"These are mistakes that could cost someone their home"

It's interesting that, back in the day when scientific management was emerging, the value of frequent breaks and ergonomically appropriate approaches to work were found to be of great value to ... employers. So I wonder just how many NC employers really, truly piss away their money by being stupid about their employees' workdays.

 

Same thing for employers with the attitude, "If you don't like it, leave!" You can google for various studies, but generally the estimated cost of turnover is two to three times the salary of the employee who left. The cost is calculated by looking at lost productivity, recruitment costs, cost of any temporary help brought in to fill vacancies, etc. Also, the consensus is that attitude also ensures that your most talented people are the first out the door.

 

Yes but based on that article, they are getting breaks and lunch:

The nine-hour workday includes a lunch break of up to an hour, along with two additional 15-minute breaks, though some smokers in the group take more.

So that post about North Carolina state law about breaks, although interesting for a discussion on labor laws, isn't exactly relevant to this discussion since it appears that even the workers are saying they do get their breaks and lunches.

I have no idea if 40-45 minutes is enough to process a file. It might be, it might not be. They probably actually get closer to 35-38 minutes per file when you assume that they are problem losing 10-15 minutes a day for meetings/management supervision discussions.

I am not arguing that this job doesn't suck. I am not arguing that the banks aren't skirting legal regulations with unqualified people.

What I am saying is that the article blames what I call effective management technique as being part of the problem. It says that smokers are taking more than just the 15 minute breaks, so it's not like they are chaining people to their desks. I don't think its unreasonable to expect that if you are getting paid for 8 hours of work, you do 7.5 hours of work (plus you get a 30 minute paid break). You want to talk about your weekend? Do it on your break. You want to post on facebook? Do it on your lunch hour. You want to buy breakfast? Do it before you arrive at work. When you are getting paid, do your work.


The article makes the claim that 10-11 files seems to be an unreasonable workload, but then doesn't come back and say what might be reasonable.

I am betting that 10-11 is probably slightly unreasonable because out of that 7.5 hours per day, you have to back out time for meetings, management supervision discussions, etc. It's probably closer to 7 hours per day of actual work time if they are closely managing their people. So less than 40 minutes per file might be unreasonable for some, possibly most, maybe all of the files. I have never done a timing study on foreclosure processing to know for sure.

 

Based on the legal requirements to verify everything in the file, search for any other alternatives -- and I believe in some places there's a requirement to physically inspect the property -- nobody should be able to handle more than one case a day, if that.

 

If simple details such as who owns the loan are messed up, it's obvious 10-11 files is unreasonable.

 

Yes but what percent of the files have messed up ownership? 5%? 10%? 40%? 50%? 90%? That's a huge unknown. How long do the hard cases take? 1 hour? 5 hours?

And if the ownership is clear, then maybe 40 minutes is too long. Maybe you only need 20 minutes.

So what's the breakdown of hard vs easy? Before anyone can say if 10-11 is reasonable or not, you have to know that detailed level of analysis.

 

There were two instances in the article in which the manager said no meal breaks in an e-mail. One was to say "No breakfast", and the other was for the Saturday shift, which was "Six hours, and no lunch."

Not to mention, the "No socializing" edict. This ain't a Chinese sweatshop. Nothing wrong with taking a minute to chat with your neighbor (Of course, this can and is abused). It's the cost of doing business. And if anything, it helps your business if your employees are happy. As noted earlier, there's a huge cost to a business when turnover is high.

So yes, the break discussion is relevant.

 

This is familiar refrain of the picayune arguments constantly made by a handful of people on this board. Total micrology. Yes, by all means, let us bicker over smoke breaks.

Let me cut to this chase and be firmly rude in the process: I have little doubt that most of these employees suck. <i>By design.</i> Shitty employees don't ask the kind of questions that would immediately slow this process down to 1-2 files per day. Shitty employees don't appreciate the magnitude of a foreclosure. Shitty employees cut corners for the sake of volume for years on end because they need the paycheck worse than they need to be morally upright. The current American banking system <i>depends on them sucking</i>. It depends on rotten, rude call centers. It depends on inflexible, clueless tellers that lack straight answers, the better to ward off good questions. The minute you start doing the job <i>well</i> is the minute you're a threat to the profit of the company.

Good employees either exhaust themselves railing against such nonsense or they never apply in the first place. Any reasonably intelligent person knows it's a scam, naming entry-level employees VPs as a means of skirting oversight and putting the managers in a place of plausible deniability. Bickering over whether people know how to "sit down and shut up" overlooks the larger question of: What business runs like this unless it's as crooked as a dog's hind leg?

 

It's a simple case of if a company like Wells Fargo wanted good employees, a company that size has the resources to hire good employees. Those choice cut into profit margins, which is why nothing changes unless those crappy employees start affecting the bottom line.

 

There is a legal obligation to exhaust all other means of resolving the matter and have a bank officer personally sign off on the loans. Have you ever bought a house? It takes hours to read through the lending papers for one loan.

You have no idea what you're talking about on any portion of this thread.