Jabra, a provider of call center equipment, recently conducted research regarding the overall satisfaction of workers in call centers throughout the UK. Apparently, they're not happy. Is this a surprise?
The name of the study is “GenM 2013: One Year On,” and it depicts how UK call center employees actually work in environments that create emotional disturbances, the highest among all office-based work environments. 81 percent of call center employees feel emotional and physical issues at work, says the study.
To complete its research, Jabra interviewed various call center employees in 2012 and later interviewed another 1,000 UK workers this year from mobile, office, home, and call center environments. Its goal was to analyze fully how things progress over a 12-month period.
The results show that 35 percent of those working in call centers had poor interpersonal relationships, the highest proportion among office workers. They also ranked highest for feelings of isolation from co-workers (22 percent). 21 percent of workers had troubles in their home relationships, twice as high as is experienced in other office environments.
Looking into the cause of all these problems, Jabra concluded that poor communication between different groups of workers created rifts in their personal lives, making employers also dissatisfied with what call center technology delivers compared to what it promises (increased collaboration and productivity).
While there's a lot of negativity looming over call centers, there's also some things they excel at compared to other office environments. For example, 27 percent of call center employees feel undervalued, less than the 35 percent average among office-based workplaces. Mobile professionals feel undervalued at a slightly higher proportion, at 36 percent.
On top of personal issues, call centers are falling behind in technology. Only 17 percent of employees use unified communications (UC) and VoIP tools, more than half of them (55 percent) preferring to use their desk phones. The study also showed an intriguing insight into employees' device preference: 34 percent of them are using mobile phones to communicate at work, a number that is steadily growing.
To bring about more desirable results, Jabra suggests giving employees tools that are valuable and benefit them or looking into “bring your own device” (BYOD) and “choose your own device” (CYOD) for possible inclusion in company policy.