‘An assembly line in the head’: work and employee relations in the call centre

Abstract

To date, academic studies of the call centre ‘sector’ remain limited in scope. Here the authors attempt to remedy that omission by analysing the recent and spectacular growth of call centres in the UK, drawing on a wide variety of sources, including two extensive surveys of developments in Scotland during 1997.

Exploring employee retention and intention to leave within a call centre

“…Management within the call centres is seen to have power, which is closely linked with that of Taylorism (Taylor & Bain, 1999). With an increase in managerial power, their work is often fragmented by extensive monitoring and controlling of agents through the use of technology, whilst defining practices that may enhance employee well-being and customer satisfaction (Neely, Bourne & Kennerly, 2003).…”

Strategic segmentation in front-line services: matching customers, employees and human resource systems

“…Call centers are a useful setting to examine high involvement practices because these offices have come to be viewed as proto-typical "white collar factories" of the 21 st century. Recent research suggests that there is wide variation in work organization and human resource practices (e.g., Batt and Keefe, 1999;), from highly routinized mass production enterprises (e.g., Greenbaum, 1995;Taylor and Bain, 1999;Fernie and Metcalf, 2000) to skilled and entrepreneurial environments (Herzenberg, et. al., 1998;Frenkel et.…”

NHS Direct: managing demand for primary care?

“…This was especially true for the call handlers (now renamed Information Advisors) who found the emotional aspects of the work challenging (Taylor 1999;Mark & Shepherd 2001).…”