Prevalence of Stress among Call Center Employees

Abstract

This study explores the level of stress among call center employees. The aim of the research was to analyze whether stress level varies with reference to gender, shift work, and type of organization (inbound or outbound call center). A purposive sample of 191 Customer Support Representative (men = 106 & women = 85) from three inbound and three outbound call centres of Lahore was obtained. The age range of the sample varied from 19 – 40 years (M = 24.81, SD = 3.69). Degree of Job Stress Scale (Chow, 2005) was utilized to measure the level of occupational stress; it is a 20 item self-report 5-point likert scale, the reliability of the scale ranged from 0.80 to 0.86. Customer Service Representatives (CSR's) were approached via their team leads at their work place. After obtaining informed consent questionnaires were distributed among the CSR's and were collected subsequently. Reliability analysis of the scale was also conducted for the present sample, which was significantly high (r = .88). The individual scores were then analyzed using SPSS and t-statistics was employed to analyze the results. The analysis confirmed the hypothesis and revealed significant differences in the level of stress with reference to shift work and type of organization (inbound or outbound call center). Present research has significant implications for call center employees and management.

Full text

Prevalence of Stress among Call Center Employees
Ayesha Khalid
GC University, Lahore
Ayesha Sarfaraz
Beaconhouse National University, Lahore
Shehla Ahmed and Farah Malik
GC University, Lahore
This study explores the level of stress among call center employees. The aim of the research was to
analyze whether stress level varies with reference to gender, shift work, and type of organization
(inbound or outbound call center). A purposive sample of 191 Customer Support Representative
(men = 106 & women = 85) from three inbound and three outbound call centres of Lahore was
obtained. The age range of the sample varied from 19 – 40 years (M = 24.81, SD = 3.69). Degree of
Job Stress Scale (Chow, 2005) was utilized to measure the level of occupational stress; it is a 20
item self-report 5-point likert scale, the reliability of the scale ranged from 0.80 to 0.86. Customer
Service Representatives (CSR’s) were approached via their team leads at their work place. After
obtaining informed consent questionnaires were distributed among the CSR’s and were collected
subsequently. Reliability analysis of the scale was also conducted for the present sample, which
was significantly high (r = .88). The individual scores were then analyzed using SPSS and t-
statistics was employed to analyze the results. The analysis confirmed the hypothesis and revealed
significant differences in the level of stress with reference to shift work and type of organization
(inbound or outbound call center). Present research has significant implications for call center
employees and management.
Keywords: Stress, gender, shift work, type of organization, Call Center Employees,
Stress is inevitable in an individual’s life. It sometimes
describes threats or challenges, other times our responses. Stress
is not just a stimulus or a response. It is the process by which we
appraise and cope with environmental threats and challenges
(Myers & Myers, 2004). Stress refers to the uneasiness we feel
when we are unable to handle the demands of everyday life
(Adams & Bromley, 1998). Stress is common in everyday life;
however its severity might vary depending upon the type of
person, situation and the availability of support.
A vast majority of research body connects stress with the fast
lifestyle of today's global world. Many researchers attribute this
fast life style to the development of modern day technologies.
According to these researchers the development of modern
technology has forever altered the structure of our society and
social life by increasing the speed with which we use to do things,
thus adding to the stress (Hoffman, Novak, & Venkatesh, 2004).
Technology has not only affected our social life but it has
changed the way we think about everything from our home to
work, our lifestyle, values, and what’s possible and impossible. It
affects us in ways we can’t even begin to articulate ((Murray,
1998). It has changed the way we live, though not for the better,
since technology can not only cause stress to those who use it but
also to those who fear it, resulting in techno-stress (Weil, 2003).
Techno-stress builds up because technology lets us do so much
at the same time, enormous amounts of information is pouring in
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ayesha
Khalid Chaudhry, Govt. College University Lahore.
