Introduction: The Nature and Management of Call Centre Work

There has been a substantial growth of employment in telephone call centres over the last five years. It is now estimated that around two workers in every 100 in the United Kingdom have jobs in call centres (Income Data Services, 2001, p. 11; Key Note, 2002, p. 19). In the USA they employ about 3 per cent of the workforce while in Europe the figure is just over 1 per cent (Datamonitor, 1998; 1999). Call centres are said to be the most rapidly growing form of employment in Europe today (Paul and Huws, 2002, p. 19). The number of call centres in France and Germany has more than doubled since 1997 (Key Note, 2002, p. 79). These developments reflect a more general shift in economic activity from goods production to service provision. Call centres epitomize many of the characteristics of service work that have come to dominate developed economies. Like most customer service organizations they provide an intangible, perishable product, which is highly variable and engages the customer in its production (Korczynski, 2002). However, distinctively, call centres require their employees to be skilled at interacting directly with customers while simultaneously working with sophisticated computer-based systems which dictate both the pace of their work and monitor its quality.