S01a - Call Center

Taylorism and Fordism “An assembly line in the head’: work and employee relations in the call centre

Article’s Introduction  Definition 

ACD or predictive dialing system

 Why 

call centre?

Competitive Edge

 Call 

of call centre

centre process

Inbound Vs Outbound calls

Strengths  Total  

control Vs tight control

Use of electronic surveillance E.g.. Real-Time Adherence module

Weakness 

Supervision 





But when managerial control=electronic surveillance, is there any human touch? Most essential supervision – Human Supervision

Emotional Labor   

What is it? How does it relate to call centre labor? A labour to suppress feelings in order to substain a proper image in customers

Weakness  “Assembly-line  

Prominent Digital Displays Leads to constant awareness of task

 Immense 

in the head” Scenario

Pressures’ Effect

High turnover rate

Weakness  Dilemma 

of managers

Should quantitative output measurement be used?

Taylorism

What is Taylorism? Taylorism and scientific management – introduction of administrative means to control labour force and achieve efficiency  Job

fragmentation  Job specialization  Separation of mental and manual labor

Fordism

What is Fordism? Fordism – a production technique to achieve efficiency inspired by Taylor’s ideas adjusted for the mass production era.  Standardized

products  Single purpose machine tools  Assembly line All above = MASS PRODUCTION

Our Critical Thinking  Advanced

Fordism?  Highly popular method 

Demand of quality service at customers’ convenience

 Assembly

line workers.. And much

more!  Problem with high turnover rate  Quality of supervision