Call centre working conditions better on the continent

Call centre workers in continental Europe have better quality jobs than their counterparts in the UK and US and are more inclined to stay in their jobs for longer periods of time, according to new research carried out by the University of Sheffield. These findings from two international research projects into call centres will be discussed for the first time in public at a conference in Edinburgh on Wednesday 15 November 2006.

Over the past decade, call centres have experienced phenomenal growth in virtually every country around the world. They are of strategic importance to firms and a vital source of new jobs in advanced and industrializing economies. However, call centres pose significant challenges to managers to provide quality service in a cost-effective way.

The one-day conference, entitled ëDelivering Through People: International research on human resource management and development in call centresí, will aim to address these important issues by drawing on the two international research projects carried out by the Universityís Institute of Work Psychology.

The first international study, the Global Call Centre Research Project, compared human resource management in 17 countries. It found that while turnover is a major problem for call centre managers, it was not the case across all countries. Rates of employee turnover were found to be considerably lower in continental Europe, while in the UK, US and India it remained high. Call centres in countries with coordinated economies, like Germany, France and Spain, tended to also have better quality of jobs than those in liberal market economies, like the UK.

The Leonardo da Vinci Programmeís CONTAKT project, on the other hand, focused on human resource development in four European countries and discovered that effective training can reduce employee turnover. But with some employers increasingly reducing their investment in training since employees do not stay long it has become a catch-22 situation for call centre development.

Dr David Holman from the University of Sheffieldís Institute of Work Psychology said: ìSince their very establishment, call centres have been at the height of controversy and many myths have evolved about their nature.

ìThis research provides a critical understanding of how the call centre industry has developed both in the UK and overseas. Hopefully this new insight will further stimulate debate and provide guidance for policy and practice in order for the management of call centres to be improved.î

Managers, union representatives and policy makers will come together for the one-day conference to discuss these issues and address questions important to understanding and improving the call centre industry.