Call centres are one of the most growing and preferred means of service delivery in today’s ever-changing market. They are contributing to the economy of many different countries around the globe. They have significant potential to provide support to an organization with business intelligence captured during contacts with customers.
The use of an Organic Structure approach to design call centre operations is likely to create a rewarding working experience that increases the Affective Commitment (an employee's positive emotional attachment to an organization) of frontline employees and thus decrease turnover rates and absenteeism.
Organic Structures are based on the idea of involving employees in the process of decision-making. This suggests that the ability of employees to control the work and to decide about the way they handle and receive information is a key factor of improving productivity and service quality. The Organic Structure of call centre helps the integration of call centre within the manufacturing enterprise to enable the flow of information that governs the speed of service and eventually service quality.
Call centres are Mechanistic Structure models represented by close monitoring of words, stressful working loads, emotional exhaustion and burnout, and less empowerment of employees that inhibit open channels of communications and integrity in the organization. As a result employees lack the Affective Commitment, which is more effective than Job Satisfaction in influencing the service quality. This has consequences, such as high employee turnover, lower service quality and ultimately low customer satisfaction.
Mechanistic structures are inward-oriented structures that must be shielded from the environment but call centres are outward-facing entities (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Mechanistic vs. Organic structures
This firmly implies that a new generation of call centres would benefit form an Organic Structures that would stimulate the development of Affective Commitment among employees and improve organizational integrity and work conditions.
Service departments are typically exposed to a greater demand variety from the customer than are manufacturing departments. In order for the service department to absorb demand variety it needs an adaptive mechanism similar to that of a living organism that can adapt to the surrounding environment in order to function and thrive. Such an organic structure is typified by devolved decision-making processes.
Organizations where employees are given the ability to make work decisions are more able to create a variety absorbing system. In addition people who are working under such standards have a sense of freedom and ownership. The characteristics of this approach are that jobs are wide in scope and employees are allowed to act on a variety of tasks, to learn and to build relationships with customers. These tasks are not governed by rigid rules and procedures; the team shares the responsibility of the work. Hierarchy of control is not usually present thus allowing the team to identify the right person to solve a particular problem.
Case Study 1: A case study was conducted at a U.K. city council that uses a traditional call centre service operations model (i.e. Mechanistic Structure). The case study aimed at exploring the relationship between using Mechanistic Structure call centre and the Affective Commitment of frontline employees within their call centre. It was carried out using administrative documents, face-to-face interviews, structured questionnaires, direct observation and the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) to collect data from both key management informants and employees at operative and strategic levels.
This case study finds a strong relationship between the Affective Commitment among front-line employees in the call centre and the form of call centre service operation systems used.
Figure 2 provides us with a clear indication of the low level of Affective Commitment among employees working at the Call Centre with a total mean of 3.02 which shows an undecided Affective Commitment state, in other words, employees are not committed to their working place.
Figure 2: Affective commitment measurement at a traditional call centre
Case Study 2: This case study describes and analyses the value added to the manufacturing enterprise as a result of using Organic Structure approach for its call centre service operations design. It was carried out using both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data from key top management informants, middle managers and employees at operative front-line levels; also the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) was used to measure the Affective Commitment among call centre employees working in this environment.
Three distinct findings emerged from this case study.
First, the call centre has positively impacted the entire manufacturing enterprise workload; productivity and job quality as it was viewed the centre of the Enterprise.
Second, the call centre employs a wide range of the Organic Structure characteristics.
Third, the case study found a high level of Affective Commitment among front-line employees in the call centre as a result of using the Organic Structure to design the call centre service operations (see Figure e).
The study has many implications for the manufacturing enterprises embracing a call centre to improve their productivity, service quality and job experience. The case study suggests leveraging the call centre strategic support and contribution to other business departments through using Organic Structure approach to design its service operations.
Furthermore, designing call centre service operations this way is likely to lead to higher levels of Affective Commitment among front-line employees; this paves the way towards solving the problem of high levels of turnover and absenteeism in these service departments.
Figure 3: Affective commitment measurement at an organically structured call centre
Comparative study
Figure 4 shows a comparison between the Affective Commitment Levels in a Traditional call centre in a U.K. city council and an organically structured call centre embraced by a manufacturing enterprise. The traditional call centre showed a lack in the Affective Commitment levels among employees with a total mean of 3.02. The organically structured call centre has a total mean of 4.1 among its employees that shows a high Affective Commitment level.
Figure 4: Affective commitment levels (Mechanistic vs. Organic call centres)
The Manufacturing Organization Research Group at Loughborough University's The Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering in Leicestershire, England is conducting a survey on this topic. For more information or to join the survey, email Ayham Jaaron, PhD RS, at a.a.m.jaaron@lboro.ac.uk
