ILPC 2027

In the late 1990’s several studies, using call centers as an example of modern service work, brought into the prominence how tayloristic principles were adopted to white collar jobs. New ways of organizing and controlling work were introduced on account of technological innovations. Furthermore, previous studies show how the creation of  ‘electronic panoptikons’ or ‘modern sweat-shops’ posed problems related to quality of jobs as well as to employee motivation, commitment and well-being.

 

This paper studies contemporary service work in Finnish call centers. The aim is to provide an analysis of the labour process, both the way it is organized and the way it is experienced by employees. The risks related to strenuous call center work were acknowledged already two decades ago, but have the organizations learnt any lessons? Is the 21st century call center work still as controlled and as hard for the employees as before?

 

These issues will be addressed through two types of data.

Management interviews conducted in ICT-organizations in 2008 (Successful Organizations and Employee Well-Being in Knowledge Intensive Work -project) are used to describe what kinds of changes have taken place in the organization and how they have affected the organization of work. In addition interviews include various types of information on how employee relations are handled.

The quantitative analysis on employee experiences is based on the data provided by Quality of Life in Changing Europe (FP6)-project. Survey (n= 967) was collected from service sector organizations, representing retail, banking and insurance, telecommunications and public hospitals in Finland. The survey-data is used to analyze the quality of jobs in the ICT-sector and to compare the experiences and well-being of telecom workers to employees who work in other fields of service sector. 

ICT-case-organization was the same in these two projects, thus datasets will be used to complement each other.  

 

Preliminary results from the qualitative data reveal multiple and strict measures of control exerted on employees in terms of monitoring the performance through qualitative and quantitative assessments. Also rewards are tightly linked to performance.

Groundwork on survey-data implies lower well-being among telecom workers compared to their counterparts in retail, care and finance sector jobs (e.g. telecom workers reported lower task discretion, higher work pressures, stress and insecurity as well as higher time demands from the organization).