Working the Phones: investigating control and resistance in the modern workplace [Audio]

All items | LSE Public lectures and events | Audio

Speaker(s): Jamie Woodcock, Dr Alpa Shah | Jamie Woodcock goes undercover in a call centre to reveal the plight of over a million workers employed in the UK’s least-loved service industry. In the six months he spent ‘working the phones’, Jamie observed – and succumbed to – pockets of resistance to management, surveillance and control. Join Jamie as he recalls his experience, illustrating how call centres have become emblematic of the post-industrial service economy, which prompts him to question whether the gig economy will be subjected to a similar fate. Jamie Woodcock (@jamie_woodcock) is an LSE Fellow in LSE's Department of Management. Alpa Shah (@alpashah001) is Associate Professor (Reader) in the Department of Anthropology at the LSE. Bev Skeggs (@bevskeggs) is Professor of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. The Department of Management (@LSEManagement) is a globally diverse academic community at the heart of the LSE, taking a unique interdisciplinary, academically in-depth approach to the study of management and organisations.