Attitudes towards problems in the physical working environment: case contact centre
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study how contact centre employees rationalize the perceived problems of an open plan contact centre environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper applies a framework of four different orientations towards the working environment: the object orientation, system orientation, people orientation and territory orientation. Interviews in three contact centre environments with 28 interviewees were carried out, in order to test whether the framework could be used to analyse the ways the contact centre employees rationalize their working environment. The data were analysed with a qualitative content analysis.
Findings
It was possible to find four ways to rationalize the working environment from the speech of the contact centre employees: object‐oriented, system‐oriented, people‐oriented and territory‐oriented rationalization. Persons with the same dominant way of rationalization had internally coherent ways of constructing the reality of their workplace and a common way to justify the existing spatial solutions.
Research limitations/implications
This research is limited to the insights of 28 contact centre workers. Their experiences of their working environment were studied without an attempt to objectively assess whether the problems they named were real or not. The results are not generalizable in the traditional statistical sense.
Originality/value
The research on workplace‐related issues in a contact centre context is limited. Contact centre work is demanding but the physical working environment can be used to minimize the negative consequences of these demands. Thus, it is important to raise understanding of the workplace‐related issues in a contact centre context.
Keywords
Citation
Rasila, H. (2012), "Attitudes towards problems in the physical working environment: case contact centre", Journal of Corporate Real Estate, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 94-104. https://doi.org/10.1108/14630011211261696
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited