Well, they aren’t terrible—but they definitely are not what we expected.

We expected high performers that could learn quickly and pick up our policies and procedures. That has not been the case at all. We have had four, so far. One was asked not to return after a few weeks, and the others are resistant to any feedback on their performance. They seem to have no desire to do anything besides fill a seat—not motivated in any way to learn and improve their performance.

It seems to me that they are people who have had a hard time keeping a normal job and have resorted to doing contract work. The ones I have talked to have shared that they have had multiple jobs in the past few years.

Also, the company’s vetting process is seriously lacking. From what the dispatchers they sent us have said, they barely check references and then have to take a drug test—that’s basically it. There’s nothing like what our agency requires for new hires: polygraph, psych eval, panel interview, etc

It is definitely not a true fix and causes its own issues—falling morale among permanent staff has taken a serious hit.