French Call Centre Industry Report 2004[Les « bonnes pratiques » des centres d'appels en matière de gestion des ressources humaines et d'organisation du travail]

This report is the first comprehensive benchmarking survey of work and human resource practices in the French call centre industry. This survey has been carried out by the LEST (Laboratoire d'Economie et de Sociologie du Travail) group within the methodological framework set up by a research team led by Cornell University in the USA and Sheffield University in the UK. This work is part of The Global Call Centre Research Project, which involves some twenty countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. The survey is based on general managers' responses to a nationally representative sample of 204 establishments (over 10 employees), which corresponds roughly to 6% of 3,300 centres in 2004. The general manager and human resource managers at each call centre provided detailed information on the types of customers and industries served; call centre technology; management practices such as skill requirements of jobs, organization of work, training and staffing policies and pay levels; and performance outcomes such as turnover and sales growth. They also described the institutional environment (local employer networks, union, training institutions etc.) in which they run the call centre operations.