Critical Management and Deep Scepticism of Defensibility - Coursework Example

Report on the case study Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Introduce the case 3 Analysis of the Case Study 4 Recommendations for change 10 Conclusion 11 Reference 12 Introduction Critical management studies provide a range of alternatives to the main stream management theory which aims at radically transforming the management practice. The core issue of Critical management studies is deep scepticism of defensibility and ecological and social sustainability of prevailing types of organization and management. The main concern for Critical management studies is neither the poor management of specific organization nor the personal failures of the managers, but it is the destruction of the broader economic and social systems which the managers and organisations reproduce. Critical Management Studies stresses at looking the organisation and management theory from wide variety of groups which are affected by educators and business managers who instruct them. Critical theory is one of the important philosophical foundations of critical management studies. Critical theory has more influence on development on CMS than any other related theoretical foundations like post-structuralism, labour process theory, critical realism etc. Critical theory has a distinct paradigmatic characteristics and unique philosophical tradition. Critical theory basically stresses on the reflective assessment by applying knowledge from humanities and social sciences. Critical management studies brought together post-structural writings and critical theory, but since then it as developed into more diverse directions. This report will take a look at the case study of Experiencing Depersonalised bullying with respect to call-centre agents. Introduce the case The case provided is based on the depersonalized bullying which occurs on the call-centre agents who are employed in International call centres in Bangalore and Mumbai in India. It focuses on the oppressive regime faced by them in the workplace. The kind of bullying regime faced by them can be attributed to the service level agreements which exist between the clients and employers. This sets the tone for organisational practices. The call centre agents accept such kind of tough working conditions because of material gains and professional identities gained by them. Capitalist labour relations in the workplace bullying set the tone for such kind of oppression in the workplace. Analysis of the Case Study Call centre industry in India is an emerging industry. It is known as ITES-BPO sector which now contributes majorly to global offshoring business. In countries like South Africa, Philippines, Latin America and Eastern Europe this sector are an emerging sector while in India it remains in the developing stage. There is still the need to grow for this sector in India. The ITES-BPO sector accounts for 46 % of all global offshoring business because it offers such services at cost lower than most other countries. India has high degree of technical and language skills along with supportive government policies and mature vendors. All this forms an unbeatable mix which helps the Indian BPO sector to rise in the global market (Eden, 2003, pp. 390-394). Workplace bullying refers to obvious or subtle negative behaviour which exists in the workplace. It is characterized by persistence, repetition of individual and or group. According to Beale and Hoel there are many forms and degree of exploitation and oppression which exist in the workplace. They constitute feature of capitalist labour relations which provide critical analysis into the workplace bullying. In such circumstances, the employer main motive is to generate profit only. This they sustain only through continuous exploitation of the workers (Fournier and Grey, pp. 7-18). The compliance of employer-oriented norms in workplace behaviour is the key to such experience of the workers. Bullying of such kind hence forms part of day-to-day routine in the workplace. It becomes part of labour management practices with the aim of making profit. Hence Conceptualisation of bullying at workplace hence needs to embrace organisational level of analysis beyond the socio-relational and interpersonal realm (Jackson, 2000, p. 63). According to Mackenzie Davey’s and Liefooghe it was seen that that organisation itself signifies bully with bullying attributing to organisation and practices. It was seen that the concept of oppressive work regime was mainly due to service level agreement (SLA) the employer enters with the organisation. It is this service level agreement which contributes directly to bullying in the workplace (Jackson, 2003, p. 152). Hence it is the managers and supervisors who engage in covert and overt aggressive behaviours so as to fulfil the service level agreement. Other factors like tough workplace conditions, material gains from their jobs and professional identity causes them to participate in their own oppression. Service level agreement is a formalised agreement which can be either on a project basis or temporary basis. SLAs dictate the processes and outcome for each particular service. The fulfilment of a particular service makes way for the next contractual relationships between the two parties. Since every organisation has to maintain its competitive advantage it is important they meet the expectation of their clients. Hence SLAs forms the basis of policies within the organisation according to which the call centre agents had to work. This gave the managers, supervisors, team lead the opportunity for resorting to tactics which intimidates others. Supervisors at various levels of an organisation have no choice but to ensure that the all the features of SLAs are met (Midgley, 2003, p. 185). Hence it was concluded that no particular person can be pointed at for the oppression at the workplace which employees experience. Employees also told that another important cause of such a case was the dynamics of doing in a globalised economy. The clients wanted to shift their operations into country where the cost of developing is low which minimizes the costs, maximizes the revenues and thus helps in achieving competitive advantage. The client sets the terms of their demands which the employers have to follow in the form of Service level agreements. In case the employers were unable to comply with the service level