very urgent help neede on crm in call centres n its problems

[rajeshv2002]

hey ppl im doin my 100 project on crm in call centres n its problems.if anyone cud help me out then plz coz ive not yet started.

[MAXDROIT]

well rajiv.....serach the pro .....project on call centre is already posted on forum.....use search option.....

[mugdha]

HUMAN ISSUES IN CALL-CENTER INDUSTRY

Stress

For many employed in the call center sector, "the daily experience is of repetitive, intensive and stressful work, based upon Taylorist principles, which frequently results in employee "burnout". Brown, more vividly, characterizes the work as "repetitive brain strain". These descriptions are hardly surprising, in a way, given that call centers are established by organizations to "create an environment in which work can be standardized to create relatively uniform and repetitious activities so as to achieve economies of scale and consistent quality of customer service". This means, in other words, that workplaces are organized in ways that weaken employee autonomy and enhance the potential for management control, and "a loss of control is generally understood to be an important indicator of work-related stress".

There is almost universal consensus that call center work is stressful. Even in studies that report the observation that some staff actually enjoys their work, mention of stress is still the norm, and a significant portion of the call center literature is devoted to detailing the sources of stress in call center work.

Four Key stressors
'Can we get off the phone for a while?'
The primary source of stress reported is inherent to the nature of the job: spending all day on the phone dealing with people one after another, day after day, is difficult. Doing it under constant pressure to keep call volumes up, with no time between calls to "recover from an awkward call or from 'customer rejection'" is even more difficult. And doing it with "very little authority or autonomy to rectify problems" that arise is perhaps the most difficult of all. Many studies report agents as wanting to 'just get off the phones'. For example, Belt and colleagues note "agents in all three sectors [financial services, IT, and third-party services] spoke of the phenomenon of 'burnout', caused by the pressure of working exclusively 'on the phones'". In the same study, the authors mention that the issue of 'burnout' was also recognized by some managers: "It was pointed out that managers face an inherent conflict between the need to reduce staff boredom and labor turnover, and the pressure to concentrate staff energies on telephone based work".
"The question of how call center employees deal with stress is an important one, particularly in view of evidence that a build-up of stress leads to illness, absenteeism and turnover," writes Houlihan. Many authors agree, and there are a variety of individual coping mechanisms described in the literature. Tricks to circumvent control mechanisms, such as those discussed above are sometimes mentioned as attempts at stress reduction, although they are unreliable in this role as they may also increase stress. Others mention social interaction squeezed into brief moments--Callaghan and Thompson describe agents using humorous (or rude) gestures towards the phone, or making faces at colleagues to defuse stress over angry or abusive callers, and making jokes to combat the tedium of the day. Lankshear and Mason describe a similarly social approach to reducing tension in one of the sites they observed, where staff often laughed and joked with one another in intervals between calls, with management's approval. More formally, some call centers include stress management as a component in training programs, and many have, or claim to have, team de-briefings which permit staff to vent frustrations while discussing difficult calls or dissatisfactions with elements of work.
Knights and McCabe take a different approach to stress in the workplace. They note that although much organizational analysis and most of the call center literature tends to conceptualize stress as an individual problem, it is actually located within "a framework that emphasizes the interrelationships between structural relations of power and the subjective interpretations and actions of employees". This more nuance positioning may provide more insight into call center conditions, as it allows a researcher to consider the response of employees "forced to interpret the often contradictory demands management place upon them" including "contradictions…over service quality versus the quantity of work output". "Clearly," these authors write, "staff face some fundamental contradictions over unity versus conflict, uncertainty versus certainty, quality versus quantity and these are at the heart of the reproduction of stress, resistance and control". This focus on the "contradictory" nature of demands strikes at the heart of the second inherent sources of stress in (primarily inbound) call center works: the quality/quantity conflict.
Quality/Quantity conflict
Typically, organizational rhetoric in inbound call centers is concerned with 'customer care', or 'keeping customers happy' (providing quality service), yet these goals are juxtaposed with an ongoing pressure to keep call times down and call volumes up. Houlihan describes the difficulty concisely:
Call centers are rooted in contradictory tensions and structural paradoxes, and confront a number of trade-offs on that basis. These set a context for attitudes towards the organization and can impose conflicting role requirements on agents. A core example is that of the pressure for quantity versus the aspiration for quality, the guiding logic of which is the conundrum of trying to get closer to the customer while routinising, centralizing, reducing costs and prescribing standards.

The dichotomy is not completely straightforward, it is important to note. Part of providing quality service from a management perspective is making sure customers do not wait too long for their calls to be answered, even though the push to keep queue waiting times short is typically categorized as part of the pressure towards quantity. As Bain points out, "efforts to attain what is perceived to be the desired balance between the quantity and the quality of calls presents a perennial challenge".
The practice of ongoing work practice modification and target revision as management swings from one side to another of the quality/quantity debate is a major source of stress for call center agents. As Houlihan notes: "The practice of putting a 'drive' on particular targets for improvement (for example, the collection of renewal dates, the up-selling or cross-selling of products, the quality of data input, or the intensity of sales push) and continual reprioritisation means that the 'goalposts' are constantly shifting". Virtually all of the call center authors who write about work conditions mention the difficulty of dealing with these competing goals. Korczynski and colleagues suggest that this dilemma is particularly difficult for front-line workers because they may be likely "to identify with embodied individual customers, for interactions with specific customers may be an important arena for meaning and satisfaction within the work". They contrast this customer-as-individual orientation to the managerial goal of balancing customer orientation with efficiency, which they suggest leads management to prefer workers to identify with a generic category, 'the customer', since "such a disembodied image of the customer will encourage workers to deal with individual customers efficiently because they will be conscious of the concerns of other customers waiting in a queue".
Intensity
The third central stressor in call center work is its intensity. As Bain (2001) argues, "far from being either in terminal decline or on the wane, Taylorism-in conjunction with a range of other control mechanisms-is not only alive, well and deeply embedded in the call center labour process, but its malevolent influence appears to be spreading to previously uncharted territory". There is widespread consensus that "call centers are a new, and particularly effective, manifestation of the increasingly capital intensive 'industrialization' of service sector work, and work performed in them is highly intensive and routine".
Buchanan and Koch-Schulte quote one call center worker who describes the constant pressure graphically: Ellen: It's almost like the army. It's very regimented. You punch in with a time clock. You come in and you sit down, and the numbers are all computerized. As soon as you finish a call, the minute you hang up another call comes up just this constant, all day, repetitious…constant sort of like beating on a drum, but day after day.
The pace of work is determined by the combination of technologies that deliver calls to the headset and account details to the screen, and workers often have no control over this process.
Descriptions such as "exhausting," "robotic," "controlled," and agents discussing the nature of their work often use "machine-like". Houlihan expands on the idea of controlled, machine-like agents by suggesting that this is in fact exactly the way that the organization conceives of them:
Call centers are information handling organizations. As currently characterized, the job of the agent is to be the voice of the organization, interfacing with the client or customer.
The organization rehearses the things it wants said and feeds them through the agent. The agent is largely constructed as a mouthpiece rather than as a brain.

Buchanan and Koch-Schulte spoke with a call-center worker who articulated her feelings about the organization's expectations of its agents in very similar terms: Rosa: You are standing waiting to be used by the technology, and it's a physical embodiment of that. You are standing, waiting until that call comes in to use you to make money. And you are simply another part of that machine.

When this feeling of being a cog in a machine which never stops as it grinds on, repeating the same actions over and over again, is combined with "the cumulative emotional demands presented by the interpersonal nature of the work", stress is inevitable.

Targets
There is a fourth feature of some call center work that may engender stress: performance targets. There are various types of targets, which may vary between inbound and outbound centers. Inbound centers typically have targets for call duration, 'wrap time', and daily call volume. Outbound centers often also have sales or 'completion' targets, which are closely monitored and upon which pay may be partially based. In addition, in some sectors, inbound call centers are attempting to introduce the practice of cross selling, where agents attempt to sell additional products to the customers who call in for another purpose. In these centers, sales targets similar to those in outbound centers are often in place.

Taylor and Bain argue that particularly in the financial services industry in the UK, targets are a significant source of stress for workers as more and more importance is placed upon meeting them in an increasingly competitive business environment. Sales targets, in particular, are difficult to accept, or meet, for staff who often consider themselves as service personnel, particularly when they are set centrally and implemented locally: "Cross-selling is seen by employees, not as an opportunity to engage in creative work, but as an additional and acute source of pressure". This is especially the case when sales targets are parachuted in on top of service targets set originally when there was no pressure to produce sales.

As a CSR in Taylor and Bain's study emphasizes: "When somebody phones in for a balance you have to try to get a sale or get them interested as well as turning the call round in 155 seconds".

Even in centers that claim not to prioritize targets, researchers have found that staff often feels significant pressure. Targets simply intensify the stress produced by the quantity/quality debate, or, as one agent is quoted as saying, "They say that they're not really interested in numbers. They say that they are more into quality. Well, that's a lie. They're usually more into numbers than anything". It is important not to over generalize however. While most call centers do have some targets, they are a source of stress that is directly under management control. Some call centers are managed in such a way that targets are set to realistically reflect local conditions, are interpreted in light of other, more subjective information, and are not used punitively or to intensify work. In some they are even used effectively to motivate and encourage staff. For example, Lankshear and Mason describe a series of conversations with managers in their call center site where management consistently conceptualized their performance reports (for example, one commented that it's 'human nature' for productivity to drop before and after a holiday), and used their stats as an excuse to praise good performance and coach those who consistently had difficulty meeting targets: "Our best bet is to develop the people we have got" one manager is quoted as saying.
Other Health issues…
The result of intense, stressful work may be an effect on workers' health. There are often high rates of absenteeism and sick leave reported in the literature, although there is relatively little exploration of these issues, particularly when compared to turnover. Most often, authors provide a brief list of known health issues. For example, Richardson, Belt and Marshall write that "Health concerns have been expressed, including tension, sleeplessness, headaches, eye-strain, repetitive strain injury (RSI), voice loss, hearing problems and burn-out", but they do not develop the point. More detailed descriptions of the causes and effects of these ailments can be found in industry and trades union reports. For example, the Trades Union Council (TUC) in its brochure targeted at call center workers, cites the main illnesses to which call center staff are prone: "back strain and RSI, stress, eyestrain, and voice and hearing loss".

