That is a very open ended, unqualified, and context free statement, so full of assumptions and management speak, I really don’t know where to start.

But the problems include:

What kind of accountability?
How are targets determined?
How far does this obligation to commit extend?
Who decides an employee has met their targets, and demonstrated constant improvement?
What form does this “constant assessment” take?

And so on.

These are not trivial games with words I am playing here, Patrick, it is the guts of the problem. The vague abstract language and concepts you use (standard management-speak) IS THE PROBLEM. It leaves the door wide open for seriously unrealistic work conditions. The devil is in the detail, which you haven’t provided.

Sure, stress as in flashing strobe lights and sleep deprivation is all that you are going on about.

No, I am not talking about overt torture. Your glib statement simply proves that you don’t understand what stress is and how it works.

Helen, just you try to tell the kids of today that, and they won’t believe you, they won’t!

No Patrick, we’re talking about stress that results from poor management practices and bad workplace organisation. You can learn more about the subject at the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/stresswk.html) and the UK Health and Safety Executive web-sites (http://www.hse.gov.uk/stress/). Then you might be in a position to offer an *informed* comment.

Stress as in accountability for your targets, being obliged to commit to and demonstrate constant improvement, and being constantly assessed, is all of what I said.

As I adverted to, there is a debate about whether the management might not be doing the right thing, or one of the possible right things, with the wrong people. That in itself is of course a management failure – and DD, amongst others, points out how they will pay for it.

But Observa’s comment points out one reason why they might be making that mistake (if they are).

That is an ignorant and callous comment.

Some kinds of stress for short periods is good, or at least benign, but lots of open ended stress is very bad. The science on that is absolutely clear. No species can deal with sustained high levels of stress. Indeed, excessive stress is arguably the second biggest cause of poor human health the world over, after lack of clean drinking water. Stress maims and kills, and very effectively.

With respect, sounds to me like you don’t know what real stress is.

(Cue Patrick’s version of the ‘I did it real tough, started at the bottom and got to where I am entirely through my own efforts, so why can’t everyone else?’ routine.)

I’ve heard of this happening in other industries, I have a relative who is supposed to visit the supervisor each time she goes to the toilet (and to fill-out the details in the toilet-break log-book while picking up the “toilet-break #1 and tiolet-break #2 tag.” It’s pointless and probably the whole thing wastes more time than it saves, it also is so demeaning, and makes the staff feel about as valued as the road-kill they driveby on their way to work. I also think penalising staff for targets that are rarely achieved is actually counterproductive, instead of incentivising it actually detracts from performance and probably results in more cynicism and slacking off than it saves, plus as someone mentioned the revolving door is expensive in needing to always train new staff.

The specifics of call centres aside, what can we say more generally about some of the issues raised here. Floating the dollar certainly had the inevitable effect of honing competition and cutting fat and that may well have been inherently mixed up with computerisation and the trend to longer and longer tentacles of business, which has some remoteness/aloofness ill effects, service wise. I can remember working at 16 after school on Thurs, Frid arvos and Sat mornings till 1.00, pulling petrol, checking oil, water, tyres and washing windscreens, etc. After 6.00 pm weekdays or 1.00pm Sat, it was 2 bob in the slot at selected coin operated outlets. Seems positively quaint nowadays, along with the 2 airline policy and my TAA Junior Flyers Membership earlier on. As kids we flew down annually from Darwin to Adelaide (14 hour flight)compliments of dads govt job conditions. We were rare beasts indeed to be flying in those days. They’d hold the plane for a family of six if you were unavoidably detained and treated you like royalty on board. Now my 23 yr old son is in South America, compliments of a 1 yr, round the world ticket for $3k all up, which he can save for in a week, subbing as a sparky. Who do you know who hasn’t been on a plane nowadays, compliments of Virgin, Jetstar and soon Tiger? Qantas slowly slips into a smaller market niche, albeit in a much greater industry. Increasingly the consumer cuts out the middleman by self service at servos and hunting and booking cheap flights on the net, squeezing more from less every day. Oh yes, the punters always say they want more service, but try charging them to pump their petrol, check the oil, etc and see how you go. Are there any such servos left in Oz? Same with airline seats and the myriad of other goods and services. Truth is 99% of what we buy is hassle free and bloody cheap. It’s only when things go wrong and we want some action, we get peed off with ‘Press button 1, etc, etc.’ That’s when we’re simply a cost on the bottom line, at the end of a very competitive and ruthlessly selective process, driven by us. It’s a bastard when we get kicked so hard at work, by the same process though. When I was pulling petrol we had 6 of us on the forecourt on a Sat morning, but every servo in town had the same 2/6d per gallon on the bowser and if you rolled up 1 minute past 1, you were outta luck and outta petrol till Monday boyoh. Welcome back to the land of the long weekend!