E-mail: ayyssh@gmail.com
from all sides through computers, telephones, communicators etc
and one ends up feeling overwhelmed and is unable to process the
information overload. Technology along with increasing the
speed, with which information is processed and acquired, has
changed our perception of time and altered our internal clocks.
Thereby speeding up our mentality and giving us unrealistic
expectations of ourselves, causing fatigue and physical stress and
encouraged more multitasking (juggling multiple thoughts and
actions simultaneously), creating extra stress and anxiety (Weil,
2003)..
Like all other aspects of life technology has also greatly
transformed today's global multicultural work settings. Machines
to a large extent have replaced human work force, leaving only a
small number of people juggling with complicated mechanical
systems. While such technology has increased the efficiency with
which people work, it has also added to the anxieties of work life
in the form of information overload, heightened pressure for
productivity, and a threatening sense of impermanence in the
workplace. Thus, adding to the stress of employees all around the
world.
Technology has converted our world into a global society
where everything is accessible; as a result businesses are
constantly competing to keep their place in the market further
stressing their employees; who feel overwhelmed by the
competing demands and pressures. As a result the stress of work
turns in to a living nightmare of running faster and faster, from
which they are unable to escape. They feel anxious while going to
work, their motivation for work decreases, and they try to avoid
the situation, thus increasing the rate of absenteeism and turnover.
The situation even worsens in technologically advanced call
centers that are quickly springing up across the globe. As
businesses have to cater to the needs of customers belonging to
different parts of the worlds and have to compete to increase their
Pakistan Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology
2013, Vol. 11, No.2, 58-62

market share they feel the need to be connected with their
customers 24 hours a day 7 days a week (24/7). As a result the
call center environment has become one of the most stressful
areas in corporations today, and the stakes are high (Cryer, White
& Cryer, 2003). Call centers are often compared with 18th century
"sweat shops" since the employees have to deal with a constant
flow of customer calls 24/7. As a result stress has becomes a
common concern for call center employees as well as
management, due to high demands and constant monitoring
(Agnew, n.d.).
Moreover research shows that this stress affects females worse
than males. Canada & Brusca's (1992) research shows that a
"technological gender gap" exists as males and females have
different attitude towards technology that affects their motivation
to learn the use of such technology. Another research by Dorup
(2004) on medical students of Denmark reveals that males have
more favorable attitude towards latest technological
advancements. Almost 47 % males in his sample wanted to
replace traditional teaching with computers as compared to only
22% of females. Moreover various other researchers also found
'technological gender gap' since 1980s (Young, 2000 as cited in
Hale, 2001). As a result when faced with the use of modern
technology females feel more stressed out as they believe it is not
their areas of expertise (due to media and society's depiction of
males as being expert in the use of technology) and they are most
likely to fail.
However, even though research shows that females generally
shy away from the use of technology techno-stress can be
severely de-capacitating for both males as well as females.
Especially when more and more call centers are opening up
around the world and thousands and thousands of workers are
being employed by this expanding industry in which the workers
are forced to take and make calls one after another, sitting in front
of computer monitors for the entire length of their shift, where
supervisors constantly monitor their performance electronically.
Thus making stress an ever increasing phenomenon in call centers
(Sprigg and Jackson, 2006; The Times, 1998).
Moreover, this stress further increases depending on the type of
call centers employees are working in i.e inbound or out bound
call center. Inbound call centers exclusively or predominantly
handles inbound calls (calls initiated by the customer) and
generally receives incoming product support or information
inquiries/complaints from consumers. Whereas, outbound call
centers are the ones in which call center agents make outbound
calls to customers or sales leads. Outbound call centers are
operated for telemarketing, solicitation of charitable or political
donations, debt collection and market research (Rouse, 2007).
Research shows that inbound call center employees experience
greater stress as compared to outbound call center employees
(Dormann & Zapf , 2004; Goldberg & Grandey, 2007), since
outbound call center representatives have some control over their
work situation by choosing which customers to call as compared
to inbound call center employees who have to take the calls of all
customers directed at them diminishing their control over their
work situation leading to greater stress (Spector, 2002; Daniels &
Guppy, 1994). Moreover outbound call center employees do not
have to deal with angry or abusive customers like inbound call
center employees, who have no way out, but to take the abuse and
try to soothe the customer thus increasing their level of stress.
