Human Resource Management
in the Service Sector
Lectures 4 and 5: Call Centres
Nick Kinnie
Objectives
• Define call centres and understand the reasons for their
growth
• Identify the key characteristics of the nature and
management of call centres
• Analyse their forms of human capital and consider the
implications for HR especially recruitment, selection and
retention
• Examine recent changes in call centres especially the
moves towards outsourcing and off-shoring
• Apply the 4 ID model to gain insights into the nature of
work in call centres
(Refs: Deery and Kinnie, 2004; Korczynski, 2002, Frenkel et al, 1999, Homan, 2004)
Introduction
• Call centres are…
– Fast growing and important sources of employment
– Subject to controversy and attention – customer
service and movement of jobs
• and can be defined as…
–
–
–
–
Dedicated centres engaged in voice-to-voice contact
CSRs interact directly with customers
Involve use of sophisticated computer based systems
Monitoring the pace and quality of their work
Call centre images….
• They can be found in…
– Private sector – customer service, sales and
telemarketing
– Public sector – information, advice and support
• In different locations…
– In-house
– Outsourced
– Off-shored
• And involve…
– In-bound and outbound work
Why have they grown?
Pressures on call centres
Product market Customers and clients
Call
centre
Financial success –
short and long term
(Maister, 2003)
Employment market –
needs of employees
Nature of call centre work:
contrasting views
• ‘Assembly line in the head’ (Taylor and
Bain, 1999)
– Engineering/manufacturing model dominates
– Jobs are divided up into small tasks which are
repeated
– Technology exerts a powerful influence
especially in allocating work
– Work is tightly controlled and routinised – use
of scripts
Manufacturing model
– Target setting, monitoring, measurement and
feedback of both quantitative and qualitative
(customer based) criteria
– Aim is to reduce skill level, improve efficiency
and simplify procedures
– Leads to low skill, low pay jobs with few
career prospects
Critiques of the engineering model
• Employees are the key point of contact –
voice of the firm and quality of their service
is critical
• Employees often need to exercise some
discretion and be able to draw on variety
of knowledge and skills
• Customer involvement always leads to
some element of unpredictability
• (Frenkel, 1999)
Service model
• Firms use a series of HRM techniques in
order to manage their employees
– Careful recruitment and selective employment
– Attention to training and development –
especially coaching
– Sensitive performance management paying
attention to employee needs
– Pay systems which are consistent with aims
of the business
Contradictions in call centre work
• Call centres have to be both efficient and
provide a high quality service
• Both logics are important
• Customer oriented bureaucracy
(Korczynski, 2002)
• ‘Fun and Surveillance’ (Kinnie et al, 2000)
• Segmentation of customers and of
employees (Batt, 2002)
CSR-customer
interactions
Links between CSR-customer
interactions, HR practices and
business performance
High Relationship
Management
Business performance
Pseudorelationship
Low Transaction
HR practices
Cost minimisation
High Commitment Management
Impact on employees
• Acknowledgement that employees play a key
role in the delivery of the service – ‘the voice of
the brand’
• Engage in emotional labour – expressing or
suppressing emotions that they feel or do not
feel
• Low autonomy and close supervision and
monitoring associated with increased stress,
burnout and emotional exhaustion – reduced
employee well-being
• Effect on work-life balance – time and length of
working hours
Employee reactions and responses
• Negative
– Employee withdrawal from work – temporary or
permanent
– Various forms of resistance – manipulating the system
to create ‘space’, disregarding the rules
– Collective organisation – trade unionism
• Positive
– Satisfaction from interaction with customers and peer
groups
– Acceptance of performance monitoring
– Well-being in some call centres compares favourably
with sales and manufacturing work (Holman, 2004)
Analysing call centres using the
forms of capital/reactor model
• Use the reactor model to highlight the
forms of capital within call centres
• Which are the most important forms of
capital?
• How do they interact?
• What are the implications of this for HR
practices especially recruitment, selection
and retention?
Knowledge skills
and experience of
staff
Forms of Capital
Knowledge of
and
relationships
with network
members
Human
capital
Social
capital
Network
Capital
Intellectual
Capital
Knowledge of
and
relationships
with clients
Client
Capital
Knowledge
embedded in
values, culture
and
relationships
Structural
capital
Organizational
Capital
Procedures, policies
and processes
Ways of
structuring
work
The HR
Wheel
Resourcing
Human
capital
Social
capital
Network
Capital
Intellectual
Capital
Client
Structural
Capital
capital
Organizational
Capital
Pay and Reward
Kinnie et al 2006
Delivery
Types of call centres
• In-house – part of a wider organisation
• Outsourced – giving some or all of the
work to a third party
• Off-shore – where the work is carried out
remotely – may be directly owned, joint
venture or third party
Why outsource/off-shore call centre
work?
• Reduce costs
• Improve efficiency
• Provide a buffer against demand fluctuations
• Give access to specialist knowledge and skills
Multiple sources of identity
• What are the key sources of identity in call
centres?
• Which of these exert the most powerful
pull on employees?
• What are the implications of this for HR
practices?
• How can this analysis help us to
understand the HR issues within the
Norwich Union call centres?
Multiple sources of identity
Organisation
Professional
Employee
Team
Client
Conclusions
• Call centres are growing but face a series
of conflicting pressures and tensions
• The reactor and 4 ID model can provide
insights into the sources of these
• HR issues are often at the centre of these
pressures, especially recruitment,
selection and retention