Survey shows Australian call centre stress levels soaring

Telephone calls offering a 30-minute insurance survey or a time-share holiday around dinner time rank high on most households’ unwanted list.

But the people on the other end of the line don’t find the experience too pleasurable either, a new survey indicates.

Thousands of Australian call centre workers are more stressed than ever before, according to the national survey commissioned by the Australian Services Union (ASU) of 1,549 staff.

It compared the figures with an earlier benchmark study of the industry in 2000.

The call centre industry – which includes workers who make and take calls – has unique types of stress, unlike other office jobs, the ASU says.

Job insecurity, constant monitoring by unsupportive management and few opportunities for rest breaks were among the biggest complaints of call centre workers identified in the results.

It also found more than one-third of those surveyed reported being always or often stressed and disliked targets and “key performance indicators”.

One worker, who wanted to be known only as Enza, has worked in the call centre industry for nine years and says stress levels have soared in recent times.

She says company policies can often change.

“So you think you have a certain parameter that you can work within,” she told reporters on Thursday.

“And then when they feel that these averages are being met then they can change again so then there’s another load put on you of having to then meet brand new targets.”

The $15 billion call centre industry is one of the fastest-growing in Australia, employing more than 250,000 people.

ASU assistant national secretary Linda White said the union would use the research to work with call centre management to reduce health risks.

The ASU has launched an online “stress-o-meter” to assess call centre workers’ stress levels and provide resources to improve workplace health.

article from: http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/call-centre-stress-levels-soar-survey-20091119-inth.html

BE Intent

Mood of the Nation

Quarterly Mood data results for July, August, September 2009 show some great changes in the profile of our collective organizational results. We’ve seen the Start State of Tired half from 42% to 21%, and in fact last quarter 82% of staff were starting their work day in a negative frame of mind, this quarter sees it drop to 62%.  We’ve also seen a big jump of staff requesting Happy, which pushes it up to third most request mind-set after Energized and Focused.

The impeding summer months are seeing predominantly Physical Self Motivators being chosen by staff such as BE Hydrated, BE Slim and BE Fit, with BE On TO It just pushing through to second place.

What’s happening in your workplace?

Self-directed employee engagement versus leader driven

Engaged people do more with less.  During tough economic times, this is when you need staff to be their most productive, motivated and engaged.

Self directed employee tools create an environment where employees take personal responsibility, self-lead and develop self reliance.  This builds strengths from within, and affects all aspects of personal and professional life, including your employees commitment to their workplace.

This results in better attitudes, service, promotion of the organization; reduces risk, costs, and stress; retains employees, generates more productivity and revenue; and creates a place where people are looking for solutions.

BE Intent offers simple tools to help staff identify what motivates them personally, identify their areas that need strengthening and their own engagement process, at their own pace.

Breaking the employee and organisational needs into “bite sized chunks”  even the biggest elephant can be eaten. We help people reach their goals, both professional and personal through a system they embrace.

BE Intent

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Employee engagement

Research shows that ‘engaged’ employees generate a return on assets 95% higher than their less-engaged counterparts.

They generate 68% more sales, and are 29% more likely to stay with their current organisation.

Research has also established that on average:

• Only three in ten (30%) employees are engaged in their work
• Six in ten employees (61%) can be regarded as ‘ambivalent’
• The remaining one in ten employees can be described as disengaged or detached from their work.

Employee engagement is a multi-dimensional concept that describes the extent to which employees mentally, emotionally and physically apply themselves at work.

BE Intent’s online programme is about helping staff to be engaged in their work and also in their day. This means that staff are focused and motivated on a daily basis, with an incredible impact on performance results.

BE Intent

BE Intent gets a stamp of approval on Workplace Wellness Programmes

We are thrilled that our desktop well-being programme includes and exceeds many of the recommendations in the latest report from the Ministry of Health (MOH) into Workplace Health Promotion Programmes.

This is a great report and is an ideal place to start when you are looking to implement or evolve a workplace wellness programme in your organisation.

The Ministry of Health commissioned Nina Russell to conduct a literature review to:

• explore the rationale for why wellness should be promoted at work
• identify the benefits to both employers and employees
• investigate what is effective in a workplace health programme

The report confirms many of the known positive financial benefits of a healthy workforce, such as reduced abseeteeism, turnover and workplace accidents, and increased quality of work, engagement, recruitment and retention. But most importantly it also strongly supports the psychosocial benefits experienced by our own clients, such as positive moods, state happiness and reduced stress, that are inherent to our unique programme.

Our mission to make workplace wellness fun, simple, cost effective and beneficial (to both employers & employees) is again endorsed by the report as it identifies key issues associated with the effectiveness of workplace programmes. Our desktop/web based programme enables businesses to easily implement, communicate and authentically live a healthy culture on a daily basis without the need for additional staff, large costs or staff downtime.

BE Intent