Researches also show that dealing with customers 24/7, who
might not be in their best mood, strains the employees resulting in
loss of customer as well as employees (Cryer, White & Cryer,
2003; Dormann & Zapf, 2004; Goldberg & Grandey, 2007).
In addition to the type of call center another important factor
that affects the stress of employees working at call centers is the
type of work shift. Call centers generally operate 24/7 as they
deal with customers geographically located in different time
zones, thus resulting in having employees working round the
clock to appease the customers. Researches show that employees
working at non-standard work shifts (such as night shifts)
experience higher overall burnout, emotional exhaustion, job
stress and health problems than employees on a fixed day shift,
due to disruption of body’s circadian rhythm (Jamal, 2004).
A survey, carried out by UNISON on call centers in Scotland
reveals that almost 75% of call center employees feel stressed
leading to greater levels of absenteeism and turnover as compared
to any other workplace (Swinton, 2002). Almost 1 in 7 employees
leave the industry every year, while other develop various
physical as well as psychological problems such as sleeping
disorders, loss of voice, digestive problems, repetitive stress
injury, headaches and dizziness symptoms of neuroticism,
maladaptive and pathological behavior and somatic pathologies
(Gans, Koole, & Mandelbaum, 2003; Srivastava, 1999; Swinton,
2002). Other researches reveal that stress produced anger
increases aggressive behavior and these negative effects continue
even after the stressor is removed. High levels of stress impair
people’s memory and attention during cognitive activities
(Sarafino, 1994; Swinton, 2002). Moreover attempts to cope with
the stress can deplete the body of its energy and strength, leaving
it susceptible to all sorts of illnesses and pathologies such as heart
diseases, ulcers and other such medical conditions (Atkinson,
Atkinson, Smith, Bem, & Hoekema, 2000).
Inspite of all these drawbacks the call center are an
increasingly important part of today’s globalized economy.
Riding on this wave, Pakistan’s call center industry has been
steadily growing. Call center industry crossed $20 million figure
during 2005. Some 120 centers have opened in Pakistan in the
past two years. Today they employ 3,500 people, and that number
is expected to grow by 60% a year (telecompk, n.d.). Therefore
vast research is needed to explore the problems faced by call
center employees as they have to face continuous stress that can
lead to harmful consequences for individuals as well as the
organization. This research aims at exploring the level of stress
among call center employees in Pakistan with the aim of identify
promising directions for future research because once its
established that call center employees in Pakistan are experience
high levels of stress, future researches can be done on exploring
the major causes and ways to reduce their level of stress thus
making their workplace more comfortable which might result in
improved employee well-being leading to better performance and
revenues for the organization. Thus we try to outline important
problems that have yet to be fully addressed.
Hypotheses
1) Female employees will experience more stress as
compared to their male counterparts.
2) Night shift employees will show higher stress as
compared to dayshift employees.
3) Employees of inbound call centers will experience
higher stress as compared to employees of outbound
call centers.
Method
Research Design
Survey research design was employed to measure the level of
stress among call center employees and to see whether stress
level varies with reference to shift work, gender and type of call
center.
KHALID, SARFRAZ, AHMED AND MALIK 59

Participants
A purposive sample of 190 Customer Support Representative
(106 men & 85 women) was taken from three inbound and three
outbound call centres of private sector Telecom companies in
Lahore. All the respondents were literate with education ranging
from bachelors to masters. The age range of the sample was from
19 – 40 years (M = 24.81, SD = 3.69). 153 employees (68 men &
85 women) out of 191 were working at dayshift and 38 (men)
were from nightshift. Since women were not working at night
shift only males were taken from night shift. Out of total 191; 99
employees were taken from inbound whereas 92 employees were
taken from outbound call centres. The details of the sample are
given in table 1.
