Scenes from the Electronic Sweatshop
by
Charles Lamson
Barbara Garson, playwrite and investigative journalist, investigated how computers were transforming office work. Her book The Electronic Sweatshop documented some negative consequences that occurred when ICTs (information and communication technologies) were used to coordinate and control work in traditional organizations. Here are two vignettes based on her book that illustrate the dark side of ICTs.
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The Automated Airline
Until the late 1970s, airline reservation agents were valued long-term employees of the major airline companies. They had to learn and remember the companies' fares, routes and policies, and apply this knowledge to solve problems for customers on an individual basis. This made them highly skilled employees, who were difficult to replace. Some made as much as fifteen dollars per hour in the early 1980s, good money at that time.
However, once computerized reservation systems were developed, companies attempted to redefine the work of the reservation agent. Much of the problem-solving was built into the system - the agent simply had to type in the place of departure and the destination, and the computer listed the available times and seats. However, there was still need for a human in the loop, because each customer's circumstances were so different that adjustments had to be made.
Although the airlines still had to have people online, they wanted to regulate their behavior, as much as possible, to maintain strict cost-and-quality control. Based on studies of the work processes involved in making a booking, conversation between agent and customer were broken into typical segments, with recommended scripts and prompts assigned to each. For example, if a customer called up knowing what he or she wanted, agents were instructed in ways to get the reservation down as quickly as possible, so they could go on to the next customer. In cases in which customers were fare-shopping, agents were taught ways to probe for a sale. One strategy was to tell the customer that there were limited seats at the low-fare, and that a seat could be held for twenty-four hours at no cost, thus insuring that many customers would call back and offer another opportunity to close the deal. Agents were also taught never to ask yes-or-no questions, such as "Would you like to book?"; instead they were to ask "Would you like the 10 a.m. or the 2 p.m.?" All transactions between agents and customers were tightly scripted. Supervisors listened in without the agents' knowledge and graded them on how well they kept to the script and efficiently booked passengers. Too much small talk or empathy could get the agent a lower grade. The companies also set performance targets: in the company Garson studied, agents were supposed to make a sale during 26 percent of their calls.
Time online and offline was carefully monitored by the computer system as well: AHU ("after hang-up") time, the time between calls was supposed to be fourteen seconds on average, if the agent wanted a raise. To keep his or her job and get raises, the agent had to be available, plugged in for booking, 98 percent of the time. For this, new agents were paid $5.77 an hour.
The Automated Social Worker
When New York state installed a computer system to keep track of its welfare system, it took a job that one would think is impossible to automate, and turned it into a series of steps. Most social workers adopt the profession because they want to help people. They are taught in school that every person is an individual and that it is important to take each individual's needs into account, to help him or her. People attracted to this field typically enjoy working with others, and hope to make a difference in people's lives. However, the computerization of work in New York, did not take this approach.
Job analysis divided the social worker's task into units, and assigned a time value to each. For example, making food stamp change counted .5, authorizing funeral and burial expenses counted .7, and replacing a lost or stolen welfare check counted .4, where the numbers stood for tenths of an hour. As a worker does each of these tasks, they are toted up to give a figure for hours of work done. Once a worker reaches his or her allotted 160 hours (actually the target is about 120 hours per month. Because 40 hours are required for staff meetings, maintaining work records and other activities), he or she is done for the month. An experienced worker can do most of these tasks in much less time than the official time figure, so it is possible to get credit for 160 hours with much less work.
So do the workers stop working when their credits reach their limit? Although we have not provided a full list of tasks here, suffice it to say that activities such as making exceptions for clients, trying to help them with their special problems when the help goes outside procedures, and providing sympathy, are not on the officially sanctioned list of tasks. The task list includes only bureaucratic operations involved in registering parties for welfare and delivering their services, not the human side of welfare. Garrison found that the social workers spent the time they had left, after satisfying their hourly credits on these other activities, coaching clients in how to get the best benefits, giving them sympathy and support working around the system and also in helping and counseling each other. The social workers made the system human by "gaming" the system.
Sadly, social workers who really try to help clients within the system often receive poor performance evaluations. If they diligently carry out their work, it takes more time than is allotted in the work analysis. One social worker commented,
Now if you are a person with a problem, you don't want to just tell it to everyone, you want to feel it out first. "This social worker, does she have some sensitivity to my problem. Can you hear me?" But I can hear her. I can't listen to her. I'm just trying to get my points. The whole system is survival. And she goes away feeling as bad or worse than when she came down here....Some people come here, they are at the end of their rope. They think, "You are a social worker. That's something. Maybe you can help me." And they start telling me about a child that is getting out of hand, starting to drink, not coming home...
This woman was a dedicated social service employee, who wanted to do the best she could for her clients. But engaging a client in this way was not efficient, and did not earn her the points she needed to make her hours. She had been "written up for Corrective Action" three times in the previous four months.
Unlike the studies of physical labor, conducted by management scientists, New York's studies made a profound error. Sympathy for the client and advocacy for his or her needs are important parts of the social worker's job, that were simply omitted from the analysis; the system captured all the physical motions of being a social worker, but ignored the spirit of the profession. This may have been inevitable in a system that was intended to enable computerization of social work. Behaviors that could be counted were emphasized, because number crunching is what the computers, at that time did best.
A good deal of the social worker's time was spent filling out papers that documented all the papers they filled out for clients, so that their work records could be entered into the computerized system. The next step was to set up the system so social workers could enter their activity records into networked computers themselves. As the system developed further, the workers would enter data about their clients directly, and the system would guide the social worker through the steps of authorizing burial expenses and other activities. In theory, this might eliminate the labor of filling in forms, freeing the social workers to engage their clients. However, judging how the system had developed at the time of Garson's interview, it is doubtful that this was the direction it took. Instead, the social workers would simply have their caseloads increased.
Ironically, the dedication of the workers to their clients kept this system going. One of the supervisors said, "I blame the union for the way it is operating, because they are not sabotaging it. If they followed the rules, the department issued them, this system would have collapsed in three months....If I were a worker and a union activist, the first time I did 100 percent in the first three weeks of the month I'd stop work and if they tried to make me do anything over 100 percent, I'd fill out an overtime form. The problem is that all the workers have developed systems of their own to get the points they need and still deliver timely service. That's what keeps this place going."
*STRATEGIC ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY 6th ed. by Charles Conrad and Marshall scott Poole; pgs. 98-101*
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