Cigna's call center employees have demanded the company improve its working conditions, The Guardian reported Aug. 3.
Grievances have included lack of training, refusal to lift a pay-raise freeze, constant harassment to meet metrics, fears of being terminated and slow processing times for members seeking reimbursement for COVID-19 testing.
"Customer management requires us to handle phone calls within a specific amount of time," a Cigna call representative told the publication. "The numbers are hardcore. They're constantly on you about them and to me, that doesn’t really meet the customers' needs. The phone call metrics could go down if customer service advocates were trained better and we had better resources."
Employees started an online petition several months ago to challenge the payer's working conditions. Its human resources department responded by holding focus groups, but nothing changed, employees told The Guardian.
A Cigna spokesperson said in an email to the publication: "Cigna takes all feedback seriously, including external petitions such as this one. We have a wide range of tools to ensure our employees' voices are heard. We regularly survey all employees covering topics like workload, conditions, and stress, host town halls, conduct focus groups, and actively encourage our managers to have open and honest discussions with their teams about how we can better support our colleagues. We're proud of the culture we've created, but know there's always room to improve, so appreciate all feedback we receive."
Becker's has reached out to Cigna for comment and will update this story when more information becomes available.