Kelly Communications

[DLM2310]

In my very own personal opinion

Look very carefully at the job before you accept it, is self-employment really for you?

Pay is more often that not lower than your initial expectations in my experience (feel free to refer to my post in July)
The offer is a minimum 4 jobs a day but not guaranteed to be 4*£25 type jobs per day, some jobs such as commercial are not payable to domestic engineers for example in some companies, not sure how this works in this company - might be worth asking the question on how many £25 jobs you will be given the opportunity to attend on a daily basis based on other engineers work loads or if a commercial job is put on your job list, will you still get the £10 or £15 where you are not able to complete the job and vice versa
Locations of work in my personal experience are generally over an hours drive from your home town
Employed on a self-employed basis (have a look very closely at this), do you have a signed contract, have you got any part of the offer in writing?
Don't forget that you are responsible for your self-assessment which you will have to either complete yourself or pay for an accountant to complete for you - might be worth asking what else you are liable for in terms of expenses and/or materials if anything
If you don't work you don't get paid but you will still have to pay the full account administration charge of £32 they are charging you, how much would an accountant cost you to do your tax and NI - you will be shelling out £832 a year (£64 per month) for just your tax & NI to be administered through them? Does that administration charge include pension administration and/or self assessment assitance?
Check out your notice period too, you are expected to give a minimum of 2 weeks notice if you want to leave from my recollection

I would spend some serious time looking at this and in my own personal opinion consider potential alternative options, we paid the £500 training back as we worked out we were better off paying for my partner to be able to leave which speaks volumes in itself.

D

[Doorlock]

Originally Posted by Brett_p

hi. i went for the interview on thursday (3rd) and he told me that i will be paye. i will also get a diesel card, mobile phone and van and my salary will be £24,000pa. on average i will have to do 4 installs. sounds gravy to me . any 1 know what to expect from the weeks training i have to do?

Brett P

You now get 2 weeks training which has been condensed down from what BT get 6 weeks. You get promised food allowance of £10 per evening at the hotel but this you have to pay yourself and then you should get this paid back into your fortnightly wages, to date this has not been paid and I have worked for Kelly's for a few months now, I have also been informed that this £10 daily allowance is subject to 20% tax and NI deductions. Whoopee, you get a Transit van, fuel card and a mobile phone which none are available for personal use so hardly a perk. If you can't make it in due to sickness, there's a good chance you will be billed for the van for that day as it's classed as unproductive! You get 0.9% support from your managers. You don't get the correct or at least working equipment to be able to complete your daily duties. The wages are outsourced to an external company for which your pay is deducted £25 per fortnight for the privilege of being paid what you have worked hard for. If the quality checker fails any of your work, there is a huge chance you don't get paid for it and it could be for something pathetic. You could complete 90% of the job and then find that you can't complete it due to something beyond your control so you won't get paid for that particular job!

In a nutshell, don't work for Kelly's! They are the most unprofessionally ran outfit I have ever come across and I won't be there for too much longer. Get a driving job for Asda, the pay will be better!

[islandhouse]

I have worked for Kelly Communications twice now.
What you need to realise is that you are self employed , so there will be no baby sitting or mummy cuddling.
You are trained to do a job , a job which can be a little bit head scratching at times and hard work at other times.
If you complete a job you are paid in full , if you partially complete a job , which only happens to me say twice a week you get a reduced payment , which compared to the times i walk into a house and plug the phone in and its working is fine by me.
My wages have never been wrong , if i have been of for a hospital appointment or something similar i have never been charged a penny.
You are paid through an umbrella company and they charge as you say , and then at the end of the financial year you get a tax return which is normally over £1000 for the year.
I take home on average about £1150 a fortnight , which for a guy with no formal qualifications is great that's £30000 a year gross plus tax back , if you could all do better why would you even look at such a job.

[islandhouse]

Sorry i mean't £1000 a fortnight take home often more if i put the effort in which is about £32500 a year gross and get £1000+ tax back.

[YouStartedIt]

Originally Posted by DLM2310

I know this is an old thread but please read and take note:

I cannot stress enough as a partner of an ex-Kelly Communications/Fault Finder Engineer -and this is very much my own personal opinion from my perspective of this company.........

