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Hosted Call Center Workers Feeling the Pressure

By TMCnet Staff

The good news is that call centers are coming back to the United States in droves. The bad news is that a new report indicates call center employees are among some of the most unhappy of any business sector. HRE Online recently talked about the demands that are placed on call center workers and how those demands can have very real physical and emotional tolls on those workers.

Stress is part of the job when it comes to the call center world. Most centers have some sort of display that shows when workers are on the phone, away from the phone and have been on a call for far too long. Stress and strict policies when they are at work is likely the combination that has led to the knowledge that call center workers are significantly more likely to take time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act than other employees.

A recent study of more than 20,000 call center workers found that one in three employees of call centers had taken time off under the FMLA. Despite there being a rather competitive working environment when it comes to call centers trying to lure workers in, once they are in, too many centers aren’t doing what it takes to keep them happy or keep them healthy.

“You start to get a picture of a workforce that is, perhaps, more predisposed to illness and to not have as much flexibility in their schedules to take time off, and between those two things it’s not surprising that they’re taking more FMLA leave,” Brian Gifford, industry analyst IBI’s director of research and measurement, told the website. “But even when we controlled for such factors, the differences in FMLA leave between this and other workforce segments is still pretty stark.”

One way in which some call centers have managed to improve their employee health and well being is to bring in on-site vocational specialists. By doing this, the specialists were able to identify risk factors and warning signs of a host of ailments, alerting the call center and allowing the employer to take action. This leads to a drop in sick days, greater productivity and workers who know their employer wants to see them happier and healthier.