I don't know about your depts, but in mine if your keyboard or mouse is idle for more than 60 seconds. It is logged in a report called. "Idle time"... this company has more software to watch their employees than they do to help us! But there are ways around them......hehehe
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The mind set on this thread is funny. I love the creativity, old watches and oscillating fans, that type of mindset is why you work for Optum/UHG and will continue.
And yes executives, leadership and managers are all people too they learn from this site. Hopefully they also read what happened to Google by outsourcing, it’s no longer the great brain trust.
What in the hell is this tracking tool you are discussing? So you have a job that is tied somehow to key strokes on your computer to prove you are doing work? Sorry just trying to understand how that is used to track how actually productive you are. Couldn't you just open word and turn on text to speak, turn on radio and set a speaker next to your mic and let it type away ? Or use a occilating fan that does variable speed, wrap your mouse cord around and let it drag mouse around? Or take a old watch and set the mouse on top?
What are the ways around them?
If you want to work your behind off then do so. For those who don’t, so be it. Who cares. Both will be laid off by the same scripted message. Hopefully that makes you feel better.
Wow. Just wow. Do you honestly lack integrity enough to purchase a vibrating mouse pad? I fret over layoffs. I work my rear off. We use Omega but my manager honestly doesn’t look or really with it. One co worker logs in and does nothing. Yet she remains. Just waiting for our layoffs and I’m sure I will be gone and she will keep on being slack. Pay me for 8 hours and I give 8 hours. How my momma raised me. Ethical. Lay me off then it’s their loss. Meanwhile I wait for our department to be hit. Preparing myself financially as best as I can. If they lay off me, then have fun with the ones you keep if they are ones who try to beat the system. Then watch the productivity plummet. What goes around comes around. I do my best. I prepare for possible lay off. Remain grateful to be employed as I need my job and thankful to have a benefit of working from home.
Just switch letters around...Optum is um,pot. Yes it’s gone to pot!
In all my time there I did everything right yet was still let go. So what if they want to be lazy who are still there. I dunno it just doesn’t strike me as important really. How about just being concerned with yourself and stop worrying what others are doing? Only God will judge them, it’s on them. Many at Optum always overconcern themselves in controlling others. Maybe no one is not working maybe they all are working hard and just saying they are not. Or maybe no one is working because they know it doesn’t matter in the end what they do. Why such fuss? They Choose happiness and so relax you guys..:)
If you are worried about recordings while not on call, just mute your headset when not on calls, all good!
A lot of good people lost their livelihoods recently, right before Christmas
I’m not in management and you all can vote my reply all the way to the gutter but it sickens me some really good people are looking for work at the holidays to provide for their families yet others who work for this company are looking for ways to game the system and not work. It’s just sickening to me. I don’t agree with the company all the time either but I’m not going to slack at my job and make our members suffer through delays either. If you hate the job that much quit and if you are playing these game and get laid off you get what you deserve. No one is chained to their desk, yes people can get up and use the restroom or get a cup off coffee. Problem with a lot of the people that claim to be chained to their desk isn’t that. The problem I hear bragged about is they work from home so they are doing laundry, cooking, cleaning etc and they wonder why the company put monitoring software on all of us. Seriously people I hate the monitoring too but it’s the abusers that ruined it for us all and why should the company pay people to not work.
Management has been audio recording even when you’re not on a call. They can deny it but they know it’s true.
@12rA8jKX-4kzn You're really not fooling management with this tip. All it takes is for them to get suspicious, request call detail records for a period of time (months to a full year), and spend a few minutes looking at what numbers you have called the most. They will start to figure out the non-work calls quickly. I've seen it happen and watched people get terminated for it. They also have call recording software that allows them to record and listen live to any calls. They know people pad their call counts and talk time. Please don't take this as defending management, but simply throwing caution out there for others that may want to try this. You may get away with it or have been for a long time, but rest assured, they are aware of what people do. You're not the first to do this and you won't be the last.
Mouse agitators inquiry. Packaging states it shows to be a wireless mouse. Can UHC IT tell it’s actually an agitator? I know a few in my department that use them. Worried for them.
Bottom line is "you get what you give".. uhc has been giving their workers sh– for years and now workers are giving it back! And payback is a b–ch. Upper management is a joke, most if not all have never done our jobs, and couldn't if they tried. They go to meetings all day and talk about "numbers " they produce NOTHING.. uhc gives its employees the worst health plans they offer, every year the price goes up and benefits go down. They have more programs on our computers that watch us, than they have that help us do our jobs. The yearly compensation increases are laughable! The metrics are just barely achievable, because there's some slack jawed well paid id–t that has never done your job looking at some damn report telling you how fast to do your job. HR is a joke, just go ahead and try to call HR and report the abuse of power...lol...go ahead. Now that is a waste of time! The people that are on this board telling people to just work and get along etc... are the problem as much as management... do you think unions would have ever started if the workers were like you? If so, we would still have child labor and deadly working conditions and no unions... so, if you "valued" uhc employees love your job, good for you! but dont bash us that dont
@12rA8jKX-5qoz - Reading is fundamental. The poster said "an unemployment dispute board". Not UHC. AKA UHC would have to dispute said person from obtaining unemployment, and the lack of progressive CAP would fall in the former employees favor, not UHC/HR. At will employment has nothing to do with whether or not someone can receive unemployment when they are fired for performance. The employer has to show they tried to help the employee perform. In the below, lack of documentation would not support that.
i dunno i just don’t believe them. there just is too much work to do and if callouts being made by staff all day to home or friends it would be recorded calls so likely that person is actually in fact working but saying they take breaks to call home or friends. I just think it would be too obvious if things like your work wasn’t getting done... people who work here are smart. they would not do that I really don’t think so
To the person who said the immediate firing wouldn't hold up to an hr dispute - its an at-will employment. Theirs as well as yours. They can term you at any time. Cap/warning is not a requirement to terminate. I highly doubt they didn't have proof.
