EDD Call Monitoring Implementation Update

As part of an ongoing process of enhancing the work of their Contact Centers, EDD will be implementing the second phase – call monitoring – beginning August 31st for employees working on their VCC system in their Tax, Disability Insurance, and Unemployment Insurance branches.

Our Union team met with EDD on this issue on August 19, 2021, to lift up concerns about how this implementation may impact our employees performing these duties and to get some additional information about how this monitoring process will work.

The Department’s stated purpose for implementing call monitoring is that call monitoring will be used as an additional tool for coaching and training on knowledge, skills, and abilities. One of the first and most important pieces of information that we learned is that, at this time, monitoring will only be done for live calls. No call or screen recording will be used for now. Employees who have calls monitored separately from a regular performance review will be chosen based either on a trend of performance concerns with circumstances taken into account or in the event of a complaint about service that has been deemed valid. 

We also learned that all employees in the three effected branches, whether rank-and-file or management, will receive training on the process including employee expectations and duties. Employees will receive paperwork on these expectations and duties at or before the training.  Our team strongly encouraged that all employees receive this information prior to their formal training.

We were disappointed to learn that the Department does not intend to notice employees prior to their live calls being monitored. We told the Department that we disagreed with this practice and have also received conflicting information from local management about whether employees will be noticed before a call is monitored. We are seeking additional information and will keep employees updated when we receive clarification.

We also expressed concern about the Department’s plans to hire a new team of analysts to perform call monitoring evaluations in UI, noting that these evaluators may not have any context about the work being done and therefore are not the best equipped to analyze whether an employee is addressing a client’s issue properly.

Our team left the meeting dissatisfied with the Department’s determination to implement this monitoring. The team is looking into strategies on additional ways to support our impacted members and push back on aspects of this process overall.

This implementation is part of a much longer process.  We will continue to work with the Department and meet as necessary regarding concerns that arise in the implementation process and the later phases of the Contact Center enhancement.

We encourage impacted employees to share information and concerns during the implementation process. Please direct your comments to your Bargaining Unit Chairs directly or through our Member Resource Center (MRC) at 866.471.SEIU (7348).