back to article Capita ITS asks to-be-axed staffers to pose for marketing pic

Capita IT Services staff waiting to hear if they have a future at the integrator-cum-reseller have been invited to attend a photo shoot to be used in marketing material. As exclusively revealed, Capita ITS put 1,000 workers at risk of redundancy on 30 March, giving back office employees 30 days notice and 90 days to …

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  1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    July 4th?

    Well, that gives them a few days to get some (in)appropriate T-shirts printed for the photo shoot...

    Something along the lines of the Bell Atlantic "roadkill" event?

    1. LarsG
      Megaphone

      Maybe if you become the face of Capita your job will be safe.

      Quick apply apply apply.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wouldn't opt-out. I'd go, claim salary for it (it was, after all, part of the job, so they HAVE to pay) and make sure I flipped the camera the bird any time they tried to take a picture.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Capita management: What a bunch of bastards

    See title

    1. Anonymous Coward 15
      Holmes

      Re: Capita management: What a bunch of bastards

      And that's news?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Capita management: @AC 15

        "And that's news?"

        Probably not, based on their reputation. But it needed saying.

  4. Shane8
    Trollface

    Outsourcing to India...

    I'm sure that RBS can recommend you some place good!

  5. Eduard Coli
    Gimp

    Embezzlement sure to follow

    If anyone watches the Bataan Death march that is outsourcing then they might have noticed how often corp. management gets caught stealing from stockholders soon after implementing a large outsourcing deal.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Embezzlement sure to follow

      I don't know about embezzlement in the strict sense, but hard up directors can always get their colleagues on the remuneration committee to mint them some fresh share options.

      My current activity surrounds the design, strategy and performance of back office operations, and I can assure all who are interested that the best performing support services have absolutely no relationship with location. You can have high quality, low cost wherever you want, if you get the design right. Wage arbitrage is a phantom goal, sold by muppets to muppets (as many companies are now finding out). We're moving quickly to a world where companies wouldn't dare outsource their front line customer service to the back of beyond, but many are still too dim to see that the back office needs to operate to the same standards - if you can do that from India, all well and good, but it'll cost as much or more than from the UK (largely for two reasons - because you need to cherry pick your offshore workers for langugage skills and business initiative, and because developing countries see far higher staff turnover, so you need to pay top dollar plus regular increases to retain).

      Take Dell - early movers in outsourcing their back office, following soon after with retail customer support. Gone is the day when an IT guy could recommend Dell to relatives, knowing that he could trust the company to build and support a good product. And the point I'm leading up to is that Dell were evidently misgoverned - not only did they have appalling corporate performance in the early 2000's, there was the faulty components business, which they knew about but kept pushing sales of the dodgy kit, there was "accounting mstatement" (meaning they lied to investors), and Dell acted in concert with Intel to rig the market. Financial services were early subscribers to the offshore/outsource ideal, and we can see what the ethics and competence of that sector are now.

      I can think of more than a few other examples that I won't bore you with, but it seems to me that once companies decide that they're going to play the wage arbitrage game, all sense of propriety goes out the window.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What...

    ...a bunch of cowardly, moronic, money grabbing bastards. So glad I left that mess of a company when I did. The management clearly have no sense of decency, they're mostly all morally bankrupt fatcats who don't give two tosses what customers or even their own staff want or need.

  7. s. pam Silver badge
    Megaphone

    Face before Arse?

    Looks like an excellent opportunity to turn around, drop trousers and give the photographer a vertical smile.

    Clearly they've already been done there, so there should be a corporate logo in evidence -- Mktg will be happy.

  8. TheWeddingPhotographer

    They should book me

    In a couple of months for a photo-shoot in India. I am sure I could produce some images that faithfully represent the best of British

  9. TheWeddingPhotographer

    Sums it up perfectly

    http://funnypicturesplus.com/indian-call-centre-sigh.html

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Surprisingly...

    The current work cannot be covered by the staff that are left and it's already turning to shit.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I left this wretched company recently. They have such shocking ethics. For example, they would not allow me recruit what the client asked for because it was eating into their profit margin too much. They wanted to fleece the client with a trainee resource rather than pay what the market was paying.

    Never seen such a nasty and horrid culture of bullying amongst their staff. Well worth of the name Crapita. I also hear that they are under investigation at Birningham City Council. And there is is an ongoing audit into their mess at Teachers Pensions Agency where they could not manage themselves out of a paper bag.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/government-computing-network/2012/may/14/service-birmingham-capita-value-labour

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Tantamount to fraud

      Yep - fleecing their customers is the name of the game. I remember having to set up desks with the latest kit for client visits so they could see their 'dedicated team' & equipment that they were paying for. As soon as the visits were over, the kit was recovered & the 'team' disbanded...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Never seen such a nasty and horrid culture of bullying amongst their staff"

      And dishonesty too.

      The final straw for a lot of us in ITS was receiving a letter from senior management (& I use the term management in it's loosest possible sense) referring to a meeting that never happened the contents of which I precis here:

      "The senior management are keeping your bonus money for themselves. Tough titty, suckers!"

      1. Fatman

        RE: senior management

        Please get the terminology correct!!!

        It is properly called: `senile manglement`.

        Your attention to this small detail is appreciated.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sacked now Vs sacked later (maybe)

    D'ya feel lucky, punk?

  13. JaitcH
    Stop

    What about releases and fees?

