The Jobcentre, Tickbox thinking and third parties
Warning this will be a long and somewhat rambling essay style post but it will cover the broad sweep of things
after yet another case of the job centre getting it wrong ive decided to just sit down and spell out all the flaws in the system as i see it, most of these flaws originate in what i refer to as 'tickbox thinking' where all problems and procedures are rendered down into a standard set of tickboxes you plow through one at a time, treating every person through the door like a parcel that has to go through each tickbox to the end of the conveyor belt, the main issue here being that people arnt uniform packages to be processed, each person is an individual with different needs, for example a graduate with a masters degree and no experience and a man with no cv no computer skills just 15years running his own corner shop till the buisness folded are not the same, the barriers to them working are RADICALLY different and treating them the same along with a school leaver who has done some till work at morrisons helps none of them because in the attempt to reduce the process to a standard template you run into the issue that there is no standard human life,
now onto specifics,. i will accept the caveat that this is my story and i may have been unfortunate to eperience the very worst, but from talking to people the stories i hear suggest actually this is how it goes for many, so feel free to engage skepticism but i am lead to believe this is how it goes,
i was academically strong at school i got good grades, i did alevels did reasonable, i went to university things went wrong i graduated with a science degree just not at a level worth talking about, after a spell unemployed which i may talk about later i got a temporary job as a school lab tech, was unemployed again which again i may talk about, before getting a permanent job as a lab technician for 5 years.
So after 5 years of employment i became redundant, it happens, i went online to fill out my claim for Job Seekers Allowance (JSA from now on) this was quite good, clear and well done, in a reasonable ammount of time i was contacted with an appointment to have the final signing on interview at my local job centre (now JC) so far so good, infact this stage of the system i will happily say worked for me and seems to be OK, i get there on the day of the interview am directed to the right place to wait, have the first stage, get given some extra forms (and again i can see why you need to fill those out on site its all good) okay the slightly longer than nessercary delay between first half and second half seemed excessive but i was speeded on my way and it was still a while you wait,
The final result a job seekers booklet and agreement, with appointment time set out,
I would like to reiterate at this point the job centre has done sterling work and i commend them up to here on a job well done.
so fortnightly signing on begins this is stage 1, you look for work write it in a little book they give you to show your doing it (or bring other proof) and such my complaints about STAGE 1 will be mainly that things coming up later should happen here if at all, stage 1 as it currently stands is there for people who know how to get back into work and are just passing time, its a wasted opportunity,
then comes your 13 week review (guess when) and here they asked me about how it was going, thats all i can remember because the person i talked to had no clue what more i could do, i was already looking for any work that would take me,
now comes stage 2, where you come in every week for 6 whole weeks for 'intensive job search' sounds good but in reality its 6 weeks of signing on each week and during your signing on they look on their system for any jobs to submit you to (i will point out here that i have NEVER received ANY response from a job submitted thus) after six weeks you go back to fortnight signing with the stage 1 crew until youve been here 6months,
Now i dont see how stage 2 is meant to be 'intensive job search' the system they are doing the search on is just basically a windows 3.1 interface to the same database the job points use and your meant to come in and spend 10min before your appointment on them,
after six months you now hit STAGE 3, in this you are assigned an advisor and see him every few weeks, as well as signing on at a third set of desks when you have an advisor appointment he talks longer with you does even more of that searching malarky and tries to think up more avenues of work to look at,
again in stage 3 appart from one or two ideas of looking at more senior positions than i had any chance of getting (i have no leadership experience) again there was NO DIFFERENCE to anything i was doing previously, as i am fully concious of the fact that employment even low paid is better than not, but no mater how many jobs i sent myself in for none outside my field would respond to me, but the only advice im getting is keep doing it its bound to work, well no it isnt,
during stage 3 people are sent to things, i like a load of other inner london people was sent to A4e (Action 4 employment) to do a two day course, this course was for how to make a CV, how to do apllication forms, Covering letters, Speculative letters and interview techniques,
I took away one thing from this, that layouts had changed and i should center justify the info block at the top, about a third of the people there were in the same boat as me, some didnt have a cv at all, one didnt have any qualifications or cv or experience (having been a householder for over a decade) this is tickboc thinking making a mess, 6-12 months unemployed send to course X, there were at least 3 sub groups in that room each had different needs and issues treating them all to the same course in the same room was hubris and wasteful
