Call center employees’ reactions to control: The willing, the indifferent, and the unwilling

Abstract

Increasing flexibility in work relations coincides with changes in attitudes towards (man-agement) control. In this study we explore employee reactions to intensified, technologi-cally induced control by management in a call center. To enhance customer services qual-ity, call center agents are often intensively controlled. Especially labor-process researchers have discussed employee reactions to the control regimes. Highly influential was a study by Bain and Taylor (2000) who argued against an image suggested by Fernie and Metcalf that call center employees were completely controlled, as if in a perfected authoritarian regime. Instead, Bain and Taylor showed, there is always room for resistance, however all-encompassing the control system is deemed to be designed. Following this work, many researchers showed how employees actively but foremost passively resisted the attempts to control them.

Yet, do employees always resist? Could control also be welcomed? If employees are ac-tive agents and reflect a diverse population in terms of class and norms, it seems likely that more reactions than just resistance occur in praxis.

In a Dutch insurance company in-house call center, we investigated the effects of the lev-el of control (as a result of introducing a new call center management system) on absen-teeism, performance, turnover intention and motivation. As opposed to the old system, the new call center management system contains more enhanced control systems, because all calls, as well as system use are digitally recorded. This system enables managers to check calls easily, without agents noticing when they are being controlled.

Based on the interview data from agents and supervisors we can distinguish three groups of agents for whom the effects of control differ: 1. control has a positive effect on performance and motivation 2. control has a negative effect on performance and motivation 3. control has no effect on performance and motivation

Although the actual level of control was the same for all agents, the effects were differ-ent. The main determinant of the differences is the level of perceived control, which is determined by individual characteristics and work characteristics, including ambition, self-confidence, autonomy, communication, and supervisory support. For instance, whereas group 1 agents are ambitious and experience control as a necessity to enhance call centre service quality, group 2 agents feel that control is a management tool to assess and sanction underperforming agents. Group 3 agents don’t care about the level of con-trol and perform at their best regardless the level of control. As a result, groups 1 and 3 experience low levels of control and group 2 agents experience a similar level of control as high, which has a negative influence on their motivation and performance.

Our results suggest that it is advisable to distinguish at least three groups of employees: the unwilling, the indifferent and the willing. This sketches a much broader spectrum of employee reactions than is the case in much of the literature.