Also in the UK, regulators have been proactive in their examination of the industry, with the Health and Safety Executive issuing a bulletin on call center regulations, health risks and best practices in December 2001. They looked specifically at health issues including stress, noise levels, musculoskeletal disorders (such as back problems) and voice loss, and also at display screen issues, working environments, requirements for work stations, daily work routines, training, organizational working practices and shifts.

Sleeping Disorders
No prizes for guessing the most severe ailment afflicting people working in Indian call centers. Since this is a unique Indian problem, again, no solution appears in sight. Obviously this affects first timers more severely, as they take time to acclimatize their biological clocks, but even experienced people or managers are not able to completely escape from it. Some call centers are looking at devising innovative mechanisms like flexible shifts with sleeping arrangements in the office premises as possible solutions.

Digestive System Related Disorders
Working long and odd hours without any sleep, and eating food supplied by external caterers everyday, has led to 41.9% of the respondents suffering from digestive problems. Especially for the large number of girls working in the industry, the problem is even more severe. Many call centers are now taking additional care to ensure their caterers supply hygienic food; besides stipulating strict conditions to maintain the quality of the food they serve.

Depression
In last year's survey, this was not among the top disorders, but this year it has climbed up the chart, affecting nearly one-fourth of the respondents. Not surprising, since, as the industry matures, the initial glitz and glamour wears away and the real problems come to the fore. Not only are there several health related issues, but, on top of that, the gradual realization that there is limited scope in developing a career owing to fewer growth opportunities is increasing the frustration levels. Coupled with growing mental fatigue and increasingly punishing physical environments, depression is the obvious end result. Some call centers have now devised different stress management programs mainly to counter depression.

Severe Stomach Related Problems
Continuing digestive problems lead to severe stomach disorders like gastroenteritis, as endorsed by more than 24% of the respondents. Even doctors in major cities agree-in recent times many of the patients with various stomach ailments are from call centers.

Eyesight Problems
Globally call center industry employees are considered a high-risk group for eye-related problems. While the quality of monitors might impact these disorders, sitting continually without adequate breaks seems to be the truer reason. The number of people affected seems to be on the rise-last year only 19% complained; this year it has gone up to 23%. At some point of time, this problem might also afflict the IT services industry, but for the call center industry, no remedy seems to be in sight.

Ear Problems
More than 16% of the respondents inform that they have hearing problems. Again, no surprises here, since a call center job involves taking calls throughout the shift, sitting with headphones. While quality of headphones does make a difference, it would not be correct to completely wish the problem away by thinking that changing headphones will solve it.

Some other Human Issues, in Call-Centers, which need Immediate Attention

Personal habits
The young executives are getting more than five figure salaries per month in an early age. They tend to develop certain bad habits such as alcohol, smoking etc. It is not easy to identify such individuals. It is also very sensitive to talk to them. The professional counselors can conduct group-counseling, workshops, educative film shows in order to create awareness on effects of bad habits. Such actions will enable individuals to realize the importance of good habits and they could seek one to one Counseling sessions to solve their problems.

Discipline and behavioral issues
Call centers provide excellent working environment, free food and transportation. There is always a situation where individual or group of youngsters tend to commit mistakes and abuse the freedom. They start behaving like in college campus where they have more freedom. However, the call center executives have more responsibility and accountability, they need to follow discipline and do well in the job. The most common behavior is misuse of food, behave erratically in vans, and smoke in public places, misuse of telephones and other resources of the company. The supervisors always concentrate on performance and achieving targets. They do not have time or interest to go deep into these matters and find out the reasons for such behavior. The professional counselor can play a major role in educating the youngsters on discipline; provide advice to erring executives. The counselors with their wisdom and experience can tackle such issues tactfully and bring change within the individuals.

As said earlier, to majority of them this is the first employment and they are fresh out of the colleges. Few tend to behave differently and they have the "do not care" attitude. Such executives will not take their job seriously, they indulge in teasing, and joking, talking over mobile phones, have friction within the team. These aspects may go noticed or unnoticed by the supervisors.