moreover the people who actually gained something from this course SHOULD HAVE DONE IT IN WEEK 1 NOT MONTH 6, one of the FIRST things the JC should do is ask do you have a current CV if the answer is yes they take a copy and check it dosnt need work/updating, if no they send you to this course and use a course that dosnt just tell you how but actually helps you make one, courses like this should be offered voluntarily from the get go not compulsory half a year later, because if the barrier to getting a job is you dont have a cv solving that in the first fortnight means your probably employed long before 13 weeks certainly half a year, thus less money is spent on benefits,
also some people fall through the cracks and dont even get this, late as it may be, im sure i was sent on other things im sure there was one back at 12 weeks and a few more in stage 3 but i forget them all because THEY DIDNT DO ANYTHING they just covered vague oh you mights and oh you coulds and such there was no actual help in them because they were trying to give basic info applicable to everyone and in a diverse random selection group there isnt enough common ground to do anything,
so at the end of stage 3 you have been unemployed a full 12 months, thus the JC response ? to send you to a third party and go back to you just sign on the line twice a week other than that not their problem,
in my case Calder UK by comparison to calder the JC is a palace of marble staffed by nobel laureates who create a tailored experience for each of their clients treated like a god, ive talked to people who have used other calder offices than the one i went to, they confirmed it was not an isolated case, at least 2 calder uk offices in london are horrible horrible badly managed useless places,
so in general the government (originally labours plan, the coalition are reviewing the situation and in febuary when the contracts are up for renewal this could all change) after a year you get handed over to companies like Reed in Partnership, A4e, CalderUK, Workinglinks, etc etc etc, they take over getting you a job, they get paid for getting people into jobs, they are almost universally considered by their clients to be a waste of time and money,
so you go to calder and fill out forms, i havnt listed the sheer mindboggling volume of forms all requiring signatures that you have to do on a regular basis because heck there is probably a reason)
they tell you to turn up twice a week for a full day each time, you get assigned a job coach, if your lucky they tell you his name, your appointment card will just have a group number on it that apart from being refferenced once so your job coach can find you on the first visit is never mentioned again,
Calder has computer rooms and training rooms, you spend half a day in one, then the other, ie monday morning training room, afternoon computer room,
except the rooms arnt clearly marked as to what they are, (some only have their designation on the inside facing away from the entrance so unless you go in you cant see it, and reception rarely knows where your supposed to be and when they do have an opinion they get it wrong, at no point does it occur to them to assign a specific coach a specific room for specific blocks on their timetable thus eliminating all the hassle, there are also less computers in the building than the number of people to use them and half the coaches dont even stick to where and when they should be either,
Calder has great connections for cleaners and security guards, other than that its hey just sit here and do job searching,
the training is a collection of motivational useless ness and covering CV's application forms and such AGAIN, and AGAIN ITS TOO LATE if you dont know this stuff after a year unemployed the system has failed,
and because myself and another CLIENT i stress this were clued in, computer skilled, already doing all it takes to find a job, calder got us to spend an afternoon HELPING OTHER CLIENTS MAKE THEIR CV's this is a what the hell moment, im there to be helped to get a job why am i being asked to do something that really is a job that someone should be paid to do,
then after 6 weeks, (it should be noted we missed a day when our job coach who had been headhunted from the parent dutch branch had to be trained in the oh yeah heres the differences in the english system, AFTER he started working with english clients) again Calder might have stood a chance at doing more than vague suggestions and saying think outside the box but in a group of 20 people there were at least 5 different subgroups in terms of education, experience, etc etc meaning that in real terms there is almost nothing that CAN be done because how do you cater to a mixed group that includes graduates, unqualifieds, high experience, low experience and everything in between,
in the end i have got a job calder did nothing to help me with it, i saw it on my own, applied and got it, the one size fits all and tick box thinking approach dosnt help people because it becomes a language of maybe and perhaps and possibly rather than this works for you or you should, so i start work in the new year
when i told calder about it they said im done with them, when i told the JC they said i had to come to a long term unemployed job thingy this today (but ive got a job!) but the rules say i have to go because ive been unemployed X long (tick box thinking AGAIN) the only other person to turn up this morning also has a job after christmas, and oh it was cancelled they say they texted everyone
they didnt
we had to go ask after sitting around for like 20min, they didnt bother with a sign, they didnt bother with having someone walk in at 10.00 and go oh its not on, they thought oh we have texted everyone no need for a backup plan,
i could go more into my earlier experience with Reed in partnership before my previous job again a waste of effort in that there was no real advice or help becuase they are trying to sort through a vast horde of people in a short period of time and are treating them as identical rather than actually treating real people as different people,
/rambling rant