Occupational health: Call centre employees suffer significant levels of job-related stress which may be reflected in a 50 per cent turnover in staff every year, a leading specialist in occupational medicine has said.
Dr Martin Hogan, a Cork occupational physician, told the annual scientific meeting of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland that call centre workers also experienced musculo skeletal disorders and voice problems.
"It is not unusual for more than 50 per cent of employees to leave the industry every year," Dr Hogan told the meeting last week. "This could be their way of dealing with the stress they experience."
Describing the type of work carried out in call centres, which typically serve international customers calling from different time zones around the world, Dr Hogan said the call handler must take queued calls without a break. "This work is frequently regimented with handlers following strict 'scripts' and with little personal influence over the pace or content of work."
Call handlers were constantly monitored, both electronically and by supervisors listening into actual calls, he said.
Dr Hogan said employees typically presented with both physical and psychological symptoms of stress about four to six months after taking up employment. "While some employers have employee assistance programmes in place, the only way to deal with this problem is to undertake a fundamental review of call centre work to encourage more autonomy and variety of work."
A review of the call centre industry carried out by the UK Health and Safety Executive in 2003 found there was a higher prevalence of mental health problems in call centre workers than in other industries - employees are typically less than 25 years old and predominantly female and are estimated to make up 2 per cent of the workforce.
Dr Hogan, whose company Employment Health Advisors provides medical care to employees in large call centre operations, said ergonomic adjustments to the work chair, tracker ball mice and split key boards helped eliminate many of the problems, notably musculoskeletal problems, he said.
" However, the one [problem] that may require more fundamental change is stress in the working environment," Dr Hogan said.