Parental and Organizational Support to Employees in Call Centres

Abstract

The paper aims to present the supportive role played by parents and call centre organization to women employees working at Indian call centres. Despite challenging working conditions in the form of daily night shifts, monotonous work routine, the employees worked smoothly at call centres with the support mechanism given by their families and call centre authorities. The first part of the paper discusses the supportive role of families for their unmarried, married daughters and wives working in call centres. Married women employees received the support of their family members in the Management of their family and working life. They also had social support of their in-laws. Unmarried women received social support from their families to work during night shifts at call centres. The second part of the paper presents the role of call centre organization in maintenance of work-life balance. The study uses the work-family balance model to discuss the form of organizational time demands, perceived career consequences and managerial support to prove that the call centres through their flexible leave policies, medical aids, safe and secure transportation have helped women employees in managing their personal and family life. The data was collected upon 150 women employees working at six different call centres in the city of Gurugram, India. Thus silencing the critiques for calling call centres as electronic sweatshops and unsafe for women, the paper highlights the brighter aspects of call centre life.

Keywords: Parental Support, Organizational Support, Call Centre Employee, Business Process Outsourcing, Information and Communication Technology

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