4.5.1 Semi-structured interviews
This study involved the collection of primary qualitative data through semi-structured in-depth individual and focus group interviews with call centre operators, trade unions officials, shop stewards, managers and municipal officials. The flexible nature of the semi-structured interviews allowed the workers to communicate the meaning of their work and articulate their own experiences. The nature of interview was guided by the ethic of an empathetic approach. As a researcher I tried to foster ‘trust’ which was difficult in the highly suspicious local government environment. “The method of friendship is a method of morality because it attempts to restore the sacredness of humans before addressing any theoretical or methodological concerns” (Fontana and Frey, 2005: 697). This is one of the
key values promoted by the feminist school of thought as they argue for the non-hierarchical relations between the researcher and the observed. Hierarchy does very little to facilitate trust, and in fact seriously undermines the building of an open relationship (Campbell and Wasco, 2000). However, as a researcher I was fully aware of the ‘inherent hierarchy’ between the researcher and researched. Adesina (1992: 27) argued that the
“researcher must be aware of the class gap between himself/herself and the researched and strive to overcome it or at least be aware of its methodological implications. This is the beginning of learning process…” This is why interviews were flexible in nature, depending on the interviewee. For instance, different interview questions were designed for managers, supervisors and operators in order to encourage the conversation. The overarching aim of these interviews was to collect detailed data on the history, objectives, nature, development and outcomes of the local government call centres.
Interviews lasted for between 45 minutes to 2 hours. Semi-structured and informal interviews covered more than 21 call centre operators, ten top management officials (Directors and Managers), almost ten union officials, three researchers/activists and two supervisors out of three. The interviews for the call centre operators focused on subjective perceptions and experiences about the call centre workplace. This was supplemented by two focus group interviews with mostly female operators (one male participant in each group). The number of participants in a group varied between 5-7 members due to the demanding working environment. Due to the aforementioned media attention on the Johannesburg municipality and its call centre, workers interrogated the researcher before agreeing to the interview, often asking ‘Are you a journalist? or ‘Did the managers send you?’ Operators were visibly suspicious regardless of assurances about confidentiality and privacy. This also meant that some refused to be taped in the interview so as not to jeopardise their jobs. This suspiciousness was eventually overcome by the regular visits to the call centre and operators started to open up about their experiences. For example, one operator told me that they simply completed the questionnaire without paying attention because they thought it ‘might be one of the manager’s schemes to get them fired’.
The controlled environment and constant surveillance in this technologically induced
‘panopticon’ also played a part in the lack of trust between individual workers and the
to overcome fear and also to ‘protect’ themselves against being identified with specific opinions expressed in the interviews. This is why I included focus group discussion (FGDs) as part of my data collection. Confirming what feminists have argued about the benefits of focus group interviews”... the task of understanding women’s lives may be achieved in a group settings” (Campbell and Wasco, 2000: 784). Despite the groups being mixed, women dominated the group composition and these interviews proved to connect the participants and open minds. Several participants said “I thought I was the only one”. Groups can be criticised for creating problems regarding issues that the participants had previously regarded as ‘normal’. But on the whole FGDs proved to be more beneficial as women shared and discussed learning from each other about the work issues. The FGDs also allowed me to maximise time and information gathered per session as the call centre work did not permit operators to be far from their desks for long periods. The groups allowed even those who were cynical at first to join in; some joined the group discussions without an invitation even.
Those who refused to join the group made statements like “This is only academic work. So it’s not going to change anything” (FGD, September 2012). Some of the group conversational interviews took place in the cafeteria over lunch time. The FGDs provided a chance for most to reflect on the survey questions, and provide clarity on some of the unclear questions. They also provided a space to talk freely without supervisors watching, though most of the time sitting with me one-on-one was avoided.
4.5.2 Observations and documentary sources
Given the centralised and individualistic nature of the call centre workspaces, observations and regular call centre visits, which included listening to the operator-customer interaction, were necessary as the operators were at their desks. These were accompanied by informal interviews with staff in canteens. Talking at work was more challenging as the workers had to log out from taking calls and attend to my questions. The system calculates the amount of time spent away from the calls and the supervisor and managers would then need to account to the city officials for this lost time. Therefore supervisors frequently came to check up on me and asking about the amount of time ‘left’ for interviews. My visits therefore had to be limited.
