I always intended to retire upon reaching 60 years of age as I already get an occupational pension and to continue through to state pension age kind of defeats the object of having it.
In September this year there are several major changes being made at work. Currently we have 10 call handling centres, from 9 September 2013 these will be replaced by 2, one at West Bromwich and the other at Lloyd House, Birmingham City Centre. Neither of these locations have car parking facilities.
A new 5 week shift pattern will be introduced which includes shifts such as 0700-1700 : 1700-0200 : 1100-2000 plus various others, none of which appear to be very "social." Rigid rules will be introduced including no mobile phones, ipads, cups of tea etc. at the workstations, plus it even sounds like you will have to ask permission to use the toilet.
The above relates to what are termed level 2 operators. I am officially a level 3 operator which deals with the dispatching of resources and subsequent incident management, such as calling out partner agencies and ensuring that a job is fully completed before closure. For several months now I have not worked on the dispatching of resources side of things due to slight hearing problems and so have been restricted to the other aspects of that level 3 role.
From the inception of the 2 new call centres, all level 3 operators must be able to do all the level 3 roles. In view of this my supervisors asked if I wanted to downgrade to level 2 so that I could apply for a position in the new call centres. All the existing level 2 call centre staff have to apply, this is due to a play on words. Management state that this is not a transfer but their old job will no longer exist and this is a new role (The question was raised "Isn't this redundancy!"). The workforce take a different view that this is a way to bring in a new shift pattern, pay and conditions, especially in view of the fact they will be operating the same computers, completing the same forms/reports. Speaking to the same members of society and giving the same advice they have always done.
From my own position it would seem more prudent to simply retire 6 months earlier than planned. Not only due to the changes at work, but also with the 3 granddaughters all less than a year old, myself and Gail will be in a better position to help out as and when needed.