The fact remains that such unacceptable behaviors will cause disturbance to others and overall it affects the productivity. Sleeping while on duty, reading novels and playing games on the computer during working hours brings down productivity and quality suffers. The HR representatives and professional counselors jointly have a role to bring behavioral change starting from the training days. Continuous education and Counseling will help to mitigate such problems and it is possible to prevent serious problems.

Inter-personal relationship and friendship
Executives develop friendship quickly and sometime the friendship breaks and there will be misunderstanding among the team members and naturally affects the team performance. The supervisors and counselors can play a major role to sort out the interpersonal relationship and develop team spirit. Healthy relationship among the team members has always helped the team to out perform. When the relationship fails the individuals will also break down mentally. They either absent for duties or fall ill or the performance will come down. It is also true that due to misunderstanding and break in friendship they change jobs quickly.

Love affair and marriages
Few of the boys and girls fall in love quickly. They maintain the healthy relationship, behave in a matured manner, plan the future course of action and such persons have got married with the consent of their parents. They work together in the same organization for longer duration. There are instances, where lovers fall apart, start disliking, creating troubles to each other and vitiating the atmosphere. They are immature, take instant decisions to break or unite and sometimes go to an extent of damaging others reputation. The professional counselors can play an important role in explaining the importance of marriage, preparation required for marriage, how to enter the institution of marriage, which is acceptable to both parents and society and about the new role and responsibility after getting married. Counseling services can definitely give emotional support to individuals.

Absenteeism
Absenteeism is very high in calls centers. Employees tend to be very irregular to the duty due to various reasons. The professional counseling services to such irregular employees on one to one basis will help to bring down the absenteeism. The counselor can educate and explain the importance of attending duties to earn the salary and also to meet the organizational goals. Each individual are unique and the problem they face are also different in nature. Only the professional counselors can understand, analyze and provide long lasting solutions for the individuals.

Higher education and part time jobs
It is possible to do higher education while working in BPO units. Few organizations encourage and offer support services to pursue higher education. However, the time management by the executives is crucial to go forward in education as well as to maintain the performance and career growth. Programmes on time management, tips to study, tips to keep fit and such other programmes can be offered. These steps would help to seek the loyalty of employees to the organizations and helps greatly for the retention of employees.

Organizations do not grant permission to pursue part time jobs while working in BPO units. In order to make quick money and to have options open to change the jobs in future will drive the employees to do part time work. Human body does not permit to stretch beyond one's capacity. The executives need to take sufficient rest in the daytime so that energy levels are maintained. Either due to lack of experience or due to compulsions, the executives keep their one feet in call center and another in part time jobs. In the long run this would affect individuals health. The HR executives must identify such persons and offer professional Counseling services to them.
Remedial Measures for Stress Management
Understanding that the "Stress" is a major concern for all Call-Center Employees, it is a duty of HR-heads of Call-Centers to address it properly. Some of the common signs and symptoms of stress Although we all experience stress in different ways, there are certain signs that are most frequently reported. These signs fall into two major categories; physical/behavioral signs and emotional signs. If we become aware of our own stress symptoms, we will be more effective in dealing with them sooner rather than later. What follows is a list of some of the most experienced symptoms of stress.
The physical/behavioral symptoms include; muscular tension, muscle spasms and tics, rapid heart beat, shortness of breath and high blood pressure, cold hands and feet, backaches, headaches and neck aches, stomach problems, indigestion, irritable bowel and ulcers, feeling fatigued, irritable, decreased ability to concentrate, insomnia and changes in eating behavior. Since these physical symptoms may be related to physical problems, you should consult with your medical doctor before you assume that your symptoms are purely stress-related.

The emotional symptoms include; anxiety in a variety of situations not limited to the stressful situation, depression, hopelessness and a strong urge to cry without specific incident, withdrawal from social interactions and avoidance of previously enjoyed activities, powerlessness and decreased self esteem, hostility, anger and resentment, fears, phobias and unwanted thoughts.

Learning to become more aware of your own stress symptoms is the first major step in the stress management and healing process. It is often helpful to monitor your daily symptoms in a stress diary where you match the stressful events with the symptom experienced. For example; you made find that if you are stuck in early morning traffic you may experience irritability and headaches. In this case it will be important to use these symptoms as a cue that you have to begin managing that stress more effectively when it happens.

[rajeshv2002]

hiiii mugdha thanks for the posting.it was very much useful but my topic is problems faced by call centres with respect to customer relationship management(CRM).if u cud help me then plz......

[indrajit_v5]

hi MPV,

Check out the website crm2day.com.......i think its a pretty informative site......

check it out....

Enjoy....

