CALL CENTERS (CENTRES) - Faculty of Industrial Engineering and ...

agent, combines control theory and chance-constrained programming in a model for workforce
planning that allows for agent learning, and derives steady state workforce levels for different
knowledge groups within the call center to minimize total labor-related costs. The objective is to
meet stochastic demands with a desired service level. The author applies his model to an actual
call center situation in the high-tech industry with adjusted data and discusses the managerial
implications.
69. Chaudhry, Abdus Sattar and Chua Jeanne. Call centres for enhanced reference services: A
comparison of selected library call centres and the Reference Point at the National Library of
Singapore, Library Review, 53 (1), 2004, 37–49.
Abstract. The concept of a call center is defined and the technologies employed in call center
applications are examined. The principles and practices relevant in the context of telephone
services offered by libraries are highlighted. Features of call centers in selected libraries are
described and compared with the Reference Point at the National Library of Singapore and
recommendations on call center practices with regard to the provision of LIS are presented.
Keywords: Comparative analysis, Call centers, Libraries, Communication systems, Customer
services, Reference services
70. Fisher, Michael. The crisis of civil service trade unionism: A case study of call centre development
in a civil service agency, Work, Employment & Society, 18 (1), 2004, 157–177.
Abstract. This article examines why and how management in a British civil service agency has
sought to respond to the Modernising Government agenda of the present Labour government by
seeking to apply Taylorist principles of work organisation to a complex form of administrative
case work. This has led to the establishment of a call centre within the agency for the first
time. The article discusses the response to this of the main trade union within the agency, the
positive and cooperative nature of which is argued to be founded in the historic character of
management-union relations within the agency, and in the ‘high-quality’ form that call centre
working has to far assumed. The reasons for this are identified as having their origins primarily
in a number of potentially temporary technical limits to the further realization of a Taylorist
decomposition of call handling tasks. The persistence of these limits is argued to have compelled
management to preserve complex working and employment terms that they may otherwise have
sought to challenge and change. The article concludes by arguing that trade unionism in the
agency is in crisis: A crisis consisting of a too uncritical understanding of the potential that the
further development of call centre working has to enhance the degradation and devaluation of
staff labour.
Keywords: Civil service, Call centers, Labor relations
71. Forsyth, Anne Marie. Lloyds TSB banks on call-center quality, Human Resource Management
International Digest, 12 (1), 2004, 14–16.
Abstract. More than 10 million Britons currently use telephone banking and an estimated
11.5 million online active bank accounts are in use—more than in any other European country.
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