agreements of the clients, they would then switch to other organisation. Again if the country as a whole did not help in the success of the clients they would then move out of the country. Hence it is imperative that the employers to abide by the service level agreements (Parsons, 2003, p. 182). They also have to ensure intra-organisational and extra-organisational business environments to make sure that they fulfil the promises in SLAs. It was necessary for them to deliver business on their counts to ensure continued success of the ITES-BPO sector of India. Hence in order to meet the client’s need the organisations had to create around 8-9 hour shifts for the employees. They were given one 30-minute break, two 15-minutes breaks and were made to work for 5-day a week. The timing of their work was made to adjust with those in UK, USA, Australia and Canada (Keashly and Harvey, 2006, pp. 101-121). This meant that the employees not only had to work during nights but also they have to undergo changes in their work timing as per shifts weekly, fortnightly or monthly. The employees had to work under a team lead that they had to report half an hour prior to the start of their shift. They had to undergo team meetings and were assigned shifts every day. During these meeting the employees were given monthly targets which they had to meet. There were different kinds of target for different employees. For inbound call-centre employees, there target was to take maximum number of calls which was possible in a shift. For outbound employees the target was to attain a particular number of units in relation to a particular process which was being performed (D’ Cruz and Noronha, 2008, pp. 131-147). In such industry the employees were encouraged to achieve beyond their targets, achieving that they were provided with incentives along with the opportunities for growth within the organisation. If the agents couldn’t meet their targets the employees were sent back to retraining which meant notice for dismissal. In additional to it the agents had to maintain specific level of specific time limits for their call which is known as average handling time of call. The inbound agent also has to pick up a certain number of calls along with a fixed number of rings. Hence the employees were on tremendous pressure to perform. The attendance of the employees was kept on strict watch. The Attendance of the employees was recorded via log- in and log-out data. The agents could not log out of the organisation beyond their designated time. They were not even allowed to leave their seats or go to restroom. In case if any emergency they had to take the permission from the team leader before doing so. Such kind of rules and regulations created an environment where every employee felt that they were under oppression for the management. During the time when the call volumes were high or in case an agent couldn’t achieve their target they were made to stretch their working hours, in the form of shorter breaks or working beyond the normal shift hours. They even had to work on public holidays or weekly holidays. It is seen that the public holidays of the company were being observed on days like festivals and national holidays. Hence it led to more frustration of the employees. But the employees never receive any money for the extra work they put in. Hence the central idea behind the task performance is emotional labour. There is a need of strong emphasis of communicating effectively with the customers. This includes clarity and accuracy of communication, avoiding giving wrong information to the customers. They must give emphasis on politeness, patience, sensitivity, cordiality. The agents had to accomplish this in a virtual context and act them on real time. The agents had to be trained to make the customers feel at home. The customers should not be made to feel uncomfortable. They must know to decipher the mood of the customers by hearing their voice over the phone (Alvesson and Deetz, 1996, pp. 619-624). They must speak in a positive frame of mind so that the customers by hearing the voice get a favourable impression about the company. The employees are encouraged to emphasize with the customers mood and absorb their reactions. They must know how to apologise to the customers for any perceived to attributed problem or any inconvenience caused due fault which may not be because of them. But the employees had to maintain objectivity at the same time. The agents could not develop any kind of interpersonal relationships with the customers or show any kind of partiality towards them. Hence the agents had to engage with the customers closely enough so that they can perform an effective emotional labour, promote the interest of the client and ensure that the satisfactions of the customers are met. At the same time the agents had to meet the qualitative and quantitative performance and any failure to do so was met with punishment by the employers. The Indian agents who are working in international facing call centres, they had to train beyond customer interaction and satisfaction. The have to imbibe the linguistic, cultural and geographical dimensions within them so that they can link themselves with the lives of the overseas customers. Those sort of cultural training included exposure of the agents to different facets of the customer’s society like political boundaries, geographical location, climate, time zone, demographics, history and their way of life. The agents need to give importance on the fluency level of English and neutral accents. Such kind of fluency is checked at the time of recruitment. They have to go through many linguistic training. Agents had to take on Western names like pseudonyms and also engage in locational masking. The client’s company lays such kind of demands on the employer’s company to ensure that their customers remain comfortable with the company (Batt and Moynihan, 2002, pp. 14-19). Agents hence has to accept the linguistic and cultural requirements with the adoption of many locational and pseudonyms masking which are the requirements of the job. The customers have to handle irate and abusive customers as art of their SLAs. While conversing with a few customers may display ethnic and racial angers like subtle comments including explicit cursing comments. There are many instances when customers don’t like to interact with Indian call centre agents because they don’t like them. The