County Did Advertise Both Part Time and Full Time Jobs for Call Center

As a follow up to an article we posted on Sunday, the Employment and Human Services Department from Contra Costa County has provided us with documentation that has highlighted jobs were to be both full-time and part-time positions for the call center.

This documentation, shown below, further disputes a recent Contra Costa Times article by Matthias Gafni that made National news which claimed that half of the Contra Costa call center as a new development (he used the word surface). There was nothing new that surfaced as it had always been the plan from the start to mix part-time with full-time offerings.

The big argument used against the call center were that employees were told a full-time position had been offered only to then be given part-time work.  In speaking to the county, this turned out to be one employee who was mistakenly told they would be a full-time employee but was actually designated for part-time work.

The county did admit this was a mistake and the error was corrected.  They are further correcting their processes going forward according to Kathy Gallagher, Director Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services Department. Gallagher stated that was the only complaint they had.

According to Gallagher, out of 180 call center positions,  only five people rejected the job offer–2 being full-time and 3 being part-time. Out of 7,000 applicants, that’s not bad.

On Sunday, we proved that both the contract and the intention of the Call Center for the Health Benefit Exchange (HBEX) would be employed by 90 full-time workers and 90 part-time workers. In fact, in the Contra Costa County Health Benefit Exchange Frequently Asked Questions document, question number 4 states the following:

4. Q: Are there part time positions available?
A. Yes, there are part time positions available for Exchange Customer Service Agents I& II, and the Exchange Customer Service Supervises.

Here are a couple of the flyers to assist with the recruitment for the positions which netted over 7,000 applicants.

As you can see on the bottom, it states both full-time and part-time jobs are available. Here is a second flyer which was also produced and published to assist with recruitment.

Here is the actual job posting which highlights the job description for Exchange Customer Service Agent 1

While we admit this posting should have been more clear that both part-time and full-time work may offered, they did have an additional questionnaire where applicants were required to complete upon submission of the applications where it stated in Question 7 the following:

7. Which type of employment are you willing to work?

• Permanent Full-Time (Regular scheduled 40-hours per week)
• Permanent Part-time (Regularly scheduled less than 40-hous per week)
• Temporary- Limited Term Employment (A limited period of time, paid on an hourly basis)
• Permanent Intermittent (Irregular, unscheduled employment on an on-call or per diem basis, paid hourly).

As for Exchange Customer Service Agent 2, they are nearly identical with few changes.

Upon submission for this position, folks had to submit a questionnaire which included in question 6 the following:

6. Which type of employment are you willing to work?

• Permanent Full-Time (Regular scheduled 40-hours per week)
• Permanent Part-time (Regularly scheduled less than 40-hous per week)
• Temporary- Limited Term Employment (A limited period of time, paid on an hourly basis)
• Permanent Intermittent (Irregular, unscheduled employment on an on-call or per diem basis, paid hourly).

So essentially, based off the questionnaire, Human Resources at the county could place applicants in positions or not even offer them a position.  There really was no room for any surprises as the Contra Costa Times claims.

According to Kathy Gallagher,  Director, Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services Department, she states that they are aware of  one candidate that was mistakenly old that she would be placed in a full-time job, when actually she had been designated for a permanent intermittent position.

“The one person was told that she was full-time when the position she was slotted in was part-time. We always intended she would be part-time,” explained Gallegher. ” We haven’t had any other complaints. There was some confusion about their status, but can they become full-time and of course they can become full-time later. People can put in their name to move up.”

She further explained they met with the employee and corrected the information and met with the employee on how she can become full-time.  They also went back and revisited processes and how we can be consistant.

Overall, Gallegher is happy with how things went when dealing with 7,000 people and having to pull other folks in from other departments.

“We are happy with how the process and enormity of the task and we are satisfied how its gone. We are going to continue to focus on process and management of process to ensure we have a smooth functioning operation in the future as we move forward. This was a lesson learned and we apply to future hiring,” said Gallegher.

With 7,000+ applications and just a few issues, I’d say the County did pretty well within the timeline allowed to implement. It’s unfortunate that National Media ran with a poorly researched article which gave a black eye to Contra Costa County for a State Run Program for no reason other than lazy reporting.

Again, a part-time job or full-time job, its better than no job! Even better, this call center is a national spotlight for future implementation of health care.

Let’s be thankful that 200+ jobs are now filled in Contra Costa County as opposed to say Central California or Southern California.

Here is an 11-page document which was provided us upon request regarding job announcements and job postings.

PDF: Contra Costa County HBEX Job Announcements

By Michael Burkholder