We are talking some unethical b—s— here. Talking to friends instead of patient outreach... you know... your JOB... you can talk all the c-ap you want about corporate greed but you deserve to be fired. Seriously. People here p-ss-d at the job and yet you all are doing some shady sh– an wondering why there are layoffs. JFC
@12rA8jKX-4cfb Seconding that. It was an absolutely horrendous unit.
My way to pass the time is old school. I read books...
I’m in my 70s and have been here for ages. Hope I don’t face lay-off soon but I’m definitely old. Can’t hide that anymore!
Ok here is my tip I’ll offer you- I call my friends and family. It appears like call outs. It’s helps the day pass..and boy am I good with long talk times it shows I’m really “helping members” lol
high fives! fist bumps! i also agree. now that licensed professional counselors are disengaged the company is in trouble. we can just sit around and pre-record “I’m so sorry you feel that way” and just put it on repeat. staff from other companies are helping us and teaching us other tricks such as calling clients when you know they won’t answer just to keep up with caseloads. all I know is no one cares anymore...just shrugging my shoulders... oh well!
agreed. Stay and milk the cow
because of the strict rules it and such slight possibly meaning staying or going it’s not a matter of not working. everyone I know works. but people are willing to have a competitive advantage with devices on the spare moments they aren’t making mouse move because that could mean difference between staying or being kicked out. after a long stay at a company, the idea of staying here is bad but the idea of leaving for unemployment seems worse. so this place forces you to find work arounds so your metrics are perfect and you bypass harassment from your supervisor. Of course we don’t expect the company to care about us or our employment. they used to. but now it is very much about survival. so we do what we can to stay employed. for years we haven’t liked our job but we aren’t offered anything better and we don’t have time or motivation to learn anything else. this place s—s our life from us. so pretty soon with more layoffs the world will figure out many of us are burned out. in that case, if you are reaching burnout, go see pcp. I’d prefer disability to lay-off but both may come
I mean you could just actually work. Probably lower level employee that has no motivation. Go get a job at the mall.
I was told my idle time was too high. Constantly moved my mouse and was told my idle time was too low. No gizmo used. After some idle time, my supervisor would reach out to me by Jabber. Omega was fun, too. C & S was the absolute worse dept I have ever worked in.
comments are being deleted here FYI. Someone in HR was griping at someone drinking and not working I believe. It was three staff who are using the mouse and it worked for them only working an hour. The management or HR person was all upset but all other staff were calm in their comments. I think we should just keep posting. Any other tips?
I would like to know how management fired two people and skipped CAP based upon low idle time. If they were meeting/exceeding VPH and nothing was plugged into their PC's, that wouldn't hold up in an unemployment dispute board. I think either the poster ( @12rA8jKX-1cfe) is telling stories or the employees had something on their PC's to alert management to the work around.
lol dumb mgmt. Bring it up on the next town hall with your other BS. Shareholders are concerned about the vibrating mouse and watch tricks going on in the company.
The day NICE was installed on my PC a coworker told me to put a wind up mans watch under my mouse when I got up. Has worked ever since.
OMG I love this site!! I love Optum And UHG employees who figure out how to beat the system, and I even love the Optum and UHG employees who stop working after having worked hard and now are not giving a F and especially have always wanted to be the type who could care less and don’t work at all- such boldness and it’s great! You do you boo. I can relate to all of those depending how the company is screwing us that particular week.
You might want to deviate from your " Just sayin'" to show yer the same management troll. Then again mgmt at UHG has never been very bright.. lol. I suggest you run to the WFM people and demand the slap cameras on everyone, since it's impossible to track anything not connected to a work PC.. and also against HE policy to skip CAP's unless its falsifying timecards etc.
@12rA8jKX-1cfe - Got away with it for 2 years. Works for me! :)
If you want taking a pee held against you, then you're part of the problem. Just shut up. Company is canning people left and right and you folks are whining over employees gaming the system. Take a seat and shut up.
I'm really disappointed with those scheming to get around the idle metric. It shows a lack of integrity. Companies have a right to monitor however they see fit. It's not fun, but they have the right.
If you WORK, none of this is an issue. Just sayin'
If we want to call out a company for lack of integrity, we should not be throwing stones
No matter where you work, or whether or not you like this company, there is no integrity in not working and trying to cheat a system
Not once did I ever think to look for something like this. I just continued shaking it myself for years leading to a permanent twitch and possibly carpal tunnel. It is a manipulation scare tactic! As long as you are meeting job performance goals then I don’t think you can get fired because I would have been gone already. Definitely not spending a dime towards a shaker at this point!
Just fill a glass with water. Open a word document place glass on keyboard and let it type away while you are doing what ever you want..
That person giving the tip gave the website. Go see for yourself. It’s a vibrating mousepad. It works. Apparently an employed UHC person posted a review with their full name lol. I will buy one soon. Optum micromanaging trolls and such need to be put in their place and this doesn’t bother me a bit. Proud of the IT person who came up with this. Told a few Optum staff about it today because it was news to me, and found out someone came up with their own contraption years ago already! Who knew? This cracks me up at their genius ideas! It’s called survival!! Desperation with impossible systems require desperate measures and solutions :)
If you think you'll get away with a tracking mouse or program or vibrating app, then user beware. I've known 2 employees that were immediately let go without going through all the CAP levels. Just want to warn people that if you work harder trying not to work, you are the reason they continue to layoff U.S. workers and ship them offshore. Just sayin'
That isn't a macro. It doesn't touch your work PC. It's fine to use for idle/locked.