Call center crimes and misdemeanors: when managers put mobile workers in electronic handcuffs

In response to my recent post about the advantages of Unified Communications, Robbe Morris left a comment posing several excellent questions:

“Is there an extra cost in increased human real-time monitoring? Is their perhaps a 100% digitized recording option with a special technological approach to reading recorded files search for words or flags that would trigger a human follow up monitor at a later date? Is the use of web cams during working hours a common approach?”

My answer is yes, Unified Communications (UC) gives managers a great deal of power when it comes to monitoring their mobile workforce. There are also a number of exceptional complementary applications available to manage the mobile workforce. These tools, however, are only as good as the way they are used.

For or some managers, these tools are so robust that there can be a strong temptation to micromanage. If you wanted, you could monitor every employee down to five-minute increments, all day long and graph their “productivity.” The question is, is this what businesses want their managers to be doing?

It is true that in order to manage it, you need to be able to measure it. At what point does continuous measurement become analysis paralysis? It’s easy to cross the line from staying on top of what your team is doing to making employees feel like Big Brother is watching their every move.

This kind of micromanagement is demoralizing and can quickly de-incentivize mobile employees by creating an electronic jail. If I’m an at-home call agent who is also a caregiver (for a small child, an ill relative, an aging parent), then part of the attraction of being able to work remotely is the flexibility to do my job in a way that complements my caregiving duties. If I’m answering to an overzealous manager who keeps me tied to my computer through constant surveillance, I might as well be sitting in a cubicle in a traditional call center (where I’d probably have more freedom!).

The question businesses should be asking isn’t “will UC allow my managers to effectively monitor their teams?” – of course it will.

The real question is: are your managers ready to manage a mobile workforce?

–Michael Haines

Michael Haines is Chief Information Officer for CXO Global Solutions.