Absenteeism due to work stress is a growing problem. What is stress, what are possible causes of stress specifically within contact centers? Why are customer contact employees at an increased risk of stress-related absenteeism?

 

Working in customer contact can be done in many ways. Answering questions such as 'where is my order?' is usually of a different order than acute requests for help about psychological distress or helpdesks for complex technical or financial issues. What challenges employees in their work and how they experience their work depends on the individual, the work itself and of course the environment. The way in which sources of stress manifest themselves and how employees deal with them also differs from situation to situation.

Stress

Stress is a standard part of our lives and often also a standard part of our work. Whether someone really suffers psychologically and/or physically from stress mainly has to do with how someone deals with stress. Do you influence the duration and intensity of the stress, do you do something to get rid of the stress and, if necessary, do you also tackle the cause of the stress? Stress itself is not unhealthy, it even contributes to increased concentration.

Absenteeism due to work stress is a growing problem. In 2022, 1,6 million Dutch employees suffered from burnout-related complaints, compared to 1,3 million a year earlier, according to figures from TNO. A total of eleven million days were missed due to stress in 2021. The costs for employers in our country are estimated at 3,3 billion euros.

But when stressors (the sources of stress) and strains (the physical and/or psychological reactions of people to stress (for example fear, uncertainty, tension, headache or muscle pain) persist for too long or are not compensated in time, more serious complaints can arise. People often first recognize the strains in the form of complaints; Sometimes it is more difficult to clearly identify the source of stress. Long-term stress has a negative impact on health and can lead to absenteeism due to illness. Absenteeism due to illness in contact centers is estimated to be two to three times higher than the national average of over 5 percent. Attrition and unwanted turnover are a significant cost item, estimated at ten to twenty thousand euros per employee.

Sources of stress in general

You can encounter sources of stress in every working environment, including contact centers. This mainly concerns the organization of work and how an employee responds to it. If it is unclear what is expected of someone (role ambiguity), if there are conflicting objectives (role conflict), then stress lurks, especially when people cannot handle that uncertainty well. The same applies to uncertainty about retaining the job or work (job insecurity), or if powers are not in line with responsibilities. You can also suffer from social stress (for example due to tense relationships) and physical stress (for example due to excessive physical strain, such as too much noise or having to exert too much physical effort).

What sources of stress occur in customer contact work?

In the contact center, just like in any working environment, you can distinguish between properties of the work (the tasks, authorities and responsibilities) and properties of the physical and social environment.

The list below contains a number of characteristics that may apply to the position of customer contact employee.

• There is double-tasking (talking, listening, operating the system, processing information);
• the position has a high degree of workplace attachment (employees must handle contacts from behind their system during their shifts);
• the job offer dictated (the work comes at you, you cannot control the volume and nature yourself);
• it is intensively worked on screen, keyboard and mouse worked;
• de vote is heavily taxed;
• the function is relative monotonous (involves many repetitive tasks over time);
• the tasks are often short-cycle (short-term)
• the tasks are highly standardized (there are many regulations, processes, procedures and protocols that must be followed)
• there is often little control capacity or autonomy (the decision-making powers are limited);
• the contact center often offers limited development opportunities (there are many people involved in implementation, there are relatively few management positions available);
• de quality is not always measurable and visible (employees are dependent on managers for feedback);
• the employee may be confronted with faults of the organization or of colleagues (the employee has little influence on this);
• there is a strong one control on the execution of the work.

Whether the above characteristics have a negative impact on an employee's job satisfaction and workload will differ per employee. But lack of influence on the process, lack of recognition of one's own part in the process and lack of autonomy in the work do not have a beneficial effect on job satisfaction. KPIs such as first-call resolution, NPS or CSAT are therefore not suitable for linking to the individual performance of an employee: after all, he or she has only limited influence on this.

Satisfiers and dissatisfiers

The position of customer contact employee obviously varies per employer. In some organizations this function is much broader and richer than in another organization. The design of the role of agent does determine the extent to which an employee can derive intrinsic motivation from it. When that intrinsic motivation is under pressure or lacking, work is a potential dissatisfier. Frustration and dissatisfaction also give rise to stress. Environmental factors can also become a source of stress if they are not in order: think of the atmosphere, the relationship with colleagues, the physical working environment.

