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United to close HNL & DTW reservations office & DTW GS office {work from home option}

United to close HNL & DTW reservations office & DTW GS office {work from home option}

Old Sep 3, 2015, 6:25 am
  #46  
 
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Originally Posted by DBCme
The computer garbage for agents who want to work from home seems like a terrible business decision. Wouldn't you want some majority of your agents to utilize the same computer/OS, have sufficient operating power, security protections, software, and a remote I.T team that has some control of these "workstations?"
It's likely a very good business decision actually. The company usually still owns the software, typically including required security software to be installed. Remote IT can be used, as can software to allow remote supervision.

All the employee is responsible for is buying the computer and, normally, paying for their internet service. They will have to meet certain requirements, such as the OS.

Customer service agents working at home is not new, its well supported from an IT perspective. If you work for a large company, there's a fairly good chance that if you call your payroll department or even your IT department, you are speaking to someone at their home these days.

I'm not defending the closing of the centers or how UA is treating these employees overall, but the computer thing is probably not a big deal for most employees.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 6:31 am
  #47  
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Originally Posted by JBord

I'm not defending the closing of the centers or how UA is treating these employees overall, but the computer thing is probably not a big deal for most employees.
I'm sure the pay cut is, however.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 8:14 am
  #48  
 
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Originally Posted by halls120
I'm sure the pay cut is, however.
Totally agree, as I wrote in an earlier post, I don't like that. It's what small, struggling companies do, not what large, multi-national corporations do.

Allowing good employees to work from home at the same pay is a win-win. The company cuts overhead cost and most likely has a more engaged workforce. The employee gets flexibility and convenience and can still pay their bills.

Sadly, if the pay cut news is true, I would expect most of the employees that can't/won't move to another center will quit. Often, those tend to be your experienced employees vs. newer, younger employees that are often more mobile (not tied down by family, spouse's job, children's school, etc.).
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 8:24 am
  #49  
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Originally Posted by JBord
It's likely a very good business decision actually. The company usually still owns the software, typically including required security software to be installed. Remote IT can be used, as can software to allow remote supervision.

All the employee is responsible for is buying the computer and, normally, paying for their internet service. They will have to meet certain requirements, such as the OS.

Customer service agents working at home is not new, its well supported from an IT perspective. If you work for a large company, there's a fairly good chance that if you call your payroll department or even your IT department, you are speaking to someone at their home these days.

I'm not defending the closing of the centers or how UA is treating these employees overall, but the computer thing is probably not a big deal for most employees.
In addition to this (from an IT perspective) , there are platforms (already in use in many places, especially the sCO work from home agents) that facilitate this.

No matter what the computer is, not much (if anything) is installed directly. The agents utilize a remote desktop or citrix session to connect to a server somewhere. All their work is done on a virtual console that isn't their PC, so the risk of security issues is limited. In addition, they usually have a "soft phone", an app that runs on the computer that acts as their telephone, so no physical phone needed either.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 9:00 am
  #50  
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Originally Posted by kevanyalowitz
TI see this as yet another move by an ineffective management team to reduce services highly valued by HVFs in an effort to save a dime. In doing so, they will further alienate their best customers, and be left with less revenue. The net-net will be a dime saved, and a dollar lost.
Spot on. This smells like a desperate move by management that knows it's being propped up by cheap oil and a peaking US economy.

Originally Posted by JBord
Allowing good employees to work from home at the same pay is a win-win. .
But UA isn't "allowing" its employees to work at home, it's forcing them to.

I personally don't like working at home. I like personal interaction with my co-workers and feeling like I'm a part of something.

And let's be clear, the "work at home" option is being forced on the employees, as is the pay cut. This is anything but a pro-employee move.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 9:07 am
  #51  
 
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Which nail in the coffin is this, has anyone been keeping track? We have to be nearing the last one soon. HNL and DTW call centers were the best, and I know it's been said up thread but RIP getting anything done related to a complex ticket.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 9:52 am
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Originally Posted by Kacee

But UA isn't "allowing" its employees to work at home, it's forcing them to.

I personally don't like working at home. I like personal interaction with my co-workers and feeling like I'm a part of something.

And let's be clear, the "work at home" option is being forced on the employees, as is the pay cut. This is anything but a pro-employee move.
I think you took my comments a little out of context. I'm in full agreement with your view on the employees. I'm saying they had a chance to do this the right way, but instead they took the low road and cut pay as part of the move. It's a bad move that will cause them to lose good people. If that wasn't clear in my post, I appreciate the opportunity to fix it.

