It’s all in the mix: Determinants and consequences of workforce blending in call centres

Abstract

Supplementing the full-time permanent workforce with part-time staff is a widespread practice among firms. To better understand this dynamic, we evaluate how work organization choices influence the degree of part-time use by analysing North American survey data from call centre establishments. We also evaluate the effect of part-time use on the voluntary turnover behaviour of the full-time permanent workforce. For example, firms with greater reliance on a high involvement approach to work organization relied less on part-time use than those pursuing a low involvement approach. For firms that choose to rely heavily on part-time use, we find that this decision has consequences for their full-time permanent workforce, namely higher voluntary turnover among their full-time permanent staff. Interestingly, greater reliance on a high involvement approach appears to weaken the positive relationship between part-time use and voluntary turnover among the full-time employees.