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Introduction: The Nature and Management of Call Centre Work

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Call Centres and Human Resource Management

Abstract

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.

Parts of this chapter originally appeared in Human Resource Management Journal, 124, pp. 3–13.

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Authors
  1. Stephen Deery
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  2. Nicholas Kinnie
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. King’s College London, UK

    Stephen Deery (Professor of Human Resource and Public Sector Management) (Professor of Human Resource and Public Sector Management)

  2. School of Management, University of Bath, UK

    Nicholas Kinnie (Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management) (Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management)

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© 2004 Stephen Deery and Nicholas Kinnie

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Deery, S., Kinnie, N. (2004). Introduction: The Nature and Management of Call Centre Work. In: Deery, S., Kinnie, N. (eds) Call Centres and Human Resource Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230288805_1

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