[ritesh_leo781986]

HI , GUYS . I HAV A PROJECT ON CRM DONE BY ME MAYBE IF THIS HELPS ... TRY IT OUT AND LET ME KNOW

[shilpika]

if u r interested in visiting a cal center for more details
lemme know so tht i cld help u abt the same

cheers
shilpika

[shilpika]

hi,
m gald to know tht i cld b of sum help to u
neways wt u can do is u can visit a cal centre named as Technology Options (International call centre) in Vakola near Hyatt, u can speak to Miss Diana D'souza n giv her my reference

Or if u want to go for big call centres u can get in touch wid Mr Peter, his id is n giv him my reference,
m sure these guys will help u out to their best
all d very best for ur 100 mraks project

regards,
shilpika

[punitinup]

[QUOTE=mugdha]HUMAN ISSUES IN CALL-CENTER INDUSTRY
HI


Data is really useful.... I am working on same project I will be posting my presentation preety soon. Let me know if you want any other presentation on the same or othetr topic.

Thank you......................................

PJ

[amit_studies]

Originally Posted by mugdha

HUMAN ISSUES IN CALL-CENTER INDUSTRY

Stress

For many employed in the call center sector, "the daily experience is of repetitive, intensive and stressful work, based upon Taylorist principles, which frequently results in employee "burnout". Brown, more vividly, characterizes the work as "repetitive brain strain". These descriptions are hardly surprising, in a way, given that call centers are established by organizations to "create an environment in which work can be standardized to create relatively uniform and repetitious activities so as to achieve economies of scale and consistent quality of customer service". This means, in other words, that workplaces are organized in ways that weaken employee autonomy and enhance the potential for management control, and "a loss of control is generally understood to be an important indicator of work-related stress".

There is almost universal consensus that call center work is stressful. Even in studies that report the observation that some staff actually enjoys their work, mention of stress is still the norm, and a significant portion of the call center literature is devoted to detailing the sources of stress in call center work.

Four Key stressors
'Can we get off the phone for a while?'
The primary source of stress reported is inherent to the nature of the job: spending all day on the phone dealing with people one after another, day after day, is difficult. Doing it under constant pressure to keep call volumes up, with no time between calls to "recover from an awkward call or from 'customer rejection'" is even more difficult. And doing it with "very little authority or autonomy to rectify problems" that arise is perhaps the most difficult of all. Many studies report agents as wanting to 'just get off the phones'. For example, Belt and colleagues note "agents in all three sectors [financial services, IT, and third-party services] spoke of the phenomenon of 'burnout', caused by the pressure of working exclusively 'on the phones'". In the same study, the authors mention that the issue of 'burnout' was also recognized by some managers: "It was pointed out that managers face an inherent conflict between the need to reduce staff boredom and labor turnover, and the pressure to concentrate staff energies on telephone based work".
"The question of how call center employees deal with stress is an important one, particularly in view of evidence that a build-up of stress leads to illness, absenteeism and turnover," writes Houlihan. Many authors agree, and there are a variety of individual coping mechanisms described in the literature. Tricks to circumvent control mechanisms, such as those discussed above are sometimes mentioned as attempts at stress reduction, although they are unreliable in this role as they may also increase stress. Others mention social interaction squeezed into brief moments--Callaghan and Thompson describe agents using humorous (or rude) gestures towards the phone, or making faces at colleagues to defuse stress over angry or abusive callers, and making jokes to combat the tedium of the day. Lankshear and Mason describe a similarly social approach to reducing tension in one of the sites they observed, where staff often laughed and joked with one another in intervals between calls, with management's approval. More formally, some call centers include stress management as a component in training programs, and many have, or claim to have, team de-briefings which permit staff to vent frustrations while discussing difficult calls or dissatisfactions with elements of work.
Knights and McCabe take a different approach to stress in the workplace. They note that although much organizational analysis and most of the call center literature tends to conceptualize stress as an individual problem, it is actually located within "a framework that emphasizes the interrelationships between structural relations of power and the subjective interpretations and actions of employees". This more nuance positioning may provide more insight into call center conditions, as it allows a researcher to consider the response of employees "forced to interpret the often contradictory demands management place upon them" including "contradictions…over service quality versus the quantity of work output". "Clearly," these authors write, "staff face some fundamental contradictions over unity versus conflict, uncertainty versus certainty, quality versus quantity and these are at the heart of the reproduction of stress, resistance and control". This focus on the "contradictory" nature of demands strikes at the heart of the second inherent sources of stress in (primarily inbound) call center works: the quality/quantity conflict.
Quality/Quantity conflict
Typically, organizational rhetoric in inbound call centers is concerned with 'customer care', or 'keeping customers happy' (providing quality service), yet these goals are juxtaposed with an ongoing pressure to keep call times down and call volumes up. Houlihan describes the difficulty concisely:
Call centers are rooted in contradictory tensions and structural paradoxes, and confront a number of trade-offs on that basis. These set a context for attitudes towards the organization and can impose conflicting role requirements on agents. A core example is that of the pressure for quantity versus the aspiration for quality, the guiding logic of which is the conundrum of trying to get closer to the customer while routinising, centralizing, reducing costs and prescribing standards.

