Introduction:
Fleming and Sturdy (2011) describe the managerial regime in a call centre. Please read their case description closely.
Electronic panopticons:
In an article by Fleming and Sturdy Call centres are presented as (electronic) panopticons among other creative names like “assembly lines in the head,” “human answering machines” and “bright, satanic offices” terms all borrowed from other writers. . “According to Fernie and Metcalf who used the term “panopticons’, call centre employment is micro-managed and highly monitored whereby coercive performance systems blend with electronic surveillance to form an ‘electronic panopticon’ . In this situation employees are under constant electronic surveillance. Every word spoken, every gesture made is recorded by one or more electronic device. Both sides of all telephone conversations are recorded, monitored and subject to review for quality control. The routine can be mind numbing. The environment has been likened to a deadening manufacturing line and the staff to battery hens confined to cubicles. . Staff must follow a set of rules and scripts, their interactions, even with difficult customers must remain bright and cheerful in what has been described as a “customer-oriented bureaucracy” where employees are expected to have a “low discretion, high commitment combination.” . Often employees will be responding to customer callers from a variety of different client companies, each with its own script, set of problems and expected call length.
Bureaucratic organizations
This call centre operates under ‘rational-bureaucratic control’ with ‘humanistic-normative control’ influences. The work activity in a call centre is mind numbing routine. Employees must use scripts, customers are not always in the best frame of mind and quality control is so strict that it can be likened to a being a “battery hen”, cooped up and kept purely for their functionality. This is definitely under the umbrella of rational-bureaucratic control. There is virtually nothing humanistic about this level of supervision. Unfortunately, these standards must be met in order to comply with the needs of the various client companies. Their customers call in with problems, usually the same problems over and over again, and all of them must be serviced in exactly the same way. There is just no escaping this and it is a good part of the reason why most of the industry suffers a 29% employee turn over rate.
Application of theories
The analysis of a call centre as primarily under ‘rational-bureaucratic control’ with ‘humanistic-normative control’ influences complies with the essential ideas of Frederick Taylor, Douglas McGregor and Gideon Kunda. In brief, these theories all deal with management culture and control.
- Taylor’s Scientific Management,
Taylor was one of the first scientific management theorists. He was a proponent of simplifying and optimizing jobs and fostering a spirit of cooperation between management and employees. .
- McGregor’s ‘theory X/Y’,
X/Y Theory is based upon two conflicting assumptions about employees. Theory X assumes that employees dislike working and need an authoritarian style of management to force them to do things. Theory X postulates that employees do enjoy working, are self-motivated and thrive on responsibility. .
- Kunda’s ideas on ‘engineering culture’
Gideon Kunda sees “Culture” as a management tool, valuable in that it is a vehicle for the “coding and dissemination of the dominant symbolic power or values in an organization,” . He sees culture as an alternative to the rational-legal bureaucratic authoritative management systems that typified earlier management systems and as an alternative to task control and conformity.
“Sunray,” the call centre that is subject of this study, attempts to break from this atmosphere by encouraging employees to express their individuality in other ways. They aim to inject a spirit of fun into what is otherwise an “extremely mechanized and routinized environment” (Fleming & Sturdy, 2010). The training manual is quoted as saying
“Forget lone rangers – at Sunray we have free-rangers! It’s hard to have fun when you’re confined to a workstation like a battery hen, so we encourage you to enjoy the freedom and latitude you need in order to fulfil your obligations to Sunray. (Training manual)” (Fleming & Sturdy, 2010).
However, even with this focus on corporate culture, the call centre still is a tightly controlled bureaucratic entity where even participation in freedom of expression and social networking is strictly enforced.
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