Under-scrutinized until the late 1990s, call centres have now got significant scholastic consideration. The astounding and managed development of call centres, stretching out far past their starting bases in the financial and telecommunications areas, has bewildered the early scepticism. The competitive advantage for the companies picked up through the combination of phone and VDU advances, giving immediate phone based client services and selling led to widespread of this phenomenon. The growing financial sector has given the UK government's modernising motivation, which expects to guarantee that, by 2002, 25% of its administrations are open electronically.
This case they investigated the truth of the labour processes at the call centres and labour related issues. In this process, it has touched upon civil arguments concerning the way of IT work and the current organisation. The significance to the call centre labour procedure are two ranges of theories in concern. Firstly, and in particular, attention will be provided for the pertinence of Foucauldian 'electronic Panopticon' viewpoints, whose fascination has demonstrated overwhelming to both prevalent commentators (Arkin, 1997) and scholastics (Fernie and Metcalf, 1997) as they have endeavored to theorise the nature and knowledge of call centre work. Also, it makes reference to the idea of 'emotional labour', as expounded at first by Hochschild (1983).
An examination of the labour process which catches the complexities of both that is the ways in which the work is organised and the way it is encountered by specialists will be emulated by an exchange of what are broadly viewed inside the industry as focal issues in the administration of labour relations. In countering excessiv...
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...ilemmas of the call centre workers where the stress of the employees in this industry is very high due to increased surveillance and also high attrition rate in the industry because of the lack of opportunities there. The majority problem lies in the working of the call centres that causes more stress and lower opportunities to grow in this sector. This has led to increase in the resistance of the employees and more trade unions are being made to help out the employees.
WORD COUNT- 1491
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In Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the 20th Century (1974), he discusses the controversial theme of labor and labor power. He also analyzes the degradation of work, which is also shown in Charles Bukowski’s proletarian novel Factotum (1975). Along with these concepts, Braverman develops the boss/worker antagonism, which directly relates to Bukowski’s representation of the compilation of such degrading jobs.
In addition, One.Tel had low complexity that is determined by having unclear job tasks and responsibilities. As there is no organizational chart, the relationship between the employees could not be determined and the job descriptions were ambiguous. Understaffing, which often happens, and many called from customers were left unanswered, led to the long-term decline in sales, as there was frustration among the customers. No rules and procedures in handling account and customers complaint shown that One.Tel was lack of formalization in operation. One.Tel also did not run its divisions’ function properly. There was no right procedure in training staff and it recruited young inexperienced staffs. It also had disorganized billing system and financial account.
WorldCom’s network could not directly connect to every possible phone and electronic device in the world. As a result, the company had to utilize third parties to carry some part of their calls. WorldCom would have to lease the facilities of the 3rd parties. These fees were referred to as “line costs.” Line costs accounted for about half of WorldCom’s total expenses. Taking this fact into account, managing line costs was important to WorldCom’s bottom line. WorldCom management met in quarterly line cost meetings. In these meetings management was pressed for line costs reduction ideas. As economic conditions worsened, the search for cost savings became more intense and Ebbers and Sullivan became agitated and raised their voices demanding improved margins” (Zekany, Braun and Warder 104).
Moreover, the company has placed great significance on open and honest communications with the employees on many levels. Even more, leadership expected a plan that would utilize all human assets in a way that would support the organization’s attitude in servicing customers and employees. As such, they found it important to centralize the staffing initiative in order to maintain the unique corporate culture created in the beginning. Every one of these strategies would be focused on centralizing staffing, brining in the best possible employees, and retaining each on a high
Taylor, P. and Bain, P. (2003) 'Call Centre Organizing in Adversity: From Excel to Vertex' in G. Gall (ed.)
Rinehart, James W. The Tyranny of Work: Alienation and The Labour Process, Third Edition. (Toronto: Harcourt Brace & Company, Canada.) 1996.
Fox, Alan (1966), Industrial sociology and Industrial relations. Royal Commission on trade Unions and Employers Association. Research Papers 3, HMSO, London
This is a core area of traditional conflict within the division of labour between distinct skilled groups and between the skilled and the non-skilled (Penn, 1985).
Felstead, Jewson and Walters (2003) conclude that managerial control is directly related to the visibility and presence of employees in the office because it enables managers to ascertain that employees are actually working and enables managers more discretion on how the job is completed and an ease in monitoring the productivity levels of employees. When these control strategies are linked back to managerial prerogative it is easy to see that managers’ discretion is increased because the decisions relating to tasks in the workplace are decided on without consultation with employees or unions. This is because the employment contracts do not establish the details relating to the completion of tasks in the organisation. (Bray, Waring and Cooper, 2011)
Traditional literature in the field of labor relations has focused immensely on its benefit towards the employer and in the process equating it to working rules. This has been so despite the field being expected to cover the process of, labor management, union formation, and collective bargain; all which are anticipated to create a positive employer-employee relationship. This relationship is said to be positive if there exist a balance between employment functions and the rights of the laborer. Also important to note, is that this relation is equally important to the public sector as it is to the private one. Therefore, to ensure a mutually conducive labor environment exists, effective labor management process and inclusive negotiation program should be adopted (Mulve 2006; Walton, 2008).
The theory holds work to be governed by a wide range of formal and informal rules and regulations, which cover everything from recruitment, holidays, performance, wages, hours, and a myriad of other details of employment. It asserts that these rules are what industrial actors try to determine, that their establishment is influenced by the wider environmental context in which the actors operate, and that the actors themselves share an interest in maintaining the processes of negotiation and conflict resolution. On the back of these assertions four elements are held to make up the system of industrial relations rule-making. The first is industrial actors, which consists of employers and their representatives (i.e., employer associations), employees and their representatives (i.e., trade unions), and external agencies with an interest in industrial relations (i.e., government departments and labour courts). The second is the environmental context, which
In Today’s world, the composition and how work is done has massively changed and is still continuing to change. Work is now more complex, more team base, depends greatly on technological and social skills and lastly more mobile and does not depend on geography. Companies are also opting for ways to help their employees perform their duties effectively so that huge profits are realized in the long term .The changes in the workplaces include Reduction in the structure of the hierarchy ,breakdown in the organization boundaries , improved and better management tactics and perspectives and lastly better workplace condition and health to the employees. (Frank Ackerman, Neva R. Goodwin, Laurie Dougherty, Kevin Gallagher, 2001)