DO NOT WORK FOR THIS COMPANY, IF YOU VALUE YOU'RE SKILLS, ABILITY, SELF-ESTEEM AND FAMILY/PERSONAL TIME

My partner was paid on average less a week than I was paid per day, in fact I can't remember any given week he earned more in a week than I earned in a day (ok so I am on a good daily rate but really.....he has far more technical qualifications and experience than me)

They sent him everywhere but the area where he lived, he worked no more than 3 weeks out of 7 months anywhere close to where we live and he has never had a job in the city we live in hmmmmmmm.

On his last day they couldn't have got him further from home if they tried apart from maybe sending him to Scotland which just goes to show as far as I can see the mentality of the company (my personal opinion). On his second from last day, they didn't give him any work at all, I can only guess that was suppose to be some glitchy-ish thingy (probably an IT thingy thing) hmmmmmmm

They would drop early morning meetings on him at the last minute and disrupt my early morning pre-arranged, pre-planned, well organised (some of us can plan more than 12 hours in advance) meetings and we have a child where childcare and drop off had to be arranged in advance.

His training was at best basic and he had no real on-going mentoring.

I would never have taken the communications from my managers that I saw come through from his and I work in a very male dominated industry but I have yet to have a manager speak to me in the context he received that I saw.

I have a son who is of army joining age and quite honestly (and you will not very often if ever hear a loving, committed and doting mother say this), I would rather he joined the army and fought on the front line in The Helmand Province than work for this company and that is my very honest heartfelt personal opinion, at least he would have a decent wage in comparison, some respect for his skills and role, decent training, relevant equipment and some self-respect.

Anyway, that's my opinion, take on-board what you will but this is my own personal opinion based on what I have seen, heard and lived. I begged my partner to give his job up and he didn't put up much of a fight about it, says alot in itself. I have even offered to pay any and all of his costs that he is required to pay such a training costs etc so that he can leave the company, that is how unhappy I am/was with him working for the company.

I actually worked out that he would take home more net earnings a week if he worked in a local shop on minimum wage between 9am - 3pm and I paid him £4.00 per hour childcare fees that I pay to our childminder (£95 per week).

I wish I'd seen this 10 days ago. I've just come off one of their courses and wish I hadn't bothered.

1) Originally I was told it was £40 a job only to discover its £25 when I get there. No guarantees of how many jobs were mentioned. + other were saying you'll end up work 12-13 hours a day!!

2) HR wouldn't put anything in writing despite asking twice. The only thing they put in writing was the course info ( where / when and how long for and they even got that wrong )

3) Zero tolerance in drink and drugs. Understandable to a point but it was explain that even the smallest drop detected would result in dismissal. Bear in mind this is a course, we were told if we went to the bar to get a drink we'd be asked to leave!!

4) If you get to a job and you spend a few hours on it and can't rectify it, you get £10( that's would work out to be less than minimum wage )

5) during the course we were shown slides of peoples parking with the course tutor bragging about who he sacked for trivial reasons.

6) They wouldn't answer my questions on parking in the area I live in.

7 You don't work for Kelly you work for some umbrella company called work force. Look like kelly have completely disassociated themselves from the people doing the work.

8 The number of tests you given is bordering on stupid according to the people who fed up with the second week of the course that I spoke to.

9 If you leave with 12 months you owe Kelly communications £500!

10) There's a £1000 insurance excess on damage to the van. YOU PAY THAT!!

11)Your van will be randomly followed. They're waiting for you to not cone you van off or park up a kerb. In parts of London you'll struggle not to.

Not allowed to nip into Tescos with the van. What kind of nonsense is this!!

To be honest the list goes on and on. I only lasted a couple of days before I walked out.
This has to be the *****tiest company I've ever come across. They don't give a flying F about their employees .. sorry slaves.
so I'm really not surprised to hear all the bad stories about $****** service. Its probably because the installer is so naffed off with his job he's passed the attitude over to the customers.

The people I spoke to on the course were there for a JOB not a career. Everyone knew after a couple of hours on day one that this was not a career move it's just a job until they could find something else.

Why BT has given this company a contract is beyond me. I've not heard or read one good about them.

