Janet Walsh

WORK RELATIONSHIPS IN TELEPHONE CALL CENTRES: UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION AND EMPLOYEE WITHDRAWAL

This paper examines the nature of employment and the conditions of work in five telephone call centres in the telecommunications industry in Australia. Call centre work typically requires high levels of sustained interpersonal interaction with customers which can lead to burnout and employee withdrawal. Customer service staff can also become targets of customer hostility and abuse. In addition, this form of work tends to involve extensive employee monitoring and surveillance with little job discretion or variety of tasks. The paper draws upon survey data from 480 telephone service operators to identify the factors that are associated with emotional exhaustion and the frequency of absence amongst the employees. A modelling of the data using LISREL VIII revealed that a number of job and work-setting variables affected the level of emotional exhaustion of employees. These included interactions with the customer, a high workload and a lack of variety of work tasks. Moreover, higher rates of absence were associated with emotional exhaustion.

Toward a better understanding of psychological contract breach: a study of customer service employees.

Experiences of psychological contract breach have been associated with a range of negative behavior. However, much of the research has focused on master of business administration alumni and managers and made use of self-reported outcomes. Studying a sample of customer service employees, the research found that psychological contract breach was related to lower organizational trust, which, in turn was associated with perceptions of less cooperative employment relations and higher levels of absenteeism. Furthermore, perceptions of external market pressures moderated the effect of psychological contract breach on absenteeism. The study indicated that psychological contract breach can arise when employees perceive discrepancies between an organizations espoused behavioral standards and its actual behavioral standards, and this can affect discretionary absence.

Workplace aggression: the effects of harassment on job burnout and turnover intentions

This article analyses the impact of harassment on job burnout and turnover intentions among a large sample of hospital nurses in Britain. It compares the effects of insider-initiated harassment from managers and colleagues with outsider-initiated harassment from patients and their relatives. The article also examines the effect of ethnicity and the impact of effective anti-harassment policies on job burnout and quit intentions. Results suggest firstly, that the insider or outsider characteristics of the perpetrator do help to shape the consequences of harassment for nurses and secondly, that effective anti-harassment policies do reduce turnover intentions, particularly for minority ethnic nurses.

Human resource management in foreign-owned workplaces: evidence from Australia

Multinational companies have assumed a position of considerable prominence in the Australian economy. Drawing on the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this paper examines the character of human resource management in multinational companies operating in Australia. The findings suggest that investments in the human resource function and the utilization of human resource practices were generally more widespread in foreign-owned than Australian establishments. This was especially the case for workplaces belonging to American and British-owned firms. It is concluded that the more strongly regulated industrial relations environment as well as the legacy of protected domestic markets have not made multinational companies reluctant innovators in human resource management in the Australian context.

Experiencing Part-Time Work: Temporal Tensions, Social Relations and the Work-Family Interface

Part-time work is commonly depicted as positive for women workers and their experience of work and home. Drawing on the qualitative commentaries of lower-level service workers, this study explores the temporal, social and interpersonal consequences of part-time work. While many employees liked part-time work, there was evidence that fragmented work schedules, mandated overtime and difficulties in taking time off work created tensions and problems for women in both the work and family domains. Inferior treatment also punctuated the work experiences of a number of part-time employees and served to underline their differential work status.

Coping Strategies in Call Centres: Work Intensity and the Role of Co-workers and Supervisors

It has been observed that customer service workers often develop mutually supportive coping strategies to protect themselves from the emotional strain of overwork. These strategies can receive tacit support from supervisors, who may accept them as a means of getting the work done. The study explores the impact of a number of different forms of support on emotional exhaustion among a group of 480 call centre workers focusing, in particular, on the role of supportive behaviours relating to absence taking. The research shows that a supportive co-worker absence culture and team leader absence permissiveness can lessen the effects of job demands on emotional exhaustion and improve worker well-being. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Local complexities and global uncertainties: a study of foreign ownership and human resource management in China

Drawing on qualitative data, this paper examines developments in human resource and employment policies and practices among a sample of joint venture and wholly owned foreign enterprises operating in China. The research reveals that the effects of parent company nationality and ownership form were most visible in the areas of remuneration, worker representation and aspects of employee selection. There was, however, little overt involvement of multinational parent companies in the management of human resources of their Chinese operations. The trend was towards indirect reporting relationships with regional sub-units of multinational companies rather than direct links with the parent headquarters. Overall, these intermediate sub-units were playing an important role in the integration of Chinese business units in the global management systems of multinational companies.

Equality and diversity in British workplaces: the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey

Drawing on key findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS 2004), this article examines developments in the incidence, scope and substance of equal opportunities policy provision and practice in Britain. The discussion then considers the extent to which workplaces might be adopting diversity management practices, the potential for further research on equality and diversity using WERS 2004, and the issues that might be considered in future workplace employment relations surveys.

Managing Through Contracts: The Employment Effects of Compulsory Competitive Tendering in Australian Local Government

This article brings new evidence to bear on the employment and human resource effects of competitive tendering and contracting. Drawing on a database of over two hundred workplace agreements, the article examines the impact of compulsory competitive tendering on employees’ pay and employment arrangements in the Australian local government sector. The findings are contextualised in the light of evidence on the outcomes of a similar contracting regime in Britain.

The Effect of Customer Service Encounters on Job Satisfaction and Emotional Exhaustion

An important feature of front-line service work is the participation of the customer in the production process. As a service recipient, the customer helps shape the way in which the work is performed through their specific needs and expectations. It is the customer whose requirements must be satisfied and whose orders must be met (Fuller and Smith, 1996). In some cases the customer can act as a co-producer while in other situations they can be enlisted by the organization jointly to supervise workers and help manage the labour process. This triangular relationship between the customer, the employee and management distinguishes interactive service work from industrial production where customers are external to the labour process and the dynamics of management control are more firmly located within the boundaries of the worker-management dyad (Lopez, 1996).