DWP work coach

Does anyone know what's the shift pattern for DWP work coach and do you get to work from home in a work coach role?

I was recently employed in a Work Coach role. There is zero scope for working from home at my Job Centre and I expect this is a national picture - even online training courses and self development activities had to take place in the office.

90% of appointments with customers are face to face with the remaining by phone or video with the latter still taking place from the office.

If WFH is important to you, do not accept this job, get one in a DWP service centre or another branch of the Civil Service.

The only time I was offered WFH was when I was on sick leave (I was called every single day of my sick leave). My manager had the gall to say 'Is there work you can do from home while you are on sick leave?'.!

Shift patterns were pretty much focussed on 9-5 for most WCs. We were also expected to be at our desks by 08.45 for regular meetings.

Management have targets for the number of WCs in the office at 9am starts and 5pm finishes (perhaps just in my locale, not sure) .

In particular, (not sure it is just at my JCP), they were very much disinclined for their part time staff to take Mondays and Fridays off or finish early on those days.

They did not want more than a couple of WCs starting at 8am before our doors opened as they want to stuff the maximum number of back to back appointments in our diaries - opening hours for customers in our JCP are 9 to 5.

They were extremely resistant at staff accruing flexi time.

We were only permitted to take 3 days off at xmas (either before 25th Dec, between Xmas and new year or around new year) and would tell us in November which period we were permitted (this happened in another CS branch I worked in so may be pretty common).

In my JCP (not sure if it is national), we had to book our annual leave a year in advance. You could ask for time off inside that period if something cropped up but had to make a case for it.

Our job centre was shut on Saturdays but many are open and it looked like ours would be opening up at the weekends soon.

Our locally specific late night was a weekly one where we closed at 6.30 but the WCs only had to do this once a month or so.

Before I joined, my manager refused my part time request for a day off per week and made me work my 30 hours over 5 days. I hoped to work from 9 to 3 Mon to Fri.

Upon joining, I found all my part time work colleagues had a whole day or two off per week.

I was then required to start late mornings up to 3 times per week and in particular on Mondays and Fridays so my manager could hit the target for 5pm finishes.

Seemed my work life balance was sacrificed for a target. Starting work at 10.30 or 12.00 every other day was pretty sh*tty for me.

Unfortunately it was also compounded by having virtually no admin time to complete tasks that I could not cover because of back to back appointments. I struggled to take my full lunch break and never managed a single tea break.

I routinely had to come in early and stay late to do customer related admin and try to keep up to date with the teams messages and emails I was bombarded with.

I could have had an easier time of it in terms of time management by adopting the 'tick and turn' mentality (i.e. Just marking the customer as attended and offering them the minimal help that didn't generate much admin work) but that's not my style.

Thank you for your detailed answer. I can see it wasn't a really pleasant experience for you. If you get offered a job in work and healty services what does that mean? Is it still WC role?