The dichotomy is not completely straightforward, it is important to note. Part of providing quality service from a management perspective is making sure customers do not wait too long for their calls to be answered, even though the push to keep queue waiting times short is typically categorized as part of the pressure towards quantity. As Bain points out, "efforts to attain what is perceived to be the desired balance between the quantity and the quality of calls presents a perennial challenge".
The practice of ongoing work practice modification and target revision as management swings from one side to another of the quality/quantity debate is a major source of stress for call center agents. As Houlihan notes: "The practice of putting a 'drive' on particular targets for improvement (for example, the collection of renewal dates, the up-selling or cross-selling of products, the quality of data input, or the intensity of sales push) and continual reprioritisation means that the 'goalposts' are constantly shifting". Virtually all of the call center authors who write about work conditions mention the difficulty of dealing with these competing goals. Korczynski and colleagues suggest that this dilemma is particularly difficult for front-line workers because they may be likely "to identify with embodied individual customers, for interactions with specific customers may be an important arena for meaning and satisfaction within the work". They contrast this customer-as-individual orientation to the managerial goal of balancing customer orientation with efficiency, which they suggest leads management to prefer workers to identify with a generic category, 'the customer', since "such a disembodied image of the customer will encourage workers to deal with individual customers efficiently because they will be conscious of the concerns of other customers waiting in a queue".
Intensity
The third central stressor in call center work is its intensity. As Bain (2001) argues, "far from being either in terminal decline or on the wane, Taylorism-in conjunction with a range of other control mechanisms-is not only alive, well and deeply embedded in the call center labour process, but its malevolent influence appears to be spreading to previously uncharted territory". There is widespread consensus that "call centers are a new, and particularly effective, manifestation of the increasingly capital intensive 'industrialization' of service sector work, and work performed in them is highly intensive and routine".
Buchanan and Koch-Schulte quote one call center worker who describes the constant pressure graphically: Ellen: It's almost like the army. It's very regimented. You punch in with a time clock. You come in and you sit down, and the numbers are all computerized. As soon as you finish a call, the minute you hang up another call comes up just this constant, all day, repetitious…constant sort of like beating on a drum, but day after day.
The pace of work is determined by the combination of technologies that deliver calls to the headset and account details to the screen, and workers often have no control over this process.
Descriptions such as "exhausting," "robotic," "controlled," and agents discussing the nature of their work often use "machine-like". Houlihan expands on the idea of controlled, machine-like agents by suggesting that this is in fact exactly the way that the organization conceives of them:
Call centers are information handling organizations. As currently characterized, the job of the agent is to be the voice of the organization, interfacing with the client or customer.
The organization rehearses the things it wants said and feeds them through the agent. The agent is largely constructed as a mouthpiece rather than as a brain.

Buchanan and Koch-Schulte spoke with a call-center worker who articulated her feelings about the organization's expectations of its agents in very similar terms: Rosa: You are standing waiting to be used by the technology, and it's a physical embodiment of that. You are standing, waiting until that call comes in to use you to make money. And you are simply another part of that machine.

When this feeling of being a cog in a machine which never stops as it grinds on, repeating the same actions over and over again, is combined with "the cumulative emotional demands presented by the interpersonal nature of the work", stress is inevitable.

Targets
There is a fourth feature of some call center work that may engender stress: performance targets. There are various types of targets, which may vary between inbound and outbound centers. Inbound centers typically have targets for call duration, 'wrap time', and daily call volume. Outbound centers often also have sales or 'completion' targets, which are closely monitored and upon which pay may be partially based. In addition, in some sectors, inbound call centers are attempting to introduce the practice of cross selling, where agents attempt to sell additional products to the customers who call in for another purpose. In these centers, sales targets similar to those in outbound centers are often in place.

Taylor and Bain argue that particularly in the financial services industry in the UK, targets are a significant source of stress for workers as more and more importance is placed upon meeting them in an increasingly competitive business environment. Sales targets, in particular, are difficult to accept, or meet, for staff who often consider themselves as service personnel, particularly when they are set centrally and implemented locally: "Cross-selling is seen by employees, not as an opportunity to engage in creative work, but as an additional and acute source of pressure". This is especially the case when sales targets are parachuted in on top of service targets set originally when there was no pressure to produce sales.

As a CSR in Taylor and Bain's study emphasizes: "When somebody phones in for a balance you have to try to get a sale or get them interested as well as turning the call round in 155 seconds".

