STRESS IN CALL CENTRES

1
STRESS IN CALL CENTRES

• By
• Dimitra Makri
• President of the
• Union of Cosmote Employees

2
Stress exists in every call center.
3
Main factors that create a stressful Call Centre

• long hours of work
• irregular sleeping / working hours
• time pressure
• the demands of serving the customer in real-time
• low pay
• high call volume
• high expectations
• high work targets

4
More main stress factors

• excessive monitoring
• lack of communication
• poor ergonomics
• poor career prospects
• job repetition
• potential job dissatisfaction
• difficult customers
• loss of identity
• and the list goes on

5
Results of stress

• work-related illnesses
• low morale
• anxiety
• high staff turnover
• higher absenteeism
• reduced customer satisfaction
• decreased productivity
• and the list goes on

6
What should be done

• workers representation
• collective agreements
• provision of decent working conditions and
  benefits
• realistic performance targets
• balance between quality and quantity of calls
  taken
• equal opportunities

7
What should be done

• training, retraining and development programmes
• raising the pay
• structured and organised methods of communication
• participation in decision making
• involve employees in creating solutions
• attention to ergonomic factors

8
What should be done

• employee assistance programmes / counselling
• employ enough staff to effectively handle
  requirements
• provisions in order to ensure a proper work
  family balance
• provision of a healthy and safe environment
• clear monitoring purposes agreed with the workers
• respect for privacy
• adequate breaks and days of leave

9
Provisions in Cosmote Collective Agreement

• PAY
• minimum salary is formed according to
• The workers education level,
• their family situation (eg how many children they
  have)
• plus
• 10 for their position as cc workers
• 5 for having a foreign language degree

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Provisions in Cosmote Collective Agreement

• Extra payment for working nights, weekends and
  public holidays
• One hour paid break during the 8-hour working day
• Requests for modifications in shifts and days off
• Choice of shifts for working parents and pregnant
  women
• Beneficial maternity paternity leave
• Parental leaves

11
About our union

• Union of Cosmote Employees is 6-years-old
• It is affiliated to OME-OTE (Greek Telecom
  Federation)
• It is the only union so far in the Mobile Telecom
  Sector
• We have 1.400 members
• 650 of them work at the Customer Care Department

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About our union

• 400 of the work at the Cosmote Call Centres in
  Athens and in Thessaloniki
• 97 of the CC workers are members of the Union.
• every year during the UNI Call Centre Action
  Month we hold different kinds of activities for
  our cc members

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OUR VISION for 2006

• is to help organise the workers in Vodafone and
  TIM