[islandhouse]

I remember the training course well and some most of your comments are true with regards to those 2 weeks , though rarely happen.
Its £25 a job completed £10 partially completed , I can do a full supply of a line including new drop wire in as little as an hour , which is rarely required these days.
It is true the job can be better depending on the area you are in , like most other jobs. I have not worked past 4 pm for a long time now but when I started I did for a few weeks , but you get better and quicker at your job over the first couple of weeks.
My experience with Kelly's has been positive , and as well paid as I am willing to make it , I have been feeling under the weather this week and so not achieved as much as normal but boy will I make up for it next week as that's gonna be my holiday money.
You could try applying for a job direct to Openreach , as they are employing at the moment , the salary is either £17000 or for experienced engineers £19000 which is capped at a max of £26000 in a few years , I constantly achieve £30000 + so its a no brainer for me.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by YouStartedIt

3) Zero tolerance in drink and drugs. Understandable to a point but it was explain that even the smallest drop detected would result in dismissal. Bear in mind this is a course, we were told if we went to the bar to get a drink we'd be asked to leave!!

Understandable "to a point"?!

If someone was coming in to my house to undertake work that involved electrics I wouldn't want him or her have any alcohol in them. OK if they've had mouthwash or something that's different but if they'd nipped to the pub for lunch and had a 'swift' half then I certainly wouldn't be happy with that.

By the way while we have no problem with members discussing their negative or positive experiences as VM contractors please be careful not to post anything libellous.

[islandhouse]

I totally agree , and also climbing poles in the street you need to be on the ball for your own and also the general public's sake.

[YouStartedIt]

Originally Posted by Russ

Understandable "to a point"?!

If someone was coming in to my house to undertake work that involved electrics I wouldn't want him or her have any alcohol in them. OK if they've had mouthwash or something that's different but if they'd nipped to the pub for lunch and had a 'swift' half then I certainly wouldn't be happy with that.

By the way while we have no problem with members discussing their negative or positive experiences as VM contractors please be careful not to post anything libellous.

Figure of speech. I didn't mean it literally. No one should be ****ed, but the instructor implied you'd basically have to change you religion to NEVER having a drink. Whether he meant it like I don't know but it sure as hell had everyone looking at each other.

Even if you have a drink on a Friday and come in on a Monday it can still be detected if you look hard enough.

against their rules. Whatever the rules are it it came across that way. NOTHING!!!!
especially when it was enforced that if we have a drink at the bar we'd be off the course. I rarely drink by the way.
It wasn't a good way to start.

I couldn't take the job because I know I'd lose it within days with the van be broken into round here ( it's rough around here !! ) and where and how I'd have to park it. It goes


If me and the other all got it wrong then they need better instructors and to be more upfront with job spec so no one wastes their time.
I'm going to try for Openreach and Mcnicholls who have the southern contract for virgin. I've come from a Networking background so shouldn't have any problems with this sort of work. I'm just disappointed at what I've seen and heard. I really can't see the problem in at least warning people with a what to expect honest job specification. It's not much to ask for.

[islandhouse]

You are right that the company spends a little to much time stressing the negatives of what will happen if things are not done as they wish , but they do over stress the rules , it is not that strict at all , do your job , stay in contact with your sim and no skiving and all is ok.
Good luck with VM or Fujitsu which is the contractor , been there and never ran round so much in my life , now that is long hours to earn decent money.

[YouStartedIt]

Unfortunately Fujitsu only run the North of the country, so I was told. I live in London.

[islandhouse]

I know Fujitsu have the contract for the Midlands as I live here , hope you find what your after though , a lot of time is spent at work so you need to kind off enjoy it LOL

[redbull01]

Originally Posted by YouStartedIt

I wish I'd seen this 10 days ago. I've just come off one of their courses and wish I hadn't bothered.

1) Originally I was told it was £40 a job only to discover its £25 when I get there. No guarantees of how many jobs were mentioned. + other were saying you'll end up work 12-13 hours a day!!

2) HR wouldn't put anything in writing despite asking twice. The only thing they put in writing was the course info ( where / when and how long for and they even got that wrong )

3) Zero tolerance in drink and drugs. Understandable to a point but it was explain that even the smallest drop detected would result in dismissal. Bear in mind this is a course, we were told if we went to the bar to get a drink we'd be asked to leave!!

