The first stage of empowerment is the CSA involvement, a frame in the building entry said “today is a new opportunity to bring your idea” illustrate it. The CSA are invited to participation meeting in which they speak about subject like “corporate image” and managers collect the staff ideas. The question is to know if the CSA have really the skills to give an efficient participation. The CSA are employed because of their socials skills and not real corporate knowledge, add to this they are also trained on social competencies (Callaghan G, Thompson P). It emphasize that while managers collect CSA point of view, it not seems to be such an interest for the organisation. The CSA thought to be involved but are under dependency, because of the higher resources that managers have (Lawless (1979)).The Organisation have control of this involvement because of the CSA job description.
Organisation knows that agent cannot give specific ideas on technical things. Therefore, they keep control and also give illusion of interest on the staff ideas.
The empowerment is observed by the professional relations, on which the managers and CSA have a real proximity and accessibility. The control can be seen as the influence that managers have on the CSA’s which accept the critics and their task because of that proximity (Stephen Robbins 1983). The managers have a resource and personal power over the CSA (French & Raven, 1959). This power helps them to control the CSA who likes to have a good relation with managers, as a result they accept the critics and work behaviour. Managers knows that proximity lead to a more “docile” staff.
The customers’ relation is the main task of the CSA jobs. They have to answer to the clients calls. The first thing which CSA does is the greeting to client. It is standardised and controlled by the managers. The standardisation means that all the CSA’s are dealing with customers in the same way. But CSA have no creativity or talent to unlock because of the standardisation (school of democratic unitarism). The Unitarists spoke about human growth theory where self-control is held by employees, thing which was also said to be a risk for the managers (Sisson 1994). In the call centre it is different, there is no self-control.
The CSA are using information from print-based reference manuals, to answer rapidly to customers. In the banking sector, customers’ needs are very basic request (balance…). When there is a more complex problem, CSA have to transfer to supervisors or higher-level personnel (Frenkel S J, Tam M, Korczynski M, Shire K ). The rules are followed and even if there is an opportunity to be creative CSA cannot be. The important point is that organisation has control of the CSA work by providing standardised relation.
But the rules have to be explains. The IT has succeeded to create the monitoring in call centre. It is an electronic tool. CSA and managers have constant access to the information which is provided. There is a rating, minimum of calls per hours, average of time spend per call…The agent logs themselves before working. They are under constant monitoring. The point is that CSA are agrees to follow the organisation rules while the quality is in peril. That is called the psychological contract, when workers give and take involvement in their task, with a total confidence in organisation. Management controlled satisfaction by looking on abandon rates and call monitoring. Moreover, there is a wide variety of customers with different type of request. But CSA are working on quantity not quality even if they would prefer quality. They work for employer; in consequence they are agreeing to follow the rules (Alan Miciak, Mike Desmarais). CSA are under monitoring control, and cannot really manage their work as they want to.
The workers are not always able to know when they are monitored (Marx and Sheriden, 1986). This is the effect of surveillance. More than monitored, CSA are in open office space which able all the workers to see the others. “The agents are constantly visible and the supervisor’s power has indeed rendered perfect” (Fernie & Metcalf, 1997). There is no privacy at all, and the CSA are in a self-discipline way like the Foucaultdian panopticism vision. (Gloria Lankshear, and Graham Button.).
The surveillance is also provided by “tape record”. The CSA calls are recorded, and therefore the managers assess the agents by using the tape record. This means that each call can be record, and therefore CSA are under a constant surveillance. The psychological contract can be observe as well while agents talked about a sense of obligation to their employers ( Gloria Lankshear, and Graham Button). The CSA welcome this in a good way. They aren’t feels to be under any threat. CSA regard tape record as a way to improve their skills, to protect themselves from an anger customer. Agents are under organisation control but are also agree with this procedure.
The assessment are supported by tape-record. It is said to be more like coaching (Alliance & Leicester). And CSA are saying to be glad to be coach. Do the empowered people really want to be empowered and to get responsibilities? By using the tape record to assess the CSA, the managers are supporting the CSA work. Finally the agents are glad to be support instead of having too much responsibility. The agents felt the control to be pleasant. They prefer being assessed and avoid any risks.
The atmosphere at work was emphasized by an alliance & Leicester managers. It is an open management and agent can take time off when they have done their expected rates of calls.
But do the agents have really such a lot of time off. It is said that employees rarely have two following day off per week as it was supposed to be (Gloria Lankshear, and Graham Button). The agents are under pressure and finally spend many times at works to fill their obligations .There is more an illusion of flexibility, the monitoring process regulate the CSA work, and they have to achieve the goals.
Agents work in team. Sewell (1998) explains that there is a dark side about team work. There is an intensive pressure against team and their productivity. “The performance between individual and teams can be compared within or across site” (Thomson & MC Hugh, chapter 8, p 115 ). The atmosphere is competitive between teams which increase the productivity.
The ambiance is turning around trust and confidence. The fact is that in call centre, the majority of workers are non unionized. (Gloria Lankshear, and Graham Button.). The point is that relation between managers and employee is nice because of this fact. The psychological contract is working without union. The keys, is that finally the organisation get control on agents and keep it by managing to have a non unionized firm.
What is the main agents’ impression about working in a call centre? They find it nice, they like the managers, spoke about a good coaching and pleasant atmosphere. They also said to be frustrated by working against satisfying the customers (Audrey Gilmore ). It means that even if agents are not agreeing with the work process, they are doing it in a wealth atmosphere without complaining on the managers. It is like if organisation controls surpass the CSA beliefs.
On a career point of view, does the CSA can really trust the managers, and organisation? It is said that for managerial job, there is an internal recruitment. But the reality is different, where managerial job are under external recruitment and also based on criteria that restricted the number of likely internal candidate ( Frenkel S J, Tam M, Korczynski M, Shire K ). The training provided in call centre is “in-house” and above social skills and not technical ones (Callaghan G, Thompson P). It clearly show that organisation have a total control of CSA, because of the unskilled labour force. CSA do not have training which let them be able to look after other job. They are trapped in call centre career.
Obviously, the previous explanations illustrate well the situation in call centre. . The recruit and trained the staff on social skills. The involvement of CSA in the firm strategy is an illusion controlled by the organisation. By the manager proximity, the organisation gets a more docile staff. The CSA work with customers call is under organisation control. CSA work is standardised. The agent cannot work as they want but have to achieve their task in the monitoring average. CSA are under a huge surveillance, which result is a self discipline. The organisations control the CSA improvement. Organisation desires are assigned to CSA by the “coaching”. Organisation control the conflict by successfully maintained a non unionized labour force. The organisation rules surpass the CSA beliefs.
It was clearly shows that the empowerment in the Alliance and Leicester building is under control. Empowerment is not a way to give more responsibility to the staff in this case. This is a tool to let the agent work finally more and achieve the organisation desires. The point is that more control the organisation get, more pleasant the job seems to be for the CSA point of view.
It will be important to see on which way the organisation will improve the CSA skills and let them grow inside the company. Creating an internal labour market is the objective result of empowerment. Involvement and training let workers have access to higher job. Instead of developing and using the agents’ skills, the call centres standardised the labour process. Is it really the most efficient way?
But it is clear that the Alliance and Leicester firms keep their side of the empowerment bargain by having a total controls on each level. They control all the empowerment stages and agents do not mind but found their jobs pleasant.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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