    Capita better get photo releases and the employees should demand modelling fees BEFORE signing. (Bet the snapper guy is getting paid)

  14. Brezhnev's Shadow
    Pint

    Superb, pure style. Twang the braces, top up the leather tan, and flop yer belly into the Cayman. Bonuses all round!

  15. Mpeler

    Shore-ly a bunch of crooks and sadists

    Either have them take a pic of Indian employees or, better, have everyone make themselves up as Indian (or other

    offshore) employees....

    Honestly, a scumbag company like this deserves to disappear. Maybe (as in Dilbert a while back), when

    Europe becomes a "fourth-world" area, then maybe the circle will complete and the jobs will be outsourced

    back here....

    Capita punishment...that's what they deserve....

  16. Richard Cartledge
    Thumb Down

    They want photos of Western-lloking folk for their library before they're replaced with South Indian villagers.

    I hope people stop paying their road tax and TV license in protest.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Birmingham Council

    As a service user as a Network Manager in a Birmingham school you can certainly see the difference between Service Birmingham staff employed back in the Stone Age when the council ran the IT services and were TUPE'd over, and those direct from Capita.

    One's direct are rude and frankly about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Marketing Pollyannas

    [Music: Everything is beautiful]

    OK, Sanjay, perhaps you should sit this (photo) out..

    Now smile everyone!

  19. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    How about ... before and after pictures?

    1,000 staff one week, twenty three the next. Way to fail Crapita.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As someone who currently works in Capita and have been at risk then out of risk then back in risk and now officially finally out.

    They dont give a shit about you guys and girls, they dont want anything other than to save the money and make CITS into a £1Billion a year business - that wont happen whilst we are outsourcing and things like having to ask your bosses boss even if you want to spend another £1 is stupid.

    I went away on behalf of CITS recently - I ended up paying for my own meals (even though they give you £30 a day allowance - its *really* restricted) and had to raise a complaint (the hotel told me that CITS hadnt given the allowance on the fax so it was either starve all weekend or give the hotel my CC details).

    This company DOESNT give a shit and never will, your cannon fodder to the likes of Russ Hewitt, etc - he is only interested in the bottom line and each £1 they save is more for his pockets (dont tell me he is making nothing out of this as thats just a pure lie).

    I came from EDS - I am now in Capita - I am ready to get the fuck out of IT because of the pair of them.

  21. spiderwell

    nick

    i worked for captia once in housing benefits, the training was completely useless, i even made a point ot telling them to which they were surprised. when i was finally shown how to do some things, including calculating housing benefit, they paid me so little i was able to claim 25pound a week towards my housing hahaha ironic!!

  22. TobyW7
    Mushroom

    Worked for Capita ONE...

    In Bedford.

    Bespoke software, so little training, I complained about lack of training and they extended my probation to 6 months.

    I kicked up a right stomp.

    After this period there was no improvement and I left.

    I'm now earning 4k more and have more benefits. Don't work there!

    Never again.

    -T

  23. Simon Beckett
    Coat

    No-one reads the title anyway...

    Capita certainly have a knack for taking expert customer focussed companies and turning them in to faceless short term money making machines.

    For example, I was working for them through the millenium change over and they just couldn't understand why, having replaced 80% of the kit at our fixed base of clients in12 months, we were unlikely to meet the compulsory 20% on top of the 1999 income.

    Capita owes its success to the lazy nature of public sector and large customers - you'd like to think that that this kind of corporate and manglement failure would lead to a mass exodus of customers, even the public sector ones. What happened in my case was that within 12 months the 10 strong team of fantastic engineers were all but gone, but unbelievably most of the clients were still there.

    Mine's the one with the Dummies Guide to Being Outsourced and a letter saying simply "ya boo sucks" in the pocket.

  24. Sam Therapy
    Thumb Down

    As stated by many others, Capita really are a shower of bastards

    My wife was treated disgracefully by them when she became seriously ill and needed major surgery. She then sued them for unfair dismissal but they tried every trick in the book to get her to back down. Threats, intimidation, and finally, a feeble token payment offer to make her shut up and go away.

    I'm pleased to say she won her case outright and Capita had to fork over a fair bit of readies. She signed a NDA which bars her from discussing the matter. I didn't. :)

    Sting in the tail was, they then made life for me so bad I had to quit. I'm glad to be out of there but not in such a way.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'd like to point out..

    That Crapita ITS are equal opportunity scam merchants, in that they will quite happily rip off other areas of the company & then proudly state they contribute to Capitas profitability - even though they decrease the margins of other divisions...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'd like to point out..

      Let me correct that for you - ALL the divisions of Crapita are scumbags who will happily rip off other areas of the company. Like when Training "forget" to include theIT costs of training in a bid; when the bid was won by Crapita this came to light and ITS had to "help out" and cover half the additional IT costs incurred by the training. OK this COULD have been a mistake, but THREE bids in a row the same "mistake" was made......

  26. KylaStorm
    Thumb Down

    They were a shower of shit before they were Capita at Ruddington, looks like nothing much has changed.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Horrible place to work - Management even worse!

    The company is a total joke to work for!!! Thank god they have gotten rid of most the crap managers, anyone who has worked on RDS will know who I am referring too! I bet none of the staff have opted for photo shoot either........... What a shame for Capita, they can't capture an English workforce before everyone leaves!!! I bet management know how they are feeling aswell but still don't care, can’t be nice for the staff leaving and the lucky ones that get to stay.

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