Entcomm, located in a small ex-industrial town near Glasgow, provides telecommunications and entertainment services for a large

Question:

Entcomm, located in a small ex-industrial town near Glasgow, provides telecommunications and entertainment services for a large US multinational company. The call centre handles inquiries, billing, payments, new accounts and repairs maintenance. During a recent period of high-volume recruitment for 150 customer advisor posts it has found difficulties finding flexible staff.

They advertise in local further education colleges and universities, and especially target training courses in IT for women returners, and over 50s. This addresses the problem of employing young part-timers (high turnover)

while achieving some flexibility in staffing to cover fluctuations in business. The vacancies are for 12–20 hours per week (4–6 hours per shift) in some cases finishing at 12.45am, and the starting pay £6 per hour.

There is a friend and family recruitment scheme where the employee receives £300 for a full-time member of staff found acceptable. Referrals still have to pass the tests though. The first filtering comes from a tele-screen interview which gives an initial indication of whether the prospective CSA has the required telephone manner and whether the shift preferences are compatible with the business needs. Keyboard skills are tested at this stage followed by two role-play exercises.

These will involve one difficult customer (who may shout and scream) and one technical issue from a customer.

This procedure is outsourced to an agency who receive

£350 per CSA they supply for the next stages of selection. The final interview is competency-based and conducted by team leaders and HR. A lot of emphasis here is put on why the recruits find this an attractive job e.g. entertainment sector, no cold calling. The interviews also include questions about coping with stressful situations building on the role play simulation.

Existing employees talk about how they cope with difficult situations, and some are better than others.

Jenny, an agent in her early twenties, commented, ‘screaming customers I can cope with . . . one day though it was a really patronizing customer and it just threw me completely . . . it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back – I actually got up off the seat one day and I threw a booklet’. Cathy, who is in her 50s, was more resilient. ‘I can let a customer scream away and let them rattle on until they are finished and then say now, I’ll help you . . . it’s just my experience I suppose.’

Question

1 Examine the economic and social pressure impacting selection in both Thejoshop and Entcomm. (Use the framework provided in Box 4.5 and Table 4.2.)

Box 4.5

image text in transcribed

Table 4.2

2 Explain the ‘balance of power’ in the selection process between employers, candidates and other stakeholders in each of the call centers.
3 Do these call centers operate a selection process which follows the psychometric process? Explain your answer.
4 What would the discourse perspective say about how the definition of the competent call center employee in the three call centers (Money flow, Thejobshop and Entcomm)? How does this affect the process and outcomes of selection?

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