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Work Timing
It’s the greatest cause for stress and unique to the Indian call center industry. Not surprising considering that the industry works largely during the night to coincide with the UK and US daylight hours. Certainly, there are daytime shifts but the night remains the peak load period. As a result, 38.4% of all respondents interviewed said their work shifts caused serious stress. This average however covers the fact that some of those interviewed would be day-timers—either call floor employees who work the day shift or senior non-call floor
people
. In fact, the average would have been much higher but for those with 5+ years of experience who were the least effected by the work timings (15%). Among the companies, barring
two—EXL
 Service and e-Serve—all the rest had anywhere from one-fourth of the workforce to a good 80% complaining about timing as a contributor to stress.
Not surprisingly, newcomers had the toughest time of it all. Surprisingly, more men complained than women did. Team leaders who work the shift of their call center executives and usually put in extra hours for company/management meetings also had significantly more problems than other experience groups. In the end, there are three key issues here: (a) no other call center industry in the world faces this problem as India does. (b) The extent of its impact is large and is a major cause of high attrition. (c)There are no easy answers to this problem. These work timings are in the very nature of the job in India.
Repetitive Nature of Work
The second biggest cause for stress with 31% of all respondents saying that doing the same thing 8 hours a day, every day, can be very stressful. Internationally, there has been a lot of debate on what to do on this count and some suggestions have included job-rotation with other functions for a few days every quarter. Example – if a call floor person can spend three days a quarter in HR or procurement or administration, it might help to relieve some of the stress. Another oft-repeated suggestion: remove the tyranny of the scripted conversation, hire carefully, train people well, and let them handle each call as their natures best allow them to.
Either way, there is no easy solution to this one though data seemed to suggest that there was an element of acclimatization to this problem. Those on their first job felt it a lot more (36%) than those who had worked earlier, usually in another call center.
And the incidence of the issue seemed to decrease steadily with experience. Part of this seemed to happen because people seemed to get used to the idea. And partly because the roles do become less repetitive at the top. Only issue there of course, there is only limited room at the top. Men felt it a lot more than women. No surprises there.
Workload
 Though the number of hours a day a call center employee works may be the same—in some cases actually less—than others, it is the intensity and relentless pace at which work tends to happen that makes work load an issue. Though IT and IT services employees for instance may work much longer hours, these are interspersed with either chats with colleagues, smoke and coffee breaks taken at will and visits to other departments or customers. Call floor employees on the other hand have no such luck. In addition the team leader and above managers have higher load because they often stay beyond a shift for meetings with managers. Those with less than a year’s experience have fewer problems as some amount of time is spent in training and for the first few months on a job, the metrics are easier.
Irate customers
This is a tough one. About 30% of all those interviewed said irate customers caused a lot of stress. This data hides the fact that team leaders and their seniors don’t directly interact with customers and very few of them actually get the brunt. Again, this is a stress factor that is inherent in the nature of the job – most often customers call when they have a problem. Often, they are further irritated by long call queues and the inability of call center executives to offer a quick solution to their problems.
Worse, some are put off by scripted conversations and the rather stilted manner in which the whole dialogue sometimes tends to occur. For call floor executives this is a tough one because most neither have the freedom to change the script nor are they allowed to put the phone down on any customer no matter how abusive he or she may get. Phone-cuts can get you fired instantly. In extreme cases of customer abuse the standard practice is to get a team leader to listen in on the conversation—then either take it over, or politely but firmly, cut it off.
Either way, it is a difficult time; especially since most call floor employees tend to be very young and therefore not best skilled to deal with conflict situations. International call center stress codes recommend that a call floor employee who has just taken an abusive call should be given time off to either cool down or talk things over with a peer or manager. It is also recommended that call centers look at their staffing and load forecasting because long waiting times are often the biggest cause of customer ire.
Travel Time
 Again, appears to be peculiar to the Indian call center industry. A legacy of the fact that most of the bigger centers in India are thousands of people strong; as a result these call centers require a lot of real estate; and as a result of that are often situated on the outskirts of town. (This would hold true for a lot of the IT services industry in India though travel-time pressure has not been measured there). Shows a fairly uniform level of stress for everyone, irrespective of experience or job role.
Call Volume/Number of calls
 While work load earlier included all aspects of work, this measures only the call volume. At one-fourth of all employees complaining of stress on this count, it is perhaps time for the industry to look at forecasting and staffing volumes a little more carefully. In larger centers with lots of customers, there is often not even a second’s difference between one call being closed and the other coming up—which can be very disconcerting. Not surprisingly, first timers and those with less than one year in the business feel the pressure a lot more though it remains a big issue with all call floor employees irrespective of experience.
Long Working Hours
 Is a combination of work load, call volume and travel time that adds to a long day. Most call center employees in Mumbai, Gurgaon and Bangalore for instance budget at least two hours for travel up and down to work. With a nine hour designated work day, that is a minimum of 11 hours spent on work or getting to work every day. Some call centers that encourage overtime might have employees working longer 13-14 hour days on a routine basis. Operational heads who work the shift and stay back for customer conference call from the US tend to put in 16-18 hours on a regular basis.
Insufficient Breaks
 Is one of the key reasons for call center stress all over the world. In an industry that is very quantitative measures driven, and where measures are counted in seconds, too many breaks are not allowed. The better ones in India would have designated break periods of about 15 minutes in every 2.5 hours plus half hour for lunch.
Mostly though it is dependent on the team leader and can become major cause for friction. International codes suggest five minutes off every hour. A quick look at comparative figures for countries like Australia however suggest that the Indian industry may have fewer problems on this count than most others do. Interestingly, far more women had issues on this count than men.
Pressure to perform on metrics
 First timers find the entire exceedingly quantified model of measuring performance a lot more stressful than those who have learnt to live with the system. A good 38% of those for whom this was the first job said metrics were a source of stress compared to only 19% of those who had worked somewhere earlier. For the same reason, pressure from performance metrics themselves is the highest for those who have been around for less than a year. Those with more than five years of experience feel it the least.
Health Issues
 Barring coal-miners and the like, it is difficult to conceive of a white-collar industry where 23% of all employees say health issues are a cause of stress. It is also difficult to think of any single company in the white-collar industry where 56% say health issues are causing pressure at work. For more on call center related illnesses see following tables. By and large, first timers seemed less effected and health issues as stress-contributors seemed to increase with time. Only exception was people with more than five years in the industry who are more likely to be keeping saner hours and lifestyles. More men have a harder time of it surprisingly than women do.
Numbers indicate percentage employees who identified these as the key work-related stress factors they suffered from.
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