Am I 'boverred'?: voice structures and related employee attitudes in call centres

Call centres now represent an emerging business activity across the developed and developing world. This paper explores the forms of employee voice being utilised in Australian call centres and the issues on which employees have a voice over. The paper also examines employee attitudes towards these mechanisms and the level of involvement or consultation they possess. Utilising questionnaires and focus groups from ten call centres, we find that direct employee voice channels are the most common form but that these do not tend to be formalised structures. Employees tend to be content with the status quo in this regard with hostility rather than engagement being expressed towards being represented by trade unions.