you do the same work with the same amount of people, but find ways to pay them less.

its unfortunate then that BG seem hell bent on doing both this winter. its going to back fire on them, they are going to lose a lot of guys after this winter IMO.