4) If you get to a job and you spend a few hours on it and can't rectify it, you get £10( that's would work out to be less than minimum wage )

5) during the course we were shown slides of peoples parking with the course tutor bragging about who he sacked for trivial reasons.

6) They wouldn't answer my questions on parking in the area I live in.

7 You don't work for Kelly you work for some umbrella company called work force. Look like kelly have completely disassociated themselves from the people doing the work.

8 The number of tests you given is bordering on stupid according to the people who fed up with the second week of the course that I spoke to.

9 If you leave with 12 months you owe Kelly communications £500!

10) There's a £1000 insurance excess on damage to the van. YOU PAY THAT!!

11)Your van will be randomly followed. They're waiting for you to not cone you van off or park up a kerb. In parts of London you'll struggle not to.

Not allowed to nip into Tescos with the van. What kind of nonsense is this!!

To be honest the list goes on and on. I only lasted a couple of days before I walked out.
This has to be the *****tiest company I've ever come across. They don't give a flying F about their employees .. sorry slaves.
so I'm really not surprised to hear all the bad stories about $****** service. Its probably because the installer is so naffed off with his job he's passed the attitude over to the customers.

The people I spoke to on the course were there for a JOB not a career. Everyone knew after a couple of hours on day one that this was not a career move it's just a job until they could find something else.

Why BT has given this company a contract is beyond me. I've not heard or read one good about them.

I was on the course around the same time as you.............WHERE did you get the "not allowed at the bar" rubbish from? The hotel gave us all two free drinks at one point for having to move us to another hotel for one night and a few of us had a drink one night with the Course assessors!

The number of tests you take is MANDATORY and come direct from BTs requirements..............

You will owe Kellys £500 BUT...........they've paid you £660 to be there training for two weeks PLUS your hotel PLUS the training course....That sounds like a good deal to me! Those accreditations stay with you, its knowledge you will always have......

Van will be randomly followed??????????????? Hahahahahahahahahahaha

Get a grip mate, they've got over 2500 vans, the 'reality' is, if your being a pleb and not using your safety gear, some over zeluss BT auditor or even BT engineer will take pics and send them on.

Yes, you will pay the first £1000 if you damage a van THEY PAID £13,000+ for, if your driving is that bad that you need to worry about if YOU damage their van then its best you didn't take the job.

Your SELF-EMPLOYED, ive been self-employed for the national grid where you get NOTHING! Kellys at least try!

---------- Post added at 21:57 ---------- Previous post was at 21:44 ----------

My Experience,

I did my training in march-2014.

For the training two weeks it was ridiculous, the information was crammed into you and everything was hurried, MOST of the trainers at PQMS were brilliant, I really enjoyed it tbh.

Once I completed the training I was put on buddying for a few weeks, I struggled to get a van, I was on £300 per week whilst buddying which was ok but I wanted to earn my own wage.

The "sim" (local manager) is useless...............I don't know if its the sims themselves or the limit of their positions but DO NOT expect help from your sim very often.

I have been on my self (after a lot of fuss about getting my own van) for 6 weeks now (ish) and have got upto 4/5 full completes per day and im home for between 16:30-18:30

GUYS.............my best advice I can give anyone looking at this is......remember....

A: Your self-employed
B: You MUST have self-drive
C: You need to have some logical thought process in you

****** D: Your hoist guy is your MOST important and valuable tool!!!! Make him your best friend, buy his dinner, get on your knees for him, when you do your full provide and need a new E-Side its the hoist guy you need, if you don't treat him like your best mate he wont help you!

Its not the best job in the world but I really enjoy the freedom and type of job, make your own choice and think about how physical and mentally taxing it can be but also......your ONE task is to get a single pair of wires from the customers house to pole, then get them joined to the cab where your E-Side should be...

Its not rocket science but hey, I couldn't use my laptop until last year lolol so each their own...

[calcot]

I had to pay back 500 quid for a weeks training which was just filling forms (fast track)and climbing a pole ,if you want my advise try BT Openreach online as they are taking on 1600 new engingeers and they will not need Kellys or MJQuinns. Afterall their both ****,I know ive been there

[jscott0507]

Sorry for bringing up an old thread but does anyone know if this sort of job is still recruiting. tried a google search but showing nothing i live in scotland if this make any difference thanks in advance. registered with Bt for the open reach but thought i would try the self employed route if i could.