Even in centers that claim not to prioritize targets, researchers have found that staff often feels significant pressure. Targets simply intensify the stress produced by the quantity/quality debate, or, as one agent is quoted as saying, "They say that they're not really interested in numbers. They say that they are more into quality. Well, that's a lie. They're usually more into numbers than anything". It is important not to over generalize however. While most call centers do have some targets, they are a source of stress that is directly under management control. Some call centers are managed in such a way that targets are set to realistically reflect local conditions, are interpreted in light of other, more subjective information, and are not used punitively or to intensify work. In some they are even used effectively to motivate and encourage staff. For example, Lankshear and Mason describe a series of conversations with managers in their call center site where management consistently conceptualized their performance reports (for example, one commented that it's 'human nature' for productivity to drop before and after a holiday), and used their stats as an excuse to praise good performance and coach those who consistently had difficulty meeting targets: "Our best bet is to develop the people we have got" one manager is quoted as saying.
Other Health issues…
The result of intense, stressful work may be an effect on workers' health. There are often high rates of absenteeism and sick leave reported in the literature, although there is relatively little exploration of these issues, particularly when compared to turnover. Most often, authors provide a brief list of known health issues. For example, Richardson, Belt and Marshall write that "Health concerns have been expressed, including tension, sleeplessness, headaches, eye-strain, repetitive strain injury (RSI), voice loss, hearing problems and burn-out", but they do not develop the point. More detailed descriptions of the causes and effects of these ailments can be found in industry and trades union reports. For example, the Trades Union Council (TUC) in its brochure targeted at call center workers, cites the main illnesses to which call center staff are prone: "back strain and RSI, stress, eyestrain, and voice and hearing loss".

Also in the UK, regulators have been proactive in their examination of the industry, with the Health and Safety Executive issuing a bulletin on call center regulations, health risks and best practices in December 2001. They looked specifically at health issues including stress, noise levels, musculoskeletal disorders (such as back problems) and voice loss, and also at display screen issues, working environments, requirements for work stations, daily work routines, training, organizational working practices and shifts.

Sleeping Disorders
No prizes for guessing the most severe ailment afflicting people working in Indian call centers. Since this is a unique Indian problem, again, no solution appears in sight. Obviously this affects first timers more severely, as they take time to acclimatize their biological clocks, but even experienced people or managers are not able to completely escape from it. Some call centers are looking at devising innovative mechanisms like flexible shifts with sleeping arrangements in the office premises as possible solutions.

Digestive System Related Disorders
Working long and odd hours without any sleep, and eating food supplied by external caterers everyday, has led to 41.9% of the respondents suffering from digestive problems. Especially for the large number of girls working in the industry, the problem is even more severe. Many call centers are now taking additional care to ensure their caterers supply hygienic food; besides stipulating strict conditions to maintain the quality of the food they serve.

Depression
In last year's survey, this was not among the top disorders, but this year it has climbed up the chart, affecting nearly one-fourth of the respondents. Not surprising, since, as the industry matures, the initial glitz and glamour wears away and the real problems come to the fore. Not only are there several health related issues, but, on top of that, the gradual realization that there is limited scope in developing a career owing to fewer growth opportunities is increasing the frustration levels. Coupled with growing mental fatigue and increasingly punishing physical environments, depression is the obvious end result. Some call centers have now devised different stress management programs mainly to counter depression.

Severe Stomach Related Problems
Continuing digestive problems lead to severe stomach disorders like gastroenteritis, as endorsed by more than 24% of the respondents. Even doctors in major cities agree-in recent times many of the patients with various stomach ailments are from call centers.

Eyesight Problems
Globally call center industry employees are considered a high-risk group for eye-related problems. While the quality of monitors might impact these disorders, sitting continually without adequate breaks seems to be the truer reason. The number of people affected seems to be on the rise-last year only 19% complained; this year it has gone up to 23%. At some point of time, this problem might also afflict the IT services industry, but for the call center industry, no remedy seems to be in sight.

Ear Problems
More than 16% of the respondents inform that they have hearing problems. Again, no surprises here, since a call center job involves taking calls throughout the shift, sitting with headphones. While quality of headphones does make a difference, it would not be correct to completely wish the problem away by thinking that changing headphones will solve it.

Some other Human Issues, in Call-Centers, which need Immediate Attention

Personal habits
The young executives are getting more than five figure salaries per month in an early age. They tend to develop certain bad habits such as alcohol, smoking etc. It is not easy to identify such individuals. It is also very sensitive to talk to them. The professional counselors can conduct group-counseling, workshops, educative film shows in order to create awareness on effects of bad habits. Such actions will enable individuals to realize the importance of good habits and they could seek one to one Counseling sessions to solve their problems.

Discipline and behavioral issues
Call centers provide excellent working environment, free food and transportation. There is always a situation where individual or group of youngsters tend to commit mistakes and abuse the freedom. They start behaving like in college campus where they have more freedom. However, the call center executives have more responsibility and accountability, they need to follow discipline and do well in the job. The most common behavior is misuse of food, behave erratically in vans, and smoke in public places, misuse of telephones and other resources of the company. The supervisors always concentrate on performance and achieving targets. They do not have time or interest to go deep into these matters and find out the reasons for such behavior. The professional counselor can play a major role in educating the youngsters on discipline; provide advice to erring executives. The counselors with their wisdom and experience can tackle such issues tactfully and bring change within the individuals.

