Call Centre Work Research Articles

Design and Validation of the Quality of Work Life Scale for Call Center Workers of a Private Company in Downtown of Lima, 2019

Objective The purpose of the research was to build a scale of quality of working life, in telemarketers of a call center company in Downtown of Lima, with a sample of 700 telemarketers. Methods The methodology was obtained through a non-probabilistic convenience sampling, the validity was carried out through the judgment of 10 experts and the indices were obtained using the V. of Aiken p>0.80 and the Binomial test p<0.05 in 29 questions. The construct validity was obtained through confirmatory factor analysis, to explain the quality of working life composed of five dimensions according to Maslow’s theory. Results In the results, the Kaiser Meyer Olkin (KMO) measurement test yielded a value of 0.930, which means that it is greater than >0.80 over the number of observations for the base of respondents (700), for the test of Bartlett’s sphericity. is not significant (p<0.05), which means a correlation between the variables, in the total variance explained indicates that the instrument has five factors that explain 54.982% of the total variance, it tells us that the test is acceptable, whose factorial the loads ranged between 0.4 and 0.8 respectively. The reliability by internal consistency with a value of 0.919. Conclusion The relevance of the theoretical model to explain the quality of working life composed of five dimensions according to Maslow’s theory was verified, showing adequate adjustment indices: X2 /gl=4.920 and 4.711, CFI=0.835 and 0.90, RMSEA=0.075 and 0.073, except TLI=0.805 and 0.815 that did not show an adequate value.

Localizing the transnational call center industry: Training creole speakers in Dominica to serve Pidgin speakers in Hawai‘i

AbstractThis study considers whether localized language training for call centers can fruitfully challenge the homogenizing principles of call center practices by examining a training program that aimed to familiarize offshore call center workers with Pidgin, the creole language that is widely spoken in Hawaiʻi. Call center agents in Dominica were familiarized with key aspects of Pidgin relevant to call center work, including the expression of empathy in response to customer complaints. The analysis focuses on how we drew awareness to the pragmatics of Pidgin empathy through Pidgin contextualization cues in scenarios we devised. We then examine how the call center agents displayed their awareness of these cues in role plays. The agents readily demonstrated their understandings in talk about pragmatic differences during our instruction, but the role play interactions revealed the limits of their ability to deploy similar locally appropriate pragmatics due to the homogenizing confines of call center business practices.Dis pepah try see local kine training for call centah can mek stuff bettah, cuz the way big company stay like make all da call centah same kine. We go look one training program we wen make for teach people no live Hawaiʻi about Pidgin. Call centah workah in Dominica wen learn abaut Pidgin stuff can use you work call centah, like how for show feeling wen customah call for make huhu. Da analysis tawk about how we wen get dem fo look how local people show feeling using small kine stuff. Den we stay tawk how da call center people wen show deir manaʻo of dis small kine stuff wen dey make pretend fo be customah and call centah workah. Da call centah people wen quick show they akamai abaut dis wen dey wen tawk abaut how people ack diffrent but wen dey waz make pretend dey no can make same like Hawaiʻi people cuz da way all da call centah like mek everbady all same.

Acoustic shock: an update review.

This paper discusses the concept of acoustic shock based on a literature review and the results of our own research into cases seen in both clinical and medicolegal practice. With the demise of traditional 'metal bashing' and 'smoke stack' heavy industries, there has been a decline in the incidence of noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus in this form of employment. However, with the increasing establishment of call centre work, the emergence of acoustic shock has been noted. Acoustic shock is recognised as a clinical entity distinct from noise-induced hearing loss and acoustic trauma. This article discusses clinical implications, medicolegal considerations in light of a recent high-profile court case and proposed criteria for diagnosis.

Predictors of Occupational Health Outcomes of Call Center Workers from Selected Companies in Cebu and Manila

The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines is expanding rapidly, producing a high employment rate. However, it also causes concerns about the occurrence of workrelated health problems among workers. This study was conducted to measure the prevalence of occupational health outcomes of call center workers from five companies in the Philippines and to determine the likelihood of their occurrence based on personal and work-related variables. We conducted an online survey answered by 227 call center workers. Descriptive statistics were expressed in percentages, arithmetic means, and standard deviations. Differences in symptoms in terms of sex and age-group were determined by chi-squared tests. Confounding effects of personal and occupational variables were computed through logistic and multiple regression analyses. The most prevalent forms of occupational health problems were back pain (96%), headache (96.5%), neck pain (93%), and insomnia (93%). We also found that among the personal and occupational variables, smoking and drinking predicted the occurrence of the symptoms for neck pain, headache, insomnia, and other health complaints. Our findings are crucial in strengthening policies and regulations, promoting a healthier working environment, and preventing fast-paced turn-over of workers in the BPO industry in the Philippines.

Vokalni zamor kod djelatnika u pozivnim centrima

Cilj je ovog istraživanja primijeniti hrvatsku verziju upitnika Indeks vokalnog zamora (VFI-C), radi ispitivanja i usporedbe pojave vokalnog zamora u skupini zagrebačkih djelatnika pozivnih centara (N=80) i skupini vokalnih neprofesionalaca (N=80), starijih od 18 godina. Rezultati samoprocjene u skupini vokalnih profesionalaca uspoređeni su u odnosu na demografske značajke. Statističkom analizom potvrđene su značajne razlike u prijavljenom vokalnom zamoru između vokalnih profesionalaca i neprofesionalaca, kao i utjecaj spola na neke aspekte samoprocjene vokalnog zamora u skupini vokalnih profesionalaca.

The Effect of Family–Work and Work–Family Conflict on Call Center Workers’ Emotional Exhaustion With Person–Job Fit as Antecedent

In accordance with the government’s regulations in Indonesia, all financial services institutions are obliged to implement a customer complaint handling mechanism, which has contributed to the rapid growth of the call center industry. As a benchmark for managing service quality, call center workers are required to always keep their emotions stable despite the continuous pressures and unpleasant responses from customers. For this reason, working at call centers is now considered a job with a high emotional burden. Few studies have specifically examined the level of emotional exhaustion among call center workers in Indonesia. Therefore, this work aims to investigate the effect of family–work and work–family conflict on such workers’ emotional exhaustion, with person–job fit as antecedent. For this purpose, we collected data from 154 questionnaires completed by call center workers at financial services institutions in Indonesia. We analyze the relationship among the variables under study using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that the level of compatibility between employees’ and their job reduces both family–work and work–family conflict. In terms of work–family conflict, call center workers will feel emotionally exhausted only when faced with a dilemma between work and family responsibilities. The call centers’ management should thus create a family-friendly work environment to ensure excellent care for employees.

Gender-Specific Association between Emotional Labor and Health-Promoting Behavior in Call Center Workers

Background: This study aimed to examine whether emotional labor was significantly associated with health-promoting behaviors among both women and men at call center workers.Methods: A cross-sectional, correlational study was conducted among 709 workers (470 women and 239 men) at K call center workplace in Seoul, South Korea. Emotional labor and health-promoting behaviors were measured using the Emotional Labor and Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II (HPLP-II).Results: Of all the call center workers, the average score of emotional labor was 3.5 out of 5.0. Women had a higher average emotional labor score (3.6 points) than men (3.5 points). The average score of health-promoting behaviors was 2.0 out of 4.0 in the overall workers and each group of women and men workers, respectively. Emotional labor was significantly associated with health-promoting behaviors among each group of women and men. Among women workers, emotional labor was significantly negatively associated with the spiritual growth and stress management subscales of the HPLP-II, while among men workers, it was significantly negatively associated with all HPLP-II subscales.Conclusions: Emotional labor may be associated with health-promoting behaviors and its associations with the subscales of health-promoting behaviors may differ by gender. Therefore, nursing strategies for reducing emotional labor should be concerned in the context of gender-specific associations with emotional labor.

Call Centre Karma, or How Popular Culture Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Outsourcing

ABSTRACT Since 2006, numerous movies and TV series have depicted outsourcing to India as a source of both economic and personal opportunity for American, Canadian, British and Indian characters. There has been no sustained assessment, however, of individual screen texts which address call centre work, nor any comparative work that might shed light on the significance of this transnational phenomenon. Using discourse and visual analysis, films including Outsourced, The Other End of the Line, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and TV series such as Outsourced and Mumbai Calling are shown to address popular fears over outsourcing by positing a shared neoliberal worldview, one that traverses national boundaries and histories, drawing both on enduring orientalist stereotypes and narrative tropes, as well as recent trends in Bollywood and American popular culture. These screen texts contain a limited critique of late capitalism, but nonetheless reimagine the purported risks of globalization as founts for potential benefit, both material and social, and often reconfirm the essential superiority of the West and Westerners.

Maintaining Transmission: DirecTV’s Work-at-home Technical Support, Virtual Surveillance, and the Gendered Domestication of Distributive Labor

This article draws upon interviews with work-at-home (WAH) agents who did technical support for DirecTV between 2009 and 2016. Satellite television technical support workers comprise an important node in maintaining the flow of television content as it is distributed by corporations, like DirecTV, through complex and often fragile technological conditions. Using interviews, trade press, and online employee forums, I outline the history of DirecTV’s WAH call center work and employment conditions, and its dissolution after the merger with AT&T. This research intervenes to demonstrate the ways in which WAH television technical support work is an ambivalent form of distributive media labor, at once feminine and immaterial, while also creative and essential for television distribution. This article also demonstrates how technical support work is influenced by current precarious and digitally converged working conditions, surveillance tactics, and media conglomerate mergers and structures.

Digital Debt Labour: Migration, Deportation and Offshoring in Mexico

This article explores the convergence of debt, deportation, and digital labour in Mexico by describing the making of a labour force working on the frontlines of transnational debt collection, performing what we call digital debt labour. Drawing on dozens of interviews in Tijuana and Mexico City conducted between 2016 and 2019, we relate the growth of a debt collection labour force in Mexico. To theorise the intersection between debt, migration, and digital labour, this article explores three overlapping, converging, and expanding forms of migration: debt migration, or the circulation of consumer credit through markets for, or processes of, debt collection; virtual migration or the outsourcing of call centre work to offshore locations and the return migration of call centre workers in the labour process; and forced migration, or the deportation of undocumented migrants. Our core argument is that this case study demonstrates the manner in which a highly financialised and digital variant of capitalism is evolving to develop a multi-faceted and opportunistic relationship with the growing trends of migration and deportation.

Covid-19 - Call Centre Workers and Health-Safety, Union Challenges and Organisation

Covid-19 - Call Centre Workers and Health-Safety, Union Challenges and Organisation

Covid-19 - Call Centre Workers and Health-Safety, Union Challenges and Organisation

Covid-19 - Call Centre Workers and Health-Safety, Union Challenges and Organisation

The contribution of cultural intelligence to the interaction involvement and performance of call center agents in cross-cultural communication

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the contribution of cultural intelligence (CQ) to the interaction involvement and job performance of call center agents in the Philippines.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 213 call center agents from five business process outsourcing firms in the Philippines. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.FindingsCQ was found to be positively associated with the quality of interaction involvement and job performance of the call center agents. Moreover, the positive contribution of CQ to interaction involvement and job performance was significantly greater for those that had less call center work experience than those that had more work experience.Originality/valueThis study indicates that CQ not only matters in face-to-face communication but also is beneficial for non-personal communication, as with telephone conversation for example. In addition, this study showed new evidence –possessing high CQ tends to be more beneficial for agents that have less work experience.

Of Techno-Ethics and Techno-Affects

As digital labour becomes more widespread across the uneven geographies of race, gender, class and ability, and as histories of colonialism and inequality get drawn into these forms of labour, our imagination of what these worlds contain similarly needs to expand. Beyond the sensationalist images of the ‘brogrammer’ and the call-centre worker lie intersecting labour practices that bring together histories of bodies and materiality in new ways. In the recent past, these entanglements have yielded oppressive results. As scandals over predictive policing, data mining and algorithmic racism unfold, digital labourers need both to be accounted for in analyses of algorithmic technologies and to be counted among the designers of these platforms. This article attempts to do both of these by highlighting particular cases in which digital labour frames embodied subjects, and to propose ways digital workers might train themselves to recognise ethical problems as they are emerging. I use the idea of attunements as a way to grasp what these forms of care might look like for the digital worker.

Using a Call Center to Reduce Harm From Self-Administration of Reproductive Health Medicines in Bangladesh: Interrupted Time-Series.

BackgroundAnnually, there are approximately 25 million unsafe abortions, and this remains a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality. In settings where abortion is restricted, women are increasingly able to self-manage abortions by purchasing abortion medications such as misoprostol and mifepristone (RU-486) from pharmacies or other drug sellers. Better availability of these drugs has been shown to be associated with reductions in complications from unsafe abortions. In Bangladesh, abortion is restricted; however, menstrual regulation (MR) was introduced in the 1970s as an interim method of preventing pregnancy. Pharmacy provision of medications for MR is widespread, but customers purchasing these drugs from pharmacies often do not have access to quality information on dosage and potential complications.ObjectiveThis study aimed to describe a call center intervention in Bangladesh, and assess call center use over time and how this changed when a new MR product (combined mifepristone-misoprostol) was introduced into the market.MethodsIn 2010, Marie Stopes Bangladesh established a care provider–assisted call center to reduce potential harm from self-administration of MR medications. The call center number was advertised widely in pharmacies and on MR product packaging. We conducted a secondary analysis of routine data collected by call center workers between July 2012 and August 2016. We investigated the reported types of callers, the reason for call, and reported usage of MR products before and after November 2014. We used an interrupted time series (ITS) analysis to formally assess levels of change in caller characteristics and reasons for calling.ResultsOver the 4-year period, 287,095 calls about MR were received and the number of users steadily increased over time. The most common callers (of 287,042 callers) were MR users (67,438, 23.49%), their husbands (65,999, 22.99%), pharmacy workers (65,828, 22.93%), and village doctors (56,036, 19.52%). Most MR calls were about misoprostol, but after November 2014, a growing proportion of calls were about the mifepristone-misoprostol regimen. The most common reasons (of 287,042 reasons) for calling were to obtain information about the regimen (208,605, 72.66%), to obtain information about side effects (208,267, 72.54%), or to report side effects (49,930, 17.39%). The ITS analyses showed that after November 2014, an increasing number of calls were from MR users who had taken the complete regimen (P=.02 and who were calling to discuss reported side effects (P=.01) and pain medication (P=.01), and there were fewer calls asking about dosages (P<.001).ConclusionsThe high call volume suggests that this call center intervention addressed an unmet demand for information about MR medications from both MR users and health care providers. Call center interventions may improve the quality of information available by providing information directly to MR users and drug sellers, and thus reducing the potential harm from self-management of MR medications.

보험회사 콜센터 종사자의 감정노동이 행복에 미치는 영향: 일과삶의 균형에 의해 조절된 직무스트레스의 매개효과 중심으로

The purpose of this study is to empirically verify the mediation effect of job stress moderated by work-life balance in relation to emotional labor and happiness of call center workers. The results of the study are as follows; The mediating effect of job stress on the relationship between emotional labor and happiness was found significantly, and work-life balance moderated the relationship between job stress and happiness. These results suggest that emotional labor affects happiness by decreasing job stress and the effect occurs when the level of work-life balance is high. Call centers can improve employees’ happiness through work-life balance enhancement programs and strategies for dealing with job stress.

The Production of a Cause for Activism in Argentina: Labor Organization in Call Centers

AbstractThis paper focuses on activist labor organizing in call centers in Argentina. Following a strong tradition in anthropology that has debated the nature of resistance, it discusses previous explanations for labor organizing in call centers, critiquing the common assumption that labor conditions, work processes, and the relations that take place on the shop floor constitute the seed from which forms of resistance, protest, or activism progressively emerge. Instead, this paper describes the relations, practices, and tensions through which multiple actors came together to turn call center working conditions into a cause for political action in Argentina and the collaborations that made that process possible. Based on fieldwork with call center activists between 2012 and 2013, this paper reconstructs the forms of collective organization that established the problem of poor working conditions in call centers as a cause for political action.

Customer mistreatment harms nightly sleep and next-morning recovery: Job control and recovery self-efficacy as cross-level moderators.

Customer mistreatment is becoming an important topic for work stress researchers and practitioners given the rise of service industry. Taking stressor-emotion-control perspectives, the authors examine day-level relationships between call center workers' customer mistreatment experiences and their impaired recovery outcomes mediated by end-of-work negative affect. Furthermore, control concepts in the job and personal domains are tested as cross-level moderators. Specifically, job control and recovery self-efficacy are identified to reduce the within-person process of customer mistreatment affecting recovery outcomes. Seventy-one call center employees completed a registration survey and then two daily surveys over 2 consecutive weeks, yielding 481 time-lagged day-level observations. Multilevel path analyses show that customer mistreatment is positively associated with increased negative affect, which, in turn, predicts poor sleep quality at night and poor recovery state the next morning. Job control attenuates the day-level effect of customer mistreatment on negative affect, and recovery self-efficacy alleviates the day-level effects of negative affect on sleep quality and next-morning recovery state. The findings shed light on the recovery-impairing effects of customer mistreatment and its important boundary conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Combined exposure of emotional labor and job insecurity on depressive symptoms among female call-center workers: A cross-sectional study.

Call-center workers work under unfavorable psychosocial working conditions, including, emotional labor and job insecurity, which might be linked to depressive symptoms.The purpose of this study was to explore the link between emotional labor and depressive symptoms and to investigate the influence of combined exposure to emotional labor and job insecurity on depressive symptoms.A health survey was conducted among female call-center workers in Geumcheon-gu (a district in Seoul), South Korea, in November 2012. The short form of the Korean occupational stress scale was used to measure occupational stressors. A questionnaire with 8 items was employed to assess emotional labor. Depressive symptoms were estimated using the Korean Version of the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). The association of emotional labor and occupational stressors with depressive symptoms was assessed using multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression.Overall, 699 female call-center workers were enrolled into this study. The odds ratios of experiencing depressive symptoms in workers exposed to emotional labor and job insecurity were 5.45 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.38-8.80) and 2.37 (95% CI: 0.86-6.50), respectively. When workers were simultaneously exposed to excessive emotional labor and high job insecurity levels, the odds ratio of experiencing depressive symptoms was 10.13 (95% CI: 3.51-29.23). The Relative Excess Risk due to the Interaction (RERI) of job insecurity and emotional labor was 3.30 (95% CI: -5.50 to 12.11); however, this was not statistically significant (P = .46).Although a causal relationship could not be established due to the cross-sectional study design, the combined effect of emotional labor and job insecurity might have a serious influence on behavioral health among call-center female workers.

FAKTOR-FAKTOR YANG MEMPENGARUHI KINERJA COMPLAINT HANDLING OFFICER (CHO) DI UNIT KERJA CALL CENTER TELKOMSEL MAKASSAR

Abstrak&#x0D; Petugas Complaint Handling Officer (CHO) harus memiliki kinerja sesuai Key Performance Indicator (KPI) yang telah ditetapkan oleh perusahaan dan sampai saat ini CHO Call Center Telkomsel Makassar bisa berhasil mencapai target - target yang telah ditetapkan tersebut. Adapun tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui Faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi Kinerja Complaint Handling Officer pada Unit kerja Call Center Telkomsel Makassar. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode kuantitatif assosiatif, metode ini digunakan untuk menguji ada tidaknya pengaruh dari personal factor, leadership factor, team factor, system factor, contextual/situasional factor terhadap kinerja complaint handling officer pada unit kerja Call Center Telkomsel Makassar. Metode analisis data penelitian ini menggunakan uji normalitas, analisis regresi, dan uji hipotesis dengan bantuan SPSS versi 21. Hasil penelitian secara parsial, hubungan faktor personal tidak memiliki pengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap kinerja CHO dengan nilai probabilitasnya yaitu 0,592. Faktor kepemimpinan tidak berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap kinerja CHO dengan nilai probabilitas yaitu 0,910. ada pengaruh positif dan signifikan dari faktor team terhadap kinerja CHO dengan nilai probabilitasnya yaitu 0,014. Faktor sistem tidak berpengaruh positif dan signifikan terhadap kinerja dengan nilai probabilitasnya yaitu 0,650. Tidak ada pengaruh positif dan signifikan dari faktor lingkungan terhadap kinerja CHO dengan nilai probabilitasnya yaitu 0,878. Secara simultan (uji F) semua variabel bebas yaitu personal, leadership, team, system, kontextual/situasional tidak berpengaruh dan signifikan terhadap kinerja CHO, dengan nilai probabiltas (sign) 0,052. Dapat dikatakan bahwa faktor personal, leadership, team system dan contextual/situasional secara bersama – sama tidak berpengaruh terhadap kinerja CHO.&#x0D;