A few years before I retired, so it would have been in about 1997, the US Department of Veterans Affairs set up a call center (in Topeka, Kansas) that was supposed to take care of many Human Resources/Personnel issues. It was staffed through local recruiting, and the people hired were given scripts (and training on using them) that were supposed to take care of most routine issues. There was a second tier of "experts" who were to get the harder questions. It was funded by reducing each of the local HR offices (and each medical center had one) by 15% in terms of staff and salary, which is what "they" calculated was spent on answering questions rather than doing "substantive work".

What "they" didn't calculate in was that no HR office had any employees who did nothing but answer questions - they also processed paperwork, dealt with walk-ins, and handled the myriad of issues in which employees become involved. Employees with questions, of course, would continue to come to us rather than calling Topeka, because they knew we had the answers, our answers were personalized rather than generic, and they could get an answer rather than being left on hold...even though our staff had been cut.   Refusing to deal with them was not an option - my decision.

Finally, after more than 3 years of trying, and thousands of complaints across the country that the reduced staff was delaying vital actions like hiring doctors and other staff, promotions, training, and so forth, the office in Topeka was closed down and we had our previous numbers (mostly) restored to us.