Our information and communication society requires new office types and creates new office tasks. A typical example are call centres (also referred to as hotline, teleservice, telemarketing or customer service centres), where information is communicated by a call centre (e.g. the complaints department of an insurance provider) to employees, customers, inquiring persons etc. – sometimes across the world. Computer networks, databases, phones and headsets (listening and speaking sets) are the significant characteristics of workstations of this type.
Call Center
The typical workstation in a call centre is separated from neighbouring workstations using room division elements (partitions). The height of these division elements, which usually also feature sound-absorbing properties, either facilitates visual contact among people or intentionally obstructs it.
Example on the left:
Examples for the lighting of three workstations in a call centre arranged in a star shape using one direct-indirect-distribution free-standing work luminaire (4 x 39 W/T5) for each workstation and downlights (2 x TCD 26 W) for traffic area lighting.
Example on the right:
Examples for the lighting of three workstations in a call centre arranged in a staggered line using one direct-indirect-distribution suspended luminaire (2 x 80 W/T5) per 2 opposite workstations and downlights (2 x TCD 26 W) for traffic area lighting.
Figure 3.98:
The lighting is directly assigned to these workstations. It has to factor in the shielding effects of room division elements and be designed in a way that prevents deactivated lighting of a neighbouring, unoccupied workstation from adversely affecting the illuminated workstation. Special lighting systems with direct-indirect distribution are available for this purpose. Requirements for lighting correspond to those for regular office VDU workstations. Due to the highly individualised nature of the workstation in a call centre, brightness regulation capabilities for lighting directly assigned to the workstation is recommended.