Measures
Degree of Job Stress Scale (Chow, 2005) was utilized to
measure the level of stress among call centre employees (e.g. I
feel tired even with adequate sleep, I feel frustrated in carrying
out my responsibilities at work). It is a 20 item self-report Likert
type questionnaire and measures individual responses ranging
from always to never (1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 =
often, 5 = always). Individual responses are then scored and
added, and a total score is obtained in order to get a measure of
their degree of stress. The scale was developed on a sample of
1590 employees of five organizations rendering variety of
services, the alpha coefficient ranged from 0.80 to 0.86, showing
very high reliability (Chow, 2005). The reliability alpha
coefficient of the scale for the present sample was found to be
0.898 (p < .0001), again representing a very high reliability for
this data. The scale was used in its original form in English.
Procedure
The Human resource departments of inbound and outbound
call centers were contacted and permission was sought for
collecting data from their call centers located in Lahore. After the
permission was sought customer support representatives from
selected call centers were contacted via their team leads at their
workplace. The day and night shift employees were contacted
separately because of difference in their work timings. After
obtaining their consent questionnaires were given to them in their
free time and were collected subsequently after its completion,
which took almost 10 to 15 minutes. The questionnaires were
then quantitatively configured and scores were obtained for each
participant. The scores were then analyzed using SPSS.
Results
This section summarizes and describes the results obtained by
analyzing the data using SPSS version 15. In order to test the
hypothesis, statistical analysis of student’s t- test was employed.
Comparisons were made between male and female employees,
day and night shift employees, and inbound and outbound call
centers employees. Psychometric properties i.e. Alpha coefficient
of Degree of Job Stress Scale (Chow, 2005) was determined for
the present sample, which was significantly high (r = .89, p <
.0001).
Table 2 shows that stress level of women (M = 47.96, SD =
13.49) do not differ significantly from men (M = 50.95, SD =
13.93), t (151) = 1.34, p = n.s.
Table 3 shows that level of stress was significantly higher in
night shift employees (M = 60.23, SD = 12.64) as compared today
shift employees (M = 50.95, SD = 13.62), t (104) = 3.49, p <.001.
Table 4 shows that employees of inbound call centers (M =
59.18, SD = 14.97) have significantly higher levels of stress as
compared to employees of outbound call centers (M = 43.17, SD
= 6.64), t (189) = 9.42.
Table 1
Descriptive characteristics of sample (N=191)
Variables
Men
Women
f
%
f
%
Age
19-25
60
56.6
69
81.2
26-32
43
40.6
14
16.5
33-40
3
2.8
2
2.4
Education
Bachelors
50
47.2
35
41.2
Masters
56
52.8
50
58.8
Call center
Inbound
63
59.4
36
42.4
Outbound
43
40.6
49
57.6
Work Shift
Morning
68
64.2
85
100
Evening
38
35.8
--
---
Note: percentage of each sub classification is based upon the total
numbers of subject in each group. Men = 106 and Women = 85.
Table 2
Gender differences in the stress level of call center
employees (N=191)
Variables
n
M
SD
SE diff
t
Women
85
47.96
13.49
2.23
1.34
Men
106
50.95
13.93
df= 189, p=n.s.
Table 3
Differences in the stress level of morning and evening shift
male employees (N=191)
Work timings
n
M
SD
SE diff
t
Morning shift
68
50.95
13.62
2.65
3.49*
Evening shift
38
60.23
12.64
df =104,*P< .001
Table 4
Differences in the stress level of Inbound and Outbound call
centre employees (N=191)
Call Center
n
M
SD
SE diff
t
Inbound
99
59.18
14.97
1.65
9.42*
Outbound
92
43.17
6.64
df = 189 *p < .001
Discussion
The analysis of the results revealed various significant aspects.