Observation was undertaken in call centres for more than eight months while talking to operators, supervisors, shop stewards and managers. The aim of the observations was to
capture the dynamic and interactive nature of the call centre labour process as it took place, to explore participants’ responses, and to develop a detailed picture of the call centre labour process. Detailed field notes were taken during and after the observations, which were immediately transcribed. As I was scribbling down notes, call centre operators would ask me ‘are you going to write everything we say?’ This meant I could only write key words.
Some were amazed at the speed of note taking; I tried to maintain eye contact take detailed notes at the same time. The intention was to keep interviewees interested but take detailed notes at the same time. Babbie and Mouton (2002: 282) noted that “to understand and interpret case studies, researchers describe the context in detail” to capture the context in which the behaviour is embedded.
In the field, the collection of organisational documents and policies relevant for the study proved to be helpful in supplementing interviews, focus groups and survey interviews.
These documents provided a socio-economic background of the City of Johannesburg from which interview questions were based. From secondary literature, Johannesburg is one of the few cities studied in South Africa, especially with regard to urban planning, the history of capitalism, the migrant labour system, service delivery and privatisation, etc. The officials of the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) were also vital in accessing documents during this period as the trade union was at the forefront of the struggles against neoliberalism in the City of Johannesburg. Generic questions from the literature were included with some informed by analysis of the documentary evidence and piloted questionnaire which provided valuable insights into the processes and terminology of the call centre labour process. In observing the call centre and interviewing managers in their offices I came across a big file with all the documents pertaining to the restructuring of the city and Programme Phakama’s history and outcomes. These documents were analysed along with the City of Johannesburg newsletter, policy documents and reports. These primary documents provided a background to the institutional culture and current performances of the city.
4.5.3 Interview survey
An interview survey simply means an “interview encounter with explicit purpose of one person obtaining information from another during a structured conversation based on
gathering data, the role of the interviewer is to record the responses on the questionnaire according to structured categories (Babbie and Mouton, 2001). The Customer Satisfaction Survey conducted every four years by COJ Municipality records some of the deep concerns about the call centre and service delivery at large. The latter produced experiences and perceptions of the customers about the customer service and service delivery within the COJ. I then focused on the workers who were required to complete a six-page questionnaire about their work, working conditions, experiences, and well-being. Survey research was used in the exploratory stage of the research, with more than 40 questions both open and closed ended. The pilot study instrument was tested in 2011, with 10 questionnaires for call centre worker operators. After this first stage, more questions were added and some were removed or made clearer.
The level of participation in the questionnaire was determined by the distributor. It became clear from the onset that whoever distributes the questionnaires affects the participation.
An initial pilot study with ten operators provided key lessons about the language, themes and unforeseen challenges in data coding. The initial questionnaire was reworked and distributed to all the call centre operators available at the time of my visits. This self-administered survey was a mixture of both the closed and open ended questions, and the aim was to reach as many workers as possible during the short period I had in the City of Joburg. More than 100 survey questionnaires were distributed with 59 of them returned completed. The monitored self-completed questionnaires were distributed to the call centre operators in the call centre during my visits. The number of workers in the call centre is supposed to be 130, but at the time of the survey only 90 people were present. Considering many factors discussed later in the analysis chapters, the 59 who did get involved in the survey can be viewed as a substantial number. The combination of open and closed ended questions was challenging at first as the former was not easy to code. This was countered by looking at different responses from the respondents and later categorised into numbers.
This meant browsing through the questionnaire responses to look for common themes in the open ended questions. For example when the respondents were asked to give examples of the situations where they felt angry towards a customer, many respondents would write a story with different sources of anger. This is when I scanned through the stories and coded
them into 6 themes. The numbers next to the themes were then entered into a spreadsheet which was imported to SPSS programme that only recognise numbers.