Understaffing, high workload – The contact center is a production environment; Understaffing directly leads to increased workload, with the time factor playing a prominent role. When there are peaks in traffic and the occupancy is not adjusted, this can lead to waiting times and repeat traffic, and quality and quantity objectives conflict with each other. Working under permanent time pressure and working overtime or extended shifts can lead to stress.

Bad tooling – if high demands are placed on employee performance while the systems (applications) and data (data) are not in order, this can lead to frustration. Consider ICT systems that have a lot of downtime, respond slowly, are not user-friendly or often produce error messages; or consider customer data that is not reliable or not up to date. These are matters that conflict with the objective of working efficiently.

Bad managers – a shortage of managerial capacity (in numbers of people or in terms of inadequate leadership) can also put pressure on processes, employees and their performance. Think of missing attention, confirmation, adjustment, timely feedback, development opportunities, open communication, etc.

Unsafe working environment – the recurring violation of personal boundaries by managers or colleagues, in the form of (sexual) intimidation, bullying, shouting, systematic disadvantage or otherwise, is a strong source of stress.

Role conflict – the situation in which two different objectives simultaneously adversely affect each other: for example, on the one hand, the goal of putting customers first, and on the other hand, the goal of minimizing waiting time. In contact centers, this contradiction is resolved by stating that delaying calls can cause other customers to wait longer; the solution is to shorten the call duration or work with callbacks. Role conflict can be resolved by aligning objectives, work assignments and authorities.

Role ambiguity – this occurs when the employee is not well informed of what is expected of him or her and how performance is assessed. It leads to uncertainty and increases the chance of errors; training and coaching are the solutions to combat role ambiguity. Should you keep conversations short or ensure a high CSAT score? Those who do not understand balance will encounter obstacles.

Lack of recognition – Employees largely do their work in a kind of isolation. Contact center agents, like everyone else, need various forms of recognition: social reward (recognition in the form of attention and compliments from managers and/or colleagues), intrinsic motivation (the agent's assignment of value to the work) and financial recognition in the form of salary and bonuses. Agents may also perceive a lack of recognition when the organization has implicit or explicit inconsistent policies. For example, by saying that agents are the company's calling card, but do nothing about high turnover, a poor working atmosphere or inadequate remuneration.

Workplace attachment – Workplace attachment becomes a problem in particular when the agent at the workplace has too little control capacity. Control capacity is the ability to organize the work process yourself. Imagine that an agent is forced to tell a customer that he cannot see certain information, while the agent knows that that information is available outside his own workplace and is also necessary to properly help the customer. The effect of too rigid information security is that the employee cannot function optimally and the customer cannot be helped in one go. The interaction between these two factors causes stress on both sides.

How do you reduce the impact of psychological stressors?

Although the effect of stressors on personnel differs per employee, every contact center can limit the risks of stressors (and therefore the impact on absenteeism and turnover).

This starts with good leadership and good employment practices within the contact center and therefore within the entire organization. Agents are “our business cards”, “our brand ambassadors” or “our talents”. Yet they are easily replaceable and interchangeable and absenteeism and turnover are above average. Part of good leadership and good employment practices is genuine interest in employees and the realization that the well-being of people within an organization contributes to good performance. Providing a pleasant and safe working environment is also part of it.

Who dares to tackle the content of the job?

It is also about good organization of the work itself. Where agents must adhere to the agreed schedules, managers must ensure that these schedules are suitable for the workload in terms of staffing and that breaks are actually taken, as well as the actual fulfillment of agreements in the field of coaching, (refresher) training and work or team meeting. Too tight a schedule may provide a short-term financial benefit for the supervisor or planner, but in the long term, eliminating the consequences of too high a workload will cost more.

Regular consultation, as well as regular research into employee satisfaction, can provide insight into working conditions and stress factors. When managers provide feedback on their findings and proposed actions, but also provide follow-up, a more pleasant and productive working environment is created for everyone. (Ziptone/editors)

Featured, Human Resources, Knowledge base