If Telstra is running this sort of culture (and I’d believe it – they have a track record of shocking incompetence) they are incredibly short-sighted. Unemployment is at 4.2% now – people really can happily say “fuck you” to this stuff even without a union behind them. And staff turnover, even for so-called “unskilled” jobs, is very expensive for both parties.

Of course we know what follows – Telstra will groan about “skill shortages” and demand 457 visas or government-subidised training courses for their call centres.

They are high-stress.”

Bullshit. The highest stressed jobs (as noted by one of the interviewees in the Four Corners program) are those where the worker has minimal control over the demands that are placed on them – the ones at the bottom of the corporate pecking order, not the top. There’s plenty of research – dating back to the 1980s – which has shown this time and again.

“High achieving” corporate top-dogs (like Rolland) are happy as pigs in sh*t with their lives – they pretty much set their own goals and their social lives and work-lives are seamlessly conjoined under the rubric of “networking”. These guys are having fun and getting paid well for it. They’re in business because it’s their idea of a good time, plus you get all the rewards – money, status, conspicuous consumption.

The effects of deregulation and reduced union power can be seen not only in the reduced quality of life of workers but in the increasing inequality of gross earnings (pre taxes and transfers) and the rising share of profits in GDP (meaning a higher share of productivity growth is being captured by proprietors, shareholders and managers). As yet, rising earnings inequality has not been reflected in final income inequality. This is due to (a) falling unemployment and (b) Howard’s family benefits reforms (which leave out many low-income single or childless workers). But there are lags at work. Inequality of final incomes is bound to increase in the future unless (a).Howard uses the transfer system to further redistribute (b)does more to equalize opportunities in employment, education, training and housing and (c)unemployment continues to fall,

Observa, the factors highlighted by James, including the increased stress, show up as increased output per hour worked. People who are too stressed and less productive just get the boot or are demoted or transferred. The effect of Telstra-style practices is not on workplace efficiency but on family happiness.

It is called becoming a consultant.

And there is a lot to be said for letting your employees know you love them, and I am sure Telstra do that (ok, in some areas I know they do).

But, but, butall those high-paying productive value-added financial services-type jobs lefties seem to think are the only kind worth encouraging in Australia? Do you know what the dirty little secret is?

They are high-stress. Life is stressful, it always has been and always will be, and we have evolved (like every other animal) to be stressed. Leadership is not about removing or alleviating stress, it is about channeling it productively into adrenaline, camaraderie, and (as a result) results.

Hmmm! You’d reckon after 15 years of all this increasing ‘stress’ in the workplace, that productivity would be taking a big dive by now. That’s not to say that call centres are the most relaxed and comfortable places to work. Outsourcing them to India might make as much sense as outsourcing our dark satanic mills to China perhaps?

When I still worked in hospitals 15 years ago the micromanagement monitoring systems where we had to keep track of all our work during the day were just coming in. We essentially had 15 minutes of paperwork per day added to our schedule, and by the time I left it was creeping upwards. All in the name of productivity, but there obviously is an optimum point of time spent per patient that delivers an effective outcome which can’t really be further modified much, so what was the point exactly?

I’m sure virtually every other industry has a similiar optimum point of service delivery beyond which efforts to increase work rates end up in customer dissatisfaction. I really don’t understand why so many companies don’t seem to care about that, they’d rather increase their control over their workers through bullying.