Occupational Stress in a Call Center Setting There are a number of individuals who experience stress relating to their profession. Occupational stress is defined as “Job related stress, which often comes from occupational duties for which people perceive themselves as having a great deal of responsibility.” (Seaward, 2012) With different occupational comes many different forms of occupational stress. Personally, I though it would be interesting to research occupational stress in a customer focused environment. In a call center setting, most associates interact first hand with customers through phone call or even chat servicing. Many businesses depend on call centers to address numerous customer concerns about account status, collection activity, and complications with a product or service and online assistance. I thought it would be interest to take a look at occupational stress within a call center setting including chat servicing that is perform within a call center setting as well. The different type of stressors is the first of many topics in reference to occupational stress that I have focused on. A few of the main stressors in call centers include the nature of the job, quality versus quantity conflict, and job intensity. ( Suri & Rizvi, 2008) Call center employees are typically expected to meet to strict monetary goals, and to undertake high levels of quality monitoring while delivering an exceptional customer service interaction. I will also provide information in regards to the effect of occupational stress. With the technological growth in our society there is a great need for call centers. Role conflict occurs when supervisors have the duty to support call center empl... ... middle of paper ... ...ain productivity. It is important that the unique form of occupational stress in call centers is addressed within all call centers to increase the awareness of these finding. The need for call center is steadily increase therefore; it is possible that occupational stress with continue to be an issue within this setting. References Suri, S., & Rizvi, S. (2008). Mental health and stress among call center employees. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, 34(2), 215-220. Dean, A. M., & Rainnie, A. (2009). Frontline employees' views on organizational factors that affect the delivery of service quality in call centers. Journal of Services marketing, 23(5), 326-337. Seward, B. (2012). Managing stress: Principles and strategies for health and well-being. (7th ed.). Burlington, Ma: Jones and Barlett Publishing.
Shuttleworth, A., (2004). Managing workplace stress: how training can help. Industrial and Commercial Training, 36 (2), 61 – 65.
Comcast Corporation is a company that specializes in cable networking and high speed internet access for residential and commercial customers. “Comcast Creates More Than 5,500 New Jobs as Part of Multi-Year Customer Experience Transformation” (Comcast.com, 2015). I spent a total of three years working for them in a call center atmosphere before relocating my family. This job was one of my most memorable and enjoyable mainly because they followed the management practices which allowed everyone to function efficiently. Nominally “The primary function for most call centers, also known as ‘inbound’ call centers, is to receive telephone calls initiated by customers. Inbound call centers typically spend 60–80% of their budget on staff members who handle phone calls” (der Horst, et al., 2012, 435). My days were spent with between eight to twelve hours a day attached to a desk and phone system monitoring all aspects of job performance. Comcast “today announced a new, multi-year plan to reinvent the customer experience and to create a culture focused on exceeding customers’ expectations, at all levels of the company. The plan centers on looking at every decision through a customer lens and making measureable changes and improvements across the company” ...
Shinn et al (1984) investigated the effects of coping on psychological strain and "burnout" produced by job stress in human service workers (psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, pastoral counselors, nurses, etc). The researchers found that these stressors predicted job dissatisfaction, behavioral consequences as job performance and turnover in studies of human service workers, psychological symptoms, such as depression and anxiety; and somatic symptoms, such as headaches and various risk factors
SETHI, TARIKA, et al. "Stress Management: Its Cause and Effect." CLEAR International Journal of Research in Commerce & Management, vol. 6, no. 2, Feb. 2015, pp. 35-37. EBSCOhost,
"Managing Stress: A Guide for College Students." University Health Center. University Health Center, 5 May 2014. Web. 13 May 2014.
In conclusion, the above research analysis explained many contributing factors to stress and burnout and its effect on performance. As expected from prior studies, job satisfaction has an effect on productivity and/or burnout. Burnout in US nurses has been linked to Philippine nurses, despite a difference in health-care systems. Gender has also proven to be a contributing factor to stress. Women have a significant level of stress compared to men due to additional work of housework and childcare. Women also are linked to low levels of emotional exhaustion with co-worker support. Finally, perception organizational support has been linked to emotional exhaustion, but not solely due to the organization. Hopefully, organizations will continue to adopt stress reducing programs and recognize that it has many contributing factors.
Jones, F, Bright, J, Clow, A (2001). Stress: myth, theory and research. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. p. 10.
(AC 2)There are many causes of stress in the modern society due to the higher expectations and demands from different aspects of life. Work-related stress is one common cause of stress. People feel stressed out at their workplace for various reasons. For example, long working hours is one type of stressor because workers are overworked, which leads to...
Stress by definition is an interaction between individuals and any source of demand (stressor) within their environment. Employment can be an exciting challenge for many individuals; it can also be a tremendous source of stress. (Long, Bonita C.) Stress in the work place can cause many individuals harm emotionally and physically. Several reasons for the intense amounts of stress are; too many demands from co-workers, supervisors constantly breathing down your back, elevated noise levels in the work place, lack of knowledge for a particular position, co-workers not upholding their responsibility to help with the task at hand, and favoritism. Lack of promotional opportunities at your place of employment, in spite of the fact that you go that extra mile will contribute to stress.
It is important to reiterate that when dealing with job stress, the organization must be sure to make the careful distinction between the commonly perceived definition of stress and positive stress within the organization. Through Seley’s research, he postured that positive stress can “be helpful when it motivates people to accomplish more” (The American Institute of Stress). This positive stress serves as a motivator that drives people to reach goals.
Jaffe-Gill, M. E., Segal, M. R., & Melinda, S. (2010, October). Stress Management. Retrieved February 13, 2011, from HelpGuide.ord: http://www.helpguide.org
Bhagat, Chetan. One night at the Call Center. New Delhi: Rupa Publications , 2005. Print.
Stress is something that everyone has to deal with in life, whether it is good or bad stress. Stress management techniques are a great way to deal with stress. Some of the stress management techniques that I learned from this course are prioritization, scheduling, and execution. Using these techniques has effectively helped me deal with my own stress. When it comes to dealing with stress I still have many strengths and weaknesses that I will explain. Some stressors I have in my life that I will discuss are psychointrapersonal, social, life events, and daily hassles. Next, I will give my opinion on my post-course survey, and compare and contrast it to my pre-course survey scores. Finally, I will explain my last goals for this stress management course.
Since people are always dealing with certain changes in their lives, they are always dealing with some type of stress. One of the biggest growing issues with stress is stress in the workplace. According to Northwestern National Life, one-fourth of employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives (“Stress at Work,” 1999).... ... middle of paper ...
Long – term stress can even require the brain, leaving you more vulnerable to anxiety, and depression; it can be a main cause of moodiness and frustration. Many of us are aware of the physical symptoms of stress-muscle pain, rapid breathing or an increased pulse. At the same time, they also suffer from emotional of stress which can be like roller coaster of highs or lows. emotional effects rang from emotional overeating to a feeling of being overwhelmed and pressure. stress impact many other components, which leads to difficulties in making decisions, loss sense humor, poorer concentration, negative thinking. As can be seen, stress nearly brings serious effects to people. Apart from the effects above, it can be the main reason which creates your decreased productivity at work. stress makes people less control their pace work, which leads to dissatisfaction. about 40% employees said that they are burned out because of work-related stress and loss $300 billion each year in the workplace . In addition, your relationship with people around also become worsens because of your stress. In fact, stress makes people puzzled and their life can undergo a considerable