I suspect if we took a poll in this forum it would be pretty evenly split on whether people like working from home or not. And I think it depends on the job. I love it, but it's not for everyone.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 9:56 am
  #53  
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Originally Posted by JBord
I think you took my comments a little out of context.
I didn't read your comments as endorsing this change (and apologize if my post suggested that), but they could be so construed, and there are others in this thread who have endorsed this as an employee-friendly change. I would obviously disagree strongly with that characterization.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 10:03 am
  #54  
 
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This is sad, plain sad. Those call centers were the best. Seriously, I wonder how many sUA employee's (all from top to bottom) are going to actually be left after this. I always had the feeling $mi$ek just wanted to gut sUA and it seems true.

Someone mentioned what is the final nail in the coffin and I believe this may be it. For me personally it was the pullout of JFK, I don't do EWR. Burning my last award this winter and have a grand total of 348 miles in my account.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 10:09 am
  #55  
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The final nail in the coffin will be when United eliminates toll-free numbers. You know they have to be thinking about that.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 10:15 am
  #56  
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Originally Posted by iluv2fly
The final nail in the coffin will be when United eliminates toll-free numbers. You know they have to be thinking about that.
Bolding mine: More like are thinking about it imho
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 10:23 am
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Originally Posted by halls120
Is it a good thing for the employee who is forced to take a pay cut and buy their own computer in order to work for United?

Is it a good thing for customers who still need assistance from time to time but won't have access to experienced agents who tell Smisek no thanks to his cheap offer?
Yes. It's the job of the company to run profitably. If they don't make the moves needed to stay competitive, people will whine about their financial results. There's no winning when facing a biased audience.

Being offered an opportunity to retain their job at home is a lot better than the options DL employees received the last time they closed centers. For them it was move or lose it.

Originally Posted by goodeats21
United is no where close to having reservation systems that do not require calls. Their operation is in the toilet (delays and cancels), their systems do not update in "real-time" and the only way to get help is to call.

This is crappy anyway you look at it.
What part of "less and less" equals "no calls at all"?
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 10:25 am
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I wonder if forcing the shift to home based work will make it any easier for United management to discharge these employees. The home based employee will certainly lose some ability to see what is going on around them from a corporate standpoint. Although I don't know any, I would suspect both DTW and HNL are quite senior pmUA employees. Are these employees unionized?

Last edited by goalie; Sep 3, 2015 at 2:24 pm Reason: changed reference to "United"
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 10:27 am
  #59  
 
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Originally Posted by Kacee
I didn't read your comments as endorsing this change (and apologize if my post suggested that), but they could be so construed, and there are others in this thread who have endorsed this as an employee-friendly change. I would obviously disagree strongly with that characterization.
The only way to couch it as "employee-friendly" (maybe just not employee-hostile?) is that it's not a straight layoff, and that those who wish to remain with the company will have the opportunity to do so.

I don't see the move as one of desperation, however, but rather a part of a continuing trend for the company to get out of non-core businesses, including real estate, away from the company's centers-of-gravity. Work-from-home technology, especially as it pertains to call centers, is pretty irresistible for the company, and certainly preferable to offshoring from a customer's point of view. We also aren't privy to the cost side of maintaining these res offices, either.

The truth is, while telephone res agents are certainly lifesavers for many of us when things go sour (as they tend to with some regularity these days), they are vestiges of a different era, when there were far fewer self-service options available to passengers, and so virtually any transaction, modification or otherwise required a call-in to an airline agent. There was a great deal more ticketing volume (revenue) being processed through phone agents, and this business more than justified the expense of the overhead to support such operations, coupled with a lack of alternatives due to technological limitations.

Now, the agents primarily meet a customer service/support need, and while still a crucial function for many travelers, it does not generate the same return on the investment in infrastructure to support the operation. So, the result is the consolidation of res centers to Houston and Chicago, augmented by home-based agents elsewhere in the system. In my view, an adequate, though unfortunate, compromise.

The aviation geek in me is sad to see another holdover from "the good old days" bite the dust, but that's the way it goes.
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Old Sep 3, 2015, 10:34 am
  #60  
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Originally Posted by EWR764
Now, the agents primarily meet a customer service/support need, and while still a crucial function for many travelers, it does not generate the same return on the investment in infrastructure to support the operation. So, the result is the consolidation of res centers to Houston and Chicago, augmented by home-based agents elsewhere in the system. In my view, an adequate, though unfortunate, compromise.
This is a thoughtful analysis and you make some very good points.

But I think the reason people are reacting so negatively here is that we know UA IT (and the IAH/TPA agents) are not up to the task and that the skilled pmUA phone agents are in many instances our only hope of getting things done right.

In a vacuum, this move makes sense. In the real world of UA as it truly is, it's IMO a big mistake. At least if UA really does want to retain HVF. But perhaps that's just lip service, which is what this move suggests. Save some nickels, lose the dollars.
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