Recently those who have been work at home, independent contractors for West Corp. Where told that West would no longer be contracting, but instead hiring those contractors that were interested, as acctual employees.
West made this out to be an exciting opportuniy for the contractors, and updated us as to the conversion date and process on a regular basis. We were all sent emails with instructions to fill out the expidited application, that by passes certain testing that we, as contractor were being exempted from. Those who were interested, myself included, rushed to complete this application and get the conversion started. After we had completed that step, we received another email with instructions and a link so that we could fill out our online "new hire" paperwork, and sign the job offer that had been given to us. Again, we rushed to complete this step in the conversion process.
I had completed both the application and the new hire paperwork on 8/9, well before the conversion was to take place. We had also been given a web site to access so that we could check the status of our progress in the conversion. After completing all of my paperwork, I checked my status at the site. My status showed as all of my paperwork having been completed, and it stated that the next step would be for HR to complete the hire process in the system. I was to receive a "Welcome" email that would contain my new login information and a link to the new employee web site. I never recieved that letter. After waiting days beyond the 5 days that this email may take, I started trying to contact West to find out what had happened to my login.
That's when all of the trouble started. Nobody seemed to know exactly what was going on. The buck was passed between HR and the PAL's, who are supposed to be our personal liaisons between us and the company, since everything is web based and we have no acctual location that we can address. I have been trying since early September to find out what was going on here, to no avail. The conversion deadline came and went and still there were thouands of us who had not been correctly converted over to employee status in their new systems. HR has held three conference calls, in which we were told to attend so that we could have our issues resolved. With thousands attending each call, they were of course unable to help a VERY large amount of us. We were also told to email HR directly with our issues, however, HR was under staffed and over whelmed with requests, so they also could not take care of these issues for a large number of us. We were given the phone number to call HR, the same problem there. The line went right to voicemail and it was then left to faith that someone acctually call you back and assist you. Three weeks have passed since I first started trying to convert over, in the meantime, I have not been able to work because they are no longer allowing contractor to work for them.
Today in our most recent conference call, we were all told that as of Monday October 1st. West will no longer be converting contractors over as employees. We were told that if our issues had not been resolved, then no matter that we had been given job offers that we had accepted, we would now lose all of our certifications and be forced to attempted to be hired along with God only knows how many other people that had simply gone to the site to apply for a job with West At Home. We who were in todays call were given an email address, and told exactly what to put in the subject line, and asked to send our issues to that email address and they will TRY to get to as many of us as they can before Monday October 1st.
Today is Thursday September 27th so that leaves ONE day for them to get to hundereds of people! I am outraged and extremely upset. This was my fulltime job and being that I had been given a job offer, accepted that offer and told that all that was left was for HR to complete the hire process in the system, I have not looked for another job and am now being left high and dry without an income!
This has got to be illegal! I have worked for this company for the last 3 years and now I am just shoved to the side because they have had system issues and did not have the good sense to forsee the huge amount of work that this conversion would take to get everyone moved over to employee status! I hope that those of you that are considering employment with this company will do more research then I did! Had I known that I would be used and then discarded in such a horrible. Cruel and unprofessional manner, I would have flipped burgers before I would have taken that contract with West! BEWARE of this company!!! You will NOT be treated fairly!!!
Sarah
Athens, Alabama
U.S.A.
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