Firstly, it revealed that almost 40% of the employees working at
call centers are experiencing alleviated levels of stress, whereas
almost 20 % experienced moderate levels of stress. Such stress is
usually caused by tough targets and constant monitoring that adds
to the stress levels of call centers employees since they are forced
to make or take calls one after another. Moreover the interaction
with angry or abusive customers further drains their energy
60 PREVALENCE OF STRESS AMONG CALL CENTER EMPLOYEES

leaving them vulnerable to stress ultimately leading to burnout.
Other researches also confirm these findings of the present study
(Cryer, White & Cryer, 2003; Dormann and Zapf, 2004;
Goldberg & Grandey, 2007; Sprigg & Jackson, 2006; Swinton,
2002).
Secondly, non-significant differences were found between
stress level of men and women working at call centers. While
other studies showed that men and women would respond
differently to techno-stress as women generally shy away from
the use of modern technology and hence would be more
susceptible to stress (Canada & Brusca, 1992; Dorup, 2004;
Young, 2000 as cited in Hale, 2001). The findings of this research
do not corroborate such claims.
Thirdly, the analysis confirmed the second hypothesis that
employees working at night shifts will exhibit higher levels of
stress as compared to employees working in day shifts. Since
working at night disturbs the body's natural biological clock,
through disruption of circadian rhythms. These results are in line
with the research done by Jamal (2004).
Fourthly, the analysis of the data confirmed the third
hypothesis that employees of inbound call centers will experience
higher levels of stress as compared to employees of outbound call
centers. This is due in part to the reason that inbound call centers
employees are subjected to greater customer hostility while
receiving customer complaint calls resulting in increasing their
level of exhaustion and the number of errors made during the call;
thus burgeoning their stress. Such results are in line with the
researches done by Dormann and Zapf (2004) and Goldberg and
Grandey (2007).
This research has significant implications for call center
employees and management as researches show that stress can
have various harmful consequences leading to physiological and
psychological disorders such as headaches, high blood pressure,
vulnerability to heart diseases, stomach discomfort, ulcer,
symptoms of neuroticism, maladaptive and pathological behavior
and somatic pathologies, difficulty in relaxing or falling asleep,
headaches, stomach discomfort, backaches and more serious
health problems (Atkinson, Atkinson, Smith, Bem, & Hoekema,
2000; IDEA Health & Fitness Source, 2000; Gans, Koole, &
Mandelbaum, 2003; Sarafino, 1994; Srivastava, 1999). Various
researches have demonstrated that stress produced anger
increases aggressive behavior and these negative effects continue
even after the stressor is removed (Sarafino, 1994).
Moreover stress is the biggest cause of low productivity,
absenteeism and turnover among call center employees (Gans,
Koole, & Mandelbaum, 2003; Swinton, 2002). Therefore, the
management of call centers must take reasonable efforts to reduce
the levels of stress experienced by their employees. As it not only
affects the employees but also the management since they have to
deal with issues such as absenteeism, employee retention and
health claims. Moreover stress leads to aggression in employees
leading to more errors and loss of customers, which can result in
not only creating a bad reputation for the organization but will
also lower the profit margins. Thus stress reducing mechanism
must be administered and regular stress reduction workshops and
exercises be conducted for call centers employees so that they
learn to manage and cope with their stress in a productive
manner.
Conclusion:
Call centers employees face alleviated levels of stress, and
such stress increases with the type of call center and with the shift
timing. Therefore, reasonable measures must be taken to reduce
such stress by giving more breaks during shifts and rotating the
shifts among employees, otherwise the management might lose
valuable employees and customers.
Limitations and Future Suggestions
This research aimed at exploring the level of stress among call
center employees and how the level of stress varies with
reference to gender, type of call center and shift work, however it
did not look into the reasons for alleviated levels of stress among
call center employees. Therefore, future research is needed that
can build on this research by exploring the reasons for increased
level of stress among call center employees in an indigenous
context and suggest ways of eliminating the stress.
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Received September 18, 2012
Revision Received June 22, 2013
62 PREVALENCE OF STRESS AMONG CALL CENTER EMPLOYEES