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The rise of service work

What is service work?

HR challenges and opportunities in the services sector

Managing the consequences of service sector work

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Previously, automotive developments reduced the intense labor requirements that had been associated with the manufacturing assembly process.

Declining employment in the sector continued to fall near the end of the century, with the trend to exporting manufacturing work to low-wage job markets overseas - to the primary focus of employment in many developed countries has incresingly become service oriented.

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Five attributes: Intangibility :cannot be touched Persiahbility: cannot be stored in advance Variabiltiy: interaction between providers

cuatomer added possible differences to each interaction

Simultaneous production and consumption: Inseparability:the service relies on the

information interaction between the provider and the customer.

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The feature of employment conditions in the service sector is flexibility .

The trend that in industrialized countries, employment is moving from Traditional (fulltime ,permanent ) towards part-time work, temporary employment and contract employment.

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The trend is increasing towards casual workers.

These workers are those who are not entitled in their main job to paid annual leave and paid sick leave.

AMONG THE ADVANTAGES:1. Companies have reduce the number of

fulltime employees in order to lower the associated labour costs and to give the organization the flexibility to contract for skills when needed.

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AMONG THE ADVANTAGES:2. Causal work often allow employees to fit in

child care responsibilities as well as other interest and employment opportunities.

AMONG THE DISADVANTAGES:1.The flexible arrangements creates numerous

challenges for employees and organizations-for employees: poor working conditions,low hourly rates, low and irregular earnings, reduce employment security.

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On the employees side:lack access to notice,severance pay, reduced access to unfair dismissal rights,Vulnerability to changes in schedulesLoss of skillsAge-related pay incrementsLack of representational rights

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On the employer side:Flexibility and reduces costs negative

outcomes,how?terms of employment are less likely to identify

strongly with the organization.employees do not display appropriate

organizational values and behaviours.high attrition rates The lesser investment in casuals employees

have less opportunity to develop the necessary SKAOs limited contribution and did not add to real value as expected by service providers.

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An under investment in HRM activities such as training and feedback has ramifications for the quality of service delivery provided by casual employees.

According to findings by Lowry (2001),some employees were so dissatisfied with the lack of feedback and recognition that they made a conscious decisions not to provide quality service.

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Due to the lack of organizational value alignment and the under-development of skills within the casual workforce became a problem in the hospitality and service industry.

Eg. In a university setting, where casual staff are employed to take tutorials, problems can occur when these employees are not briefed appropriately on expected standards.

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With respect to HR role, casual teaching staff may be asked to attend appropriate training programs and may also require close mentoring when first on the job.

casual teaching staff are usually also eligible to request student feedback through formal central university teaching evaluation process.

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The increasing presence of agency workers in the service work, eg nurses, hospital support workers, teachers, sales assistants are paid by an agency but work for a client on a fixed-term basis.

In particular, strategic decisions have to be made about the nature of the tasks assigned to these workers.

Hall (2006) found that these workers are employed on a short term basis are less likely to be learning new skills and less likely to be doing work that is complex or difficult.

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Absence of intrinsically challenging work as a motivator for these workers requires that HR may have to apply higher levels of supervision, surveillance and direct authoritarian control than may be necessary for core, intrinsically motivated employees who are secure and committed.

Thus, HR can make contribution by reviewing the level of training and mentoring provided to ensure that these workers are clear about what is expected of them in their interaction with customers.

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When the commitment to the organization is a priority, the prospect of being able to transfer to permanent status of gaining a promotion can also as a motivator to casuals to align their behavior with the cultural expectation.

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Managing the stress experienced by employees that is related to the nature of service work itself.

The role of HR is assisting employees in the management of emotionally-charged interactions with customers.

Undertakers, health professional and counselors take on their profession in the knowledge that they will often be dealing with people who are vulnerable and in distress.

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Training and mentoring activities prepare these professionals for the emotional work that will be part of their job.

O’Donohue and Turnley (2006) explain that the staff, who are mainly women, relied on each other to debrief about traumatic incidents, and it was the collective support within the work environment that allowed the staff to cope with the potential distress of these situations.

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Despite the emotional concentration of jobs where service workers are required to demonstrate care and compassion when dealing with customers, interaction with customers can also be an important source of pleasure and satisfaction.

Workers who feel they are helping someone often find this interpersonal connection to be an intrinsically satisfying part of the job.

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Specific examples of service industries that report increasing levels of violence include hospital staff, teachers, airline check-in employees rail and bus service workers and bank staff. Why?

Call centers often face abusive clients because of the removal of the face-to face component of the service interaction.

Thus, it is the responsibility of HR, therefore to ensure these interactions are minimized and that potential danger is averted.

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Occupational health and safety legislation ensures that organizations are legally responsible to provide a safe work place and adopt ‘a duty care’ with respect to both employees and customers.

In practice: the infrastructure changes need to be put

in place that may include appropriate video surveillance of customer behaviour,

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In practice: access to employee assistance programs for

employees to receive counseling. close communication with security department

to plan personal reaction strategies. HR has the responsibility for designing and

communicating the organization’s policy on the prevention of occupational violence in the workplace.

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In practice: Guidelines are usually provided about who

to notify and what to do in various situations and training is set up on what polices and procedures actually involve.

A confidential reporting system supports the effective operationalisation of the policy.

Korczynski (2003) : the need to encourage and develop ‘communities of coping’ or the empathetic dynamic between colleagues that provide support in emotionally stressful service.

HR can assist in the creation of this coping mechanism by developing the structures that acknowledge the natural support mechanisms that often emerge among service workers.

As a part of this structure is the design of HRM performance evaluation process.

A performance based pay in call centers works best when it is constructed on a team- basis rather than an individual reward. As such the role of team leader is important.

In call centers, service operators are often promoted to team leadership roles for their technical competency and my be relative ill –equipped to cope with the emotional coordination of the team.

Duty care responsibilities as well as the maximization of company performance may depend on how well the HR attends structural and policy design.

At the broader level, the rise of service sector has intensified the focus that is already being given to the impact HR can make in organizations.