Professor Phil Taylor continues to research and investigate call centre conditions relating to the COVID situation and his expertise has been called upon by many media organisations over the past ten months. In total he has been interviewed or contributed to news programmes more than 40 times, ranging from CNN Brazil to BBC television and radio, from The Times and The Scotsman to the Daily Record.
Most recently, Phil was interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland Drive Time with Fiona Stalker where he spoke about the conditions within call centres, the number of COVID outbreaks and what the current guidance states. He said there was some 'lack of clarity' in UK Government guidelines with regard to what are key services and key workers, and suggested that in many cases call centre workers could and should be working from home.
"Call centres in particular can act as 'petri dishes' for the virus. It still remains the case that many call centre workers are obliged to come into workplaces and the question there is: what constitutes a key worker? The problem is the guidance isn't specific enough. Some call centres are providing key services but many are not and many call centre workers could in fact be working from home. There have been many significant outbreaks in the UK since March - I personally have discovered there to be 37 with the most significant being at the DVLA in Swansea where there were 382 cases of Covid registered between September and December. Precautionary principles should apply."
Phil was also on 5 Live with Stephen Nolan https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000rcx3 (after 37.39) and is currently working with an Observer journalist on a series of upcoming feature articles.