Stress in the Call Center By Stephanie Luce, CPE Staff Economist
One of the fastest growing industries in the U.S. is the call center. About 3% of the workforce now works in call centers, and many analysts predict the number to double in the next decade. Call centers are popular because they can provide a way to outsource whole swaths of labor-intensive work, such as customer service, reservations, sales and debt collection. By turning over this work to call centers, companies don't have to deal with recruitment, training and turnover issues. But there is a cost to call centers: a large cost, and one that is borne out by the employees.
According to a recent survey of 784 call center employees who answer phones in public utilities across the U.S., the constant pressure to meet quotas, follow scripts, and deal with demanding customers has taken its toll. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, one third (32 percent) report their stress level at ten. The overall average is 7.9. One third (30 percent) report that stress often affects them physically and emotionally, and forty percent report that stress "often" or "regularly" affects their work performance. Workers report a variety of physical manifestations of stress, including fatigue, irritability, inability to relax, headaches, backaches, and high blood pressure. Health problems are exacerbated because employees are limited in the number of times and minutes they can spend in the restroom.
In some call centers, the pressure to meet quotas is so great that employees can be disciplined from varying even slightly from the script. At Northern Indiana Public Service Company employees are prohibited from saying "please" and "thank you," in order to save time and get more calls in per day.
The psychological and health impacts on the workers and their families is great. But employers pay a cost as well: approximately one third of workers surveyed reported missing some work days due to stress, with a median of five days per year. With 4 to 5 million call center workers in the country, that could easily be costing employers at least $1 billion per year.
Many other workers report not using their sick days at all, despite serious health conditions caused by the work and stress, because they fear being disciplined or let go for missing work. A number of women even reported that they have been put on probation for exercising their legal right to take maternity leave.
Call center employers complain frequently about "bad employees" who have high absenteeism, and an industry with turnover rates averaging 50 to 150%. But given the stressful conditions of the work, it appears that it is management practices and not employees that need improvement.
Sources:
Luce, Stephanie and Tom Juravich. "Stress in the Call Center: A Report on the Worklife of Call Center Representatives in the Utility Industry." Report submitted to the Utility Workers Union of America, August 29, 2002.
McGray, Douglas. "Please Stay on the Line." Fast Company, Issue 63. Boston 2002. P. 48.
South Bend Tribune, "Workers say NIPSCO telling them to quit saying 'please,' 'thank you.' June 20, 2002.
(c) 2002 Center for Popular Economics
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