clients have to deal with such irritating conditions (Bain and Taylor, 2000, pp. 2-15). Such kind of demands puts strains on the agents. The agents have to make temporal arrangements for their shift based job. It results in increase in susceptibility to illness. Though over a period of time the agents body get acclimatize to the working conditions over a period of time, some health problems do start to take effect. For example agents who are used to do night shifts found it difficult to sleep in the normal hours. They sleep in the morning hours and hence can’t maintain a normal social life with their friends (Alvesson, 2001, pp. 863-886). The incessant talking of the agents leads to aural and oral complications. The use of various kinds of technology results in many sensory-motor problems like auditory and visual problems. They can also get affected with repetitive strain injury. The inactive nature of job together with no chance for any kind of locomotion aggravates the problem. It results in cramps, stiffness and backaches. Such elimination of breaks interferes with the eating habits of the agents (Noronha and D’ Cruz, 2009, p. 211). When the agents do get breaks there is presence of long queue which forces many agents to skip their food. This kind of habits make affects the nutritional intake of the employees. Any kind of extension of work day or work week also aggravates the health problem. Commuting and from the work also plays a role. In spite of the fact that the employer provide the agents with transports the long distance which they have to travel complicates the situation. The travel time gets further extended because they have to pool agents from different places (Einarsen, 1999, pp. 16-27). The condition of Road in India aggravates the problem. The strain on the employees was further increased due to the hostile and aggressive behaviour of the superiors which is aimed at realising the SLAs (Taylor and Bain, 2005, pp. 261-271). Since the agents have to work day and night the get little time to get connected with their social networks, since they sleep during the day. Again the problem gets further compounded due to mismatch of public holidays and their holidays. This severely disrupts the work-life balance. The agents don’t get enough time to keep in touch with their relatives, friends etc. Organisation demands for team outing for better team bonding (Mullholland, 2002, pp. 283-291). It is useful to the organisation. Such kind of outing results in disruptions of work-life balance among the employees. Also any decline by the employees to go on such outing would be seen as lack of commitment and compliance which can affect the career of an agent. Such kind of both physical and mental strain causes many health problems like colds and coughs, nausea, stomach acidity, loss of body weight, irritability, depression, anxiety (Knights and McCabe, 1998, pp. 63-71). Though many agents tried to cope up with physical strain by taking leave through medical reasons, they could not take much leave since they had a fixed number of leaves. The emphasis was given on mass production which means that employers laid down strict guidelines for granting leaves (Prenkel, Korczynski, Shire and Tam, 1998, pp. 957-979). Recommendations for change Depersonalized bulling can be seen as the routine subjugation of the agents both overt and covert as required by the supervisors and managers to fulfil the SLAs. The organisational demands are put on the agents and they are made to work in different shifts. The attendance of the employees was kept on strict watch. The Attendance of the employees was recorded via log- in and log-out data. The agents could not log out of the organisation beyond their designated time. They were not even allowed to leave their seats or go to restroom. In case if any emergency they had to take the permission from the team leader before doing so. Such kind of rules and regulations created an environment where every employee felt that they were under oppression for the management. It is the responsibility of the managers and supervisors to look into the welfare of the employees. They are responsible for ensuring organisational effectiveness. The have to implement organisational requirements across all the employees, hence they have to resort to such bullying. It is seen that in some circumstances the depersonalised bullying contracts along with interpersonal bullying are targeted to some agents. The supervisors and managers need to take into account above conditions. They need to understand that depersonalised bullying will not result in employee satisfaction. The employer’s organisation has to enter into a reasonable agreement with the client. The employers and the managers need to distinguish between generalised form of capitalist oppression and depersonalised bullying. Capitalist oppression has to be prevented which can result in excessive frustration in the agents. The company must look at providing flexible work timings to the employees. The company must try to provide good work life balance for the agents. They must try to provide medical insurance for the agents. They must to develop Human Resource Management Strategies which will include the beneficial facilities for the employees. Conclusion It is seen that job design elements, work systems, techno-bureaucratic controls and customer service requirements all contribute together to form the oppressive work regime. It is seen that though on one hand the task of participants lack variety, autonomy, complexity which results in routinized monotony, but on the other hand the quantity performance parameters, stringent quality which the agents have to meet causes more strain. If the agents do not meet the expectation of the employers, they cause more strain to the agents. The agents maintained that the main reason for experience of oppression actually emerges from SLAs. The Superior’s aggressive behaviours added to this view of oppression. It was seen that the cause of oppression cannot be given to attribute to any single person. Reference Alvesson, M. 2001. “Knowledge work: Ambiguity, Image and identity”, Human Relations, Vol. 54(1), pp. 863-886. Alvesson, M. and Deetz, S. 1996. Critical theory and post-modernism in S.R. Clegg and C. Hardy Studying organisations, Vol. 39 (2), pp. 619-624. Bain, P. and Taylor, P. 2000. “Entrapped by the electronic panopticon? 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