As said earlier, to majority of them this is the first employment and they are fresh out of the colleges. Few tend to behave differently and they have the "do not care" attitude. Such executives will not take their job seriously, they indulge in teasing, and joking, talking over mobile phones, have friction within the team. These aspects may go noticed or unnoticed by the supervisors.

The fact remains that such unacceptable behaviors will cause disturbance to others and overall it affects the productivity. Sleeping while on duty, reading novels and playing games on the computer during working hours brings down productivity and quality suffers. The HR representatives and professional counselors jointly have a role to bring behavioral change starting from the training days. Continuous education and Counseling will help to mitigate such problems and it is possible to prevent serious problems.

Inter-personal relationship and friendship
Executives develop friendship quickly and sometime the friendship breaks and there will be misunderstanding among the team members and naturally affects the team performance. The supervisors and counselors can play a major role to sort out the interpersonal relationship and develop team spirit. Healthy relationship among the team members has always helped the team to out perform. When the relationship fails the individuals will also break down mentally. They either absent for duties or fall ill or the performance will come down. It is also true that due to misunderstanding and break in friendship they change jobs quickly.

Love affair and marriages
Few of the boys and girls fall in love quickly. They maintain the healthy relationship, behave in a matured manner, plan the future course of action and such persons have got married with the consent of their parents. They work together in the same organization for longer duration. There are instances, where lovers fall apart, start disliking, creating troubles to each other and vitiating the atmosphere. They are immature, take instant decisions to break or unite and sometimes go to an extent of damaging others reputation. The professional counselors can play an important role in explaining the importance of marriage, preparation required for marriage, how to enter the institution of marriage, which is acceptable to both parents and society and about the new role and responsibility after getting married. Counseling services can definitely give emotional support to individuals.

Absenteeism
Absenteeism is very high in calls centers. Employees tend to be very irregular to the duty due to various reasons. The professional counseling services to such irregular employees on one to one basis will help to bring down the absenteeism. The counselor can educate and explain the importance of attending duties to earn the salary and also to meet the organizational goals. Each individual are unique and the problem they face are also different in nature. Only the professional counselors can understand, analyze and provide long lasting solutions for the individuals.

Higher education and part time jobs
It is possible to do higher education while working in BPO units. Few organizations encourage and offer support services to pursue higher education. However, the time management by the executives is crucial to go forward in education as well as to maintain the performance and career growth. Programmes on time management, tips to study, tips to keep fit and such other programmes can be offered. These steps would help to seek the loyalty of employees to the organizations and helps greatly for the retention of employees.

Organizations do not grant permission to pursue part time jobs while working in BPO units. In order to make quick money and to have options open to change the jobs in future will drive the employees to do part time work. Human body does not permit to stretch beyond one's capacity. The executives need to take sufficient rest in the daytime so that energy levels are maintained. Either due to lack of experience or due to compulsions, the executives keep their one feet in call center and another in part time jobs. In the long run this would affect individuals health. The HR executives must identify such persons and offer professional Counseling services to them.
Remedial Measures for Stress Management
Understanding that the "Stress" is a major concern for all Call-Center Employees, it is a duty of HR-heads of Call-Centers to address it properly. Some of the common signs and symptoms of stress Although we all experience stress in different ways, there are certain signs that are most frequently reported. These signs fall into two major categories; physical/behavioral signs and emotional signs. If we become aware of our own stress symptoms, we will be more effective in dealing with them sooner rather than later. What follows is a list of some of the most experienced symptoms of stress.
The physical/behavioral symptoms include; muscular tension, muscle spasms and tics, rapid heart beat, shortness of breath and high blood pressure, cold hands and feet, backaches, headaches and neck aches, stomach problems, indigestion, irritable bowel and ulcers, feeling fatigued, irritable, decreased ability to concentrate, insomnia and changes in eating behavior. Since these physical symptoms may be related to physical problems, you should consult with your medical doctor before you assume that your symptoms are purely stress-related.

The emotional symptoms include; anxiety in a variety of situations not limited to the stressful situation, depression, hopelessness and a strong urge to cry without specific incident, withdrawal from social interactions and avoidance of previously enjoyed activities, powerlessness and decreased self esteem, hostility, anger and resentment, fears, phobias and unwanted thoughts.

Learning to become more aware of your own stress symptoms is the first major step in the stress management and healing process. It is often helpful to monitor your daily symptoms in a stress diary where you match the stressful events with the symptom experienced. For example; you made find that if you are stuck in early morning traffic you may experience irritability and headaches. In this case it will be important to use these symptoms as a cue that you have